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Cotterpins on maingear

HansLab

Well Known Member
Hi all,

How in the World did you manage to get the cotter-pins in the main gear axle? They are too long to be able to be put in without bending severely, too thick to fit in properly when hold with a pliers and being damaged by that pliers a bit.

Is is permitted to put a slightly thinner pin in?
 
Line the holes in the axel with the nut. The reason there are holes on each flat of the nut is to give you options. Carefully tap the cotter key using a slotted screwdriver on the top of the key and hammer. It is tight but they will go thru. One of ours is always a pain, the other just drops in.
 
Hans ---- Yep, the cotter-pins are longer than straight in access will allow. It is necessary to bend the cotter-pin a bit to create a slight crescent moon shape to allow the cotter-pin to clear the wheel enough to begin going into the hole in the axle.
 
One solution

is to simply use TWO short cotter pins, one on each side. This assumes you have access to the inner diameter. Of course, this does not work with solid axels... Now that I think about it, my RV8 has solid axels... whoops!
 
Maybe I shouldn't reply without going to my hangar to look. But after the crescent moon bending process to get the first set in, I think I was able to just shorten the cotter pin with wire cutters so that it would fit inside the wheel. Length of the cotter pin is not critical as long as enough sticks out to bend it over for retention.
 
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