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Gear leg stiffeners, or no?

punkin

Well Known Member
Having watched the recent shimmy and gear leg stiffner videos, there seem to be a group of non-builder owners like myself who haven't addressed some of this stuff.

With my giant tires, I still have a bit of shimmy that starts about 25mph ground speed and goes away about 32-35mph. I haven't been able to solve this with wheel balance.

It doesn't bother me, but I'm curious if my gear legs were stiffer, would it eliminate that.

* I'm also concerned that if I stiffen the legs, I might create a problem when I have a no flare landing like this one in a rough field...*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl41enAi514

What say those of you who know better?
 
Gear Stiffeners

....Your gear legs will feel just a bit stiffer but not a problem. The stiffeners made of wood primarily add rigidity for & aft rather than up & down. I did
several tests with pine, oak, 7075 aluminum, and titanium materials. We found the oak wrapped with a couple of layers of glass around the gear leg and totally enclosed worked best for us. I really like the feel of the landings now (felt too soft originally) and have never regretted doing this modification. Thanks, Allan..:D
 
Allan,
Where did you source the Oak? Im thinking about going with Oak on my gear. Did you find molding in Oak?

Funny, I was thinking about titanium also but it looks like you already checked that out.



....Your gear legs will feel just a bit stiffer but not a problem. The stiffeners made of wood primarily add rigidity for & aft rather than up & down. I did
several tests with pine, oak, 7075 aluminum, and titanium materials. We found the oak wrapped with a couple of layers of glass around the gear leg and totally enclosed worked best for us. I really like the feel of the landings now (felt too soft originally) and have never regretted doing this modification. Thanks, Allan..:D
 
Allan,
Where did you source the Oak? Im thinking about going with Oak on my gear. Did you find molding in Oak?

Funny, I was thinking about titanium also but it looks like you already checked that out.

Home Depot has oak door trim which will work just great for this purpose.
 
Allan,
Where did you source the Oak? Im thinking about going with Oak on my gear. Did you find molding in Oak?

Funny, I was thinking about titanium also but it looks like you already checked that out.

...I found some 1" X 5" at a local lumber yard. Thanks, Allan
 
Stiffener report

My 7 had, regardless what I did a shake right at taxi speed so I finally decided to install stiffeners. I read where tape worked well so I tried it and it did improve the shaking but not to my satisfaction. I just this week removed the tape and did the fiberglass attachment, It worked very very well, NO shaking and what a pleasure to taxi now. I wish I had done it a long time ago.
As someone earlier said tape stiffeners on first to get proper alignment with current fairings. Lots of work to glass them on but IMO well worth the effort.
 
I used oak baseboard material with fiberglass wrapping. They work really well and I also videoed my takeoff's and landing's and there is zero shimmy.
 
Stifferners

I bought the stiffeners advertised and installed them with a bunch of tie wraps due to cold weather. It helped but not completely. I'm going to follow Allen's lead and make up some Oak stifferners next.
 
I don?t know better, it I have no stiffeners, or do I get any shimmy. There are threads that go over fire pressure to eliminate shimmy. I?m at 32PSI
 
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