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Grove Gear Upper Brake Line Plumbing Pictures

skylor

skylor

Well Known Member
For several years, I've been meaning to post some pictures of how I fabricated the upper brake line plumbing on my Grove aluminum gear legs. My goal when I plumbed them was to use the "stock" bulkhead fitting location inside the gear towers. I finally remembered to snap a few quick pictures during my last annual. There is ample clearance around the lines allthough it may not appear so in the pictures. When these shots were taken, the airframe had about 510 hours on it and there is no evidence of rubbing or leaks Hopefully some future builders will find these helpful.

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Skylor
RV-8
 
This is why I donate yearly for this site.
I just finished drilling/mounting my Grove gear and was thinking about how to route lines for the brakes. I had a different routing in mind but this seems cleaner but now I have to ask, how much of a pain in the rear was it to tighten up the nuts? Granted in theory you only do it once but it doesn't look like much fun.
 
Here is the way I did it. 400 hrs and no problems. I use the vent hole for the brake line and the brake hole for the jd air vent. I did have to fab new cover plates.

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B-Nuts

xblueh2o said:
I have to ask, how much of a pain in the rear was it to tighten up the nuts? Granted in theory you only do it once but it doesn't look like much fun.
Click to expand...

Tightening the nuts really isn't as bad as it looks. I was able to use reasonably small open end wrenches for this (1 to support the fitting, the other to turn the B-Nut).

Skylor
 
Also looking at everybody's pictures and how much they had to relieve the skin to make the Grove outer saddles fit. Mine look about the same (haven't taken any pictures yet) and I might convert the two outer plate nuts to one lugs. I am also very close on a couple of the bottom skin rivets too.
Dan, I see you had to modify the aft outer wear plate access hole in the skin when you opened it up to align it with the bolt head. When I laid that wear plate on top of the skin and noted the pre-punch holes didn't line up I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. Once again, it is threads like this that make the donation worth every penny.
 
I drilled an extra hole beside the (Grove) gear leg. Here I inserted the aluminum brake line from below and connected it to the gear leg. Then I formed the brake line inside the gear tower. It is replacable from below if necessary.

 
Potenital issue

Long screw in the lower left corner, and well you are screwed. I have seen it happen on other applications. Nasa lost the Tethered Satellite this way, the longer bolt jammed the reel. In this case a longer screw would puncture the line.


skylor said:
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It took me over a year to figure this one out!

After starting and stopping on this one thing a dozen or more times, I finally stumbled onto this setup! This was by far the tuffest thing I've had to figure out. I had seen the folks that swaped the vent lines but, I didn't like that..... I've ordered almost every AN fitting that ACS has. I finally tried some brake lines that didn't fit on the bottom and a couple of the fittings I'd ordered prior, with a new hole beside the vent line and BAM, it worked great on the top! Thanks a bunch to TS Flightlines! FYI: The extra hole was approved by "builders help"



 
I'm at this stage of my build and returning here for more research. A few viable suggestions here. My thanks to Skylor for his photos; very helpful. Some of the other photo links in this thread have expired; I'd be very grateful if Dan Horton, Sapeloson and any other willing participants can send me photos of their solutions I would be very grateful. Send me a PM and I will send email address... or if you have photos elsewhere online, let me know where I can find them. And is it just me... or is trying to get the bulkhead nuts and line fitting nuts tightened inside those gear towers one of the most difficult parts of this build? Good thing I don't have any hair anymore, because this would have me pulling it out.
 
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I have a set of crowfoot wrenches that worked very well in this application.
An easy way to get this one single application is to buy a cheap Horrible Freight box end wrench of the correct size and cut a wide enough slot in it to slide over the tube.

Here is a picture of the crowfoot I have. You get the idea on how to modify a regular box wrench to replicate it.
 
xblueh2o said:
I have a set of crowfoot wrenches that worked very well in this application.
An easy way to get this one single application is to buy a cheap Horrible Freight box end wrench of the correct size and cut a wide enough slot in it to slide over the tube.

Here is a picture of the crowfoot I have. You get the idea on how to modify a regular box wrench to replicate it.
Click to expand...

I did have cheap crowfoot wrenches, and invested in better ones. With a little practice it did get a little easier... still a pain, but I got the fittings torqued properly. I'm considering buying cheap open-end wrenches and cutting them in half for clearance working inside the towers.
 
Long Screw

BenNabors said:
Long screw in the lower left corner, and well you are screwed. I have seen it happen on other applications. Nasa lost the Tethered Satellite this way, the longer bolt jammed the reel. In this case a longer screw would puncture the line.


skylor said:
IMG_1963small.JPG
Click to expand...

While technically true, there is actually more clearance between the nutplate and the brake line than there appears to be in the photo. That's one of the things that I was concerned about but I simply don't have any -6 screws in my parts supply that are long enough to rub against the line. It is one of those items that should be taken in consideration during maintenance, however...

Of course, there are several places on the aircraft where an incorrect length screw can cause problems. Control column push rod bolts come to mind...

FYI, these pictures remind me of another item relating to the post about priming grove gear legs. As you might be able to see, I Alodined my entire legs (including the internal brake line passages). I then used Akzo primer however, I masked off the areas that interface with the wear plates and clamp brackets. I have these areas greased. My thought was that the grease here would provide corrosion protection and I didn't want wear and cold flow of the primer contributing to loosening of the mounting brackets.

Skylor
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