RV-8 axles holes mis-aligned?

Has anyone had difficulty mounting the main gear axles to the legs? I can't get more than one, of the four, bolts to slip through their holes. The bolts slide into every hole independently, but it seems either the leg holes or the axle holes are mis-drilled, and don't line up.
I swapped axles and flipped every way I could….still no joy.


Fired off an e-mail to Van's, but it's Sunday, and I'm impatient.

So?just to confirm, everyone's bolt's just slipped right in, right?

I had the Grove airfoiled gear, but ya they slipped right in.

Sorry can't help with the Vans gear.

Axles

I'll try to check mine tonight and report back. I'm sitting on Van's gear legs.

Had to run a reamer thru the holes on the gear before the bolts slid in, but after - everything lined up.

Dave
Woodbridge, VA

Reamer

I too have had to ream the holes in RV8 gear legs

Van's response...

For the record, each hole is the right size…the bolts slip into each part without effort whith the parts separated . But after one bolt is inserted through the leg and axle together, the other holes are just a little bit out of alignment.

Here's what Van's Builder Support said;

Most likely, this is cause by the heat-treating of the gear legs -
this is done after the legs are drilled, and can slightly affect the
roundness and location of the holes.

It's OK to drill or ream the legs out to match the holes in the axles
These should match the holes in the brake flange, so that can be used
as a guide also.

My initial reaction was; WOW…elongated holes holding my wheels on? Won't this allow the concentration of stress to only 2 holes/bolts when loads are applied along each axis ( fore/aft, or up/down) ?

As stated in the above response, it's the holes in the big, thick, strong gear legs that would be drilled out, but still….

Any suggestions on how to "match drill" the steel leg holes using the thin brake bracket as a guide? ( I wouldn't use the cast aluminum axle, as it's too soft to compete with the steel leg.)


Comments??

Perhaps.... Just maybe - the axles are off. Try to get the brakes bolted to the axle. Or try to bolt the brake to the gear leg. Kinda a mix and match to see which one is out of wack. The gear legs may be fine and hopefully they are because I don't see any way for someone other than a machine shop re-drill the gear legs as Vans has suggested.

Mine fit fine. Seems like there may be something else going on here. I am certainly not an expert, but holes moving because of heat treatment does not sound plausible to me.

I wonder if it would be possible to get an undrilled axle assembly from the axle manufacturer?

brad walton said:

Mine fit fine. Seems like there may be something else going on here. I am certainly not an expert, but holes moving because of heat treatment does not sound plausible to me.

I wonder if it would be possible to get an undrilled axle assembly from the axle manufacturer?

Click to expand...

That is exactly what I was thinking. I don't know much about heat treating but it seems like the physical dimensions couldn't change enough to cause this problem.

If light reaming won't solve the problem and Van's can't provide an undrilled axle, I would give Grove a call. Maybe they can help. The seem like great people and spent time on the phone answering all my questions before ordering.

Same concerns

on my 2002 kit. After I reamed each hole to get ride of the 15 year accumulation of mung and powder coat stuff I had no issues whatsoever. There was an amazing amount of stuff that came out, too.

There is a gentleman a few hangars down from me building an 8. He had a bad gearleg/axle mismatch a couple of weekends ago and called Vans. They commented about a dimensional problem on a batch of parts. New parts are on the way.

I believe the erroneous part was the axle, not the gear leg.