Nose wheel jack

[PT20J]

When I need to jack the whole airplane, I take it to my mechanic's hanger and use his aircraft jacks and engine hoist.

But, often I just need to jack one wheel. Recently, I had the need to raise the nose wheel. I had a local fabricator make the tool shown for about forty bucks. It's a ten inch length of 1 inch diameter solid bar stock welded to a short piece of one inch ID pipe. Works great.

The same bottle jack works for raising one wheel. I just remove the adjustable screw/pad and the hole in the top of the piston mates nicely with the conical Mooney jack points. (The screw/pad is usually bunged up so that it doesn't come out when fully extended. I clamped the piston in a vice with rubber jaws and worked the screw out, Then I cleaned up the threads on the end. Now I can screw it in or out of the piston easily).

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[larrynimmo]

What I do is to pull down the tail ...I have a clamp solidly attached to hanger floor and I pull tail down with a comealong

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, larrynimmo said:

What I do is to pull down the tail ...I have a clamp solidly attached to hanger floor and I pull tail down with a comealong

We're not supposed to do that in our hangars, but several of my neighbors have that and it's very tempting. 

 

[Yetti]

a couple of 6x6 or 8x8 timbers would be more stable.

[SantosDumont]

Can it also jack up the main?

[PT20J]

45 minutes ago, SantosDumont said:

Can it also jack up the main?

Yes, but the gear doors are in the way if you place it outboard and the jack is in way of removing the wheel if you place it inboard.  That’s why for jacking the main I remove the screw from the jack piston and jack using the Mooney jack points. Placing the jack on a couple of concrete blocks makes a very stable base for jacking the mains.

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[RLCarter]

1 hour ago, Yetti said:

a couple of 6x6 or 8x8 timbers would be more stable.

2 x ? All work fine but for stability it needs to be stacked like this

[Yetti]

1 hour ago, PT20J said:

. Placing the jack on a couple of concrete blocks makes a very stable base for jacking the mains.

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Shudder

[Andy95W]

12 minutes ago, RLCarter said:

2 x ? All work fine but for stability it needs to be stacked like this

Looks like a giant Jenga set.

[RLCarter]

30 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

Looks like a giant Jenga set.

Might be, grabbed a photo from the net

[PT20J]

53 minutes ago, RLCarter said:

2 x ? All work fine but for stability it needs to be stacked like this

It doesn't really matter if you are only jacking one wheel because the wood is in compression and the other two wheels prevent there being a side load (Same reason TV towers don't fall down - main load is compression and the guy wires prevent a side load). I would not use the bottle jack method to jack more than one wheel at a time though because the base of the jack is too small to provide a high level of stability (no matter how you stack the wood) if there can be any sway.

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[PT20J]

53 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Shudder

Concrete has great compression strength. It's what your hangar floor is made of 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, RLCarter said:

2 x ? All work fine but for stability it needs to be stacked like this

That's a popular method. 

 

[mooneygirl]

Don Maxwell told me to either get a couple of fat guys to sit on my tail or do this with a pry bar. I chose the pry bar. LOL. 

[Yetti]

1 hour ago, PT20J said:

Concrete has great compression strength. It's what your hangar floor is made of 

Solid concrete does.   Cinder blocks are not solid concrete and are quite frangible in nature.  Most people don't know most concrete is a liquid.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Yetti

[EricJ]

6 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Solid concrete does.   Cinder blocks are not solid concrete and are quite frangible in nature.  Most people don't know most concrete is a liquid.

Cinder blocks and concrete blocks are two separate things.    You can certainly distinguish them by weight.   A few concrete blocks ought to be able to hold up a portion of a <3000lb airplane.    They hold up much heavier cars fairly frequently.   I agree I would be less inclined to try it with cinder blocks.

[RLCarter]

25 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Solid concrete does.   Cinder blocks are not solid concrete and are quite frangible in nature.

Cinder blocks refer to the aggregate (ash) mixed with the cement,  you can get 8x8x16 blocks as solid or 8" shaped, concrete or cinder, the solid blocks are stronger but both types are too porous which makes them very brittle. The "8" shaped blocks are stronger in one direction vs the other. I've got 4 8x8x16 wood blocks I got somewhere that I use if I need to support anything of weight & value

[PT20J]

Apparently, cinder blocks are no longer manufactured due to unavailability of coal cinders. 

http://masonrydesign.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-is-cinder-block-it-conjures-image.html

[PT20J]

11 minutes ago, Hyett6420 said:

I would worry about damaging the all moving tail by doing that.  Im sure the tails is not designed to be hauled down while at the same time lifting up that bloody heavy engine.

The tail tie down is ahead of the empennage. Still, Mooney SIM20-114 recommends against using the tail tie down and instead suggests lifting the engine with a hoist. That same SI also says not to fly with the wing tie down rings installed 

[RLCarter]

Anyone know why Mooney wants the tie down rings removed? Mine are removed only because they looked bad when I took the off 4 years ago to jack up the plane, they have been cleaned up and repainted, just haven't put them back on. But then again I haven't removed my jack points in 4 years either 

[carusoam]

Stay on the path...

until it is not Ok to stay on the path...

 

without safety wire, it is possible to have the tie-downs escape...

The Mooney lawyers thought it would be uncool to let loose a tie down ring without yelling ‘fore!’...

Since the pilot would be unable to discern with any certainty when yelling would be appropriate... the procedure writers were employed to cover the challenge the best they could....

This may not be exactly how it happened... but it may be close enough...

Another set of writers was used to cover the sump drains... some sump drains actually have tiny holes in them specifically for tie wire... of course the tie wire may need to be about 20’ long to get anywhere...

Lasar sells a nice set of tie-downs and jack points in one...

I don’t think there is a history of anyone that knows of a tie down or sump drain actually escaping...

Best regards,

-a-

[DanM20C]

On 10/30/2019 at 1:01 AM, carusoam said:

I don’t think there is a history of anyone that knows of a tie down or sump drain actually escaping.

I’ve lost a tie down ring. I didn’t notice until I was under the wing with a rope in hand.  So I didn’t yell fore.
 

i now have the Lasar tie down/jack pad. 
 

cheers,

 Dan

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, Hyett6420 said:

Thats interesting, I fly with them installed all the time.  Its only a soft alu thread so removing them and replacing them every flight will kil that thread in a few months.

I do not think the wing threads are aluminum given that the stock tie down rings are steel. That would seem to be a recipe for corrosion.

[larrynimmo]

as for the rear tie down of the plane....think of the multiple of leverage....it likely takes less than 200 pounds of pressure on the tail to lift the nose

[flyer338]

I know the Mooney service manual calls for the use of a yoke to raise the nose gear when jacking the airplane, but the standard practice, including at least one Mooney service center, seems to be the use of a weight to anchor the tail instead.