The family and I spent the week in SoCal hitting the amusement parks, and we just got back a couple of days ago.  Although it’s July 4th, I did manage to get a little time in on the project after the kids went to sleep. I didn’t get any pictures, but I did attach the nutplates to the brackets and fiddled around a bit with the axle nut torque.

I jacked up the plane and tightened the left axle nut fairly snug while turning the wheel to make sure the wheel bearings are nicely seated.  I then loosened the nut until the wheel could turn fairly freely but there was just a little preload on the bearings so that there is no side to side plan.  I basically followed the instructions at the Grove Aircraft site.  Afterward, I drilled the axle through the front and back holes and test fit a cotter pin.  I then took the nut off and deburred everything.

While the nut was on the axle, I marked where the bracket will sit so that it will be level with the ground when installed.  That way, the screws that attach the bracket will be easier to reach.

I cut the recess in the left axle nut so that the bracket will sit flush with the outside end of the nut, then drilled and tapped the sides for the 10-32 screws.

Afterward, I cleaned the AeroShell 33MS grease out of my bearing packer so that I could replace it with AeroShell 22 since I decided to switch my wheel bearings to that after doing some more research.  I’m still going to use AeroShell 33MS everywhere else on the plane.  Cleaning a bearing packer is a real pain in the ass.  It would probably have been easier to just buy a new bearing packer.

I removed the bearings from the left wheel and completely cleaned the old AeroShell 33MS grease out and then repacked them with AeroShell 22.  I then reassembled everything and reinstalled the wheel and axle nut.  I installed the cotter pin, but haven’t bent it over yet.  I’ll leave it straight until I know for sure that I don’t need to remove the wheel before the first flight.

With the left wheel done, I jacked up the right side of the plane and drilled the right gear leg.  I then modified the right axle nut for the wheel pant bracket.

Here’s a closeup of the notch that you have to file into the axle nut.  You can see that you have to radius the edge because of the bend in the bracket.  This took about 15 minutes of filing to get to this point.

I repacked the right wheel bearing and reinstalled the right wheel.  Other than possibly fitting the wheel pants, I probably won’t need to touch the wheels again before first flight.

I got my cowl back from M&W Composites today.  They repaired their manufacturing error by glassing some additional material onto each edge (between 1/8″ and 1/4″) and putting it back in their oven to cure.  I unpacked it and did a trial fit.  Things look much better already.  Without even pulling things down tightly, the sides already overlap a little bit.  Here’s a pictures of the left side.

And the right.  I need to do a little further trimming around the front inlets before I can pull the spinner opening back to where it was.

I sanded a couple of the joints to get the front a little tighter.  There’s no way everything will align perfectly even once all the trims are complete.  I’ll end up covering all this with micro and sanding everything totally smooth around these joints.

I also trimmed the remaining ears off of the upper cowl.  I still have some sanding to do to get this perfect, but this at least allows the top cowl to tuck down a little further.