Aluminum gear

Good Day Mate! :)

Ron sends them to Jim at North Sound Aviation, Sedro WooIley, WA. I've talked to Jim on the phone several times. He's helpful. Depending what he's got going on, he can be a little tardy. Bartman had his legs in for adjustment, he might have up to date info.

The phone number on his website I believe is not up to date. I had both his Number and Email on my last Mobile, which now U/S.

He first beads the paint off the leg, straightens them to his template, NDT's, then primes them for paint and returns them.

Good Luck!
 
Explorer said:
Good Day Mate! :)

Ron sends them to Jim at North Sound Aviation, Sedro WooIley, WA. I've talked to Jim on the phone several times. He's helpful. Depending what he's got going on, he can be a little tardy. Bartman had his legs in for adjustment, he might have up to date info.

The phone number on his website I believe is not up to date. I had both his Number and Email on my last Mobile, which now U/S.

He first beads the paint off the leg, straightens them to his template, NDT's, then primes them for paint and returns them.

Good Luck!
Click to expand...
Cheers! Useful heads up about the speed of service - or lack of! Maybe Ron has a pair in stock hiding in his drawers…I can live in Hope!

Thanks for the number warning too. I’ll chase them tomorrow and see what shakes from the tree.
 
FatTyreMike said:
Cheers! Useful heads up about the speed of service - or lack of! Maybe Ron has a pair in stock hiding in his drawers…I can live in Hope!

Thanks for the number warning too. I’ll chase them tomorrow and see what shakes from the tree.
Click to expand...

Ron usually keeps a few pair in stock for immediate exchange. There is a core fee that you get refunded when you send in your old set.

I was very pleased with my results.
 
Somebody said he heat treats them after straightening. I think that is a really good idea.
 
He anneals to soften, reworks to correct dimensions, then hardens and tempers. They come primed.

Here are before and after pictures of mine from 6 months ago. Look closely at the camber (inward tilt of top of wheel) on the starboard wheel.

Also included is a pic of the new landing gear bar bolts. Definitely want to upgrade those if you still have the old U bolts.

PXL_20210115_181058546 (2).webpPXL_20210309_200419934 (3).webpPXL_20210220_004254761 (4).webp
 
Jim has my C180 gear legs right now for refurb. Just got off the phone with him, Got the good news that they are not cracked, and they are coming along. He blasted them, inspected, straighten, heat treated, and is painting them sometime this week.

I also bought a set of gear legs for my 7GCBC from Ron, but Jim has them, and they haven't been finished. He said it'll be a while longer for those. He does them in batches.

I've really enjoyed working with Jim.
 
Picking up on this ... I went through my log book, and the metal ACA wings added 65 pounds to the empty weight, netting 35 lbs additional userful load. I think when ACA says they result in 30 lbs weight savings, they mean that you'll have 30 or so lbs of additional useful load, not that they're lighter by 30 lbs.
As I wrote earlier, I'm debating swapping my '69 7ECA to build up a '74KCAB. I think the KCAB is about 100lbs heavier than the 7ECA, so my biggest concern is useful load. We just did a nice cross country flight, with 2 of us, 2 folding bikes, camera bags, etc., it's nice not to worry about useful load + not burning a lot of fuel in the 7ECA. So all of a sudden I'm having second thoughts ...
 
i don't know if the flat bottom ACA wings save you any weight but the aymmetrical 8KCAB wings with the new ailerons save 30 pounds since they don't have all of the gap seal components needed for the original ailerons.
 
Be interesting to get hard numbers on that. We researched J3 wood vs metal spar, and I think it was nine lbs less per wing. And the metal spar wing uses lots of aluminum in places where the originals used steel - like compression struts!
 
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