Gear cleaning and painting

[Luxuryairtravel]

I would love to jack my bird up, remove, clean, and paint my gear! Has anyone here done this? What are the best jacks? Make my own jacks? Tail stand? Jack fitting? 

[N201MKTurbo]

I’ve done it 4 times. It is a lot of work, especially stripping the gear legs. Stripper, wire wheel, sand blasting. Get it all off. Painting them is sore of easy. There are a lot of sides to all those tubes. 

It will look great whenever you are done!

 

[ArtVandelay]

Wouldn’t the best time to do this is when you replace the rubber donuts?

[Eight8Victor]

During my first annual my mechanic removed all my main gear components so we could strip the three layers of paint from the wheel wells. My neighbor has a powder coating facility so I had everything glass beaded and powder coated. Powder coating is stronger than paint and has a slick surface that makes for easy cleaning and looks amazing.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Eight8Victor

[Raptor05121]

Powder coating FTW

[Luxuryairtravel]

1 hour ago, Eight8Victor said:

During my first annual my mechanic removed all my main gear components so we could strip the three layers of paint from the wheel wells. My neighbor has a powder coating facility so I had everything glass beaded and powder coated. Powder coating is stronger than paint and has a slick surface that makes for easy cleaning and looks amazing.

Looks good!

[0TreeLemur]

The MSC that did my annual in January of this year did that when they replaced the shock disks.   They bead blasted and painted the gear.  They do not recommend powder coating.  Powder coat is brittle compared to paint, which has more flexibility.  Impacts by granular materials can cause powder coating to chip off more easily than properly applied paint.

[Tcraft938]

Isn’t the purpose of retractable gear so that one can hide the dirt. Just lower the no dirt see bar.  Lol

[carusoam]

Doing research around MS is a blast...

There are threads on

• proper jacking techniques
• Challenges with various coatings...
• How to build and not build jacks...
• there is even a video of a Mooney falling off a set of jacks...

Enjoy the reading... it definitely helps with what questions to ask...

Best regards,

-a-

[0TreeLemur]

21 hours ago, carusoam said:

Doing research around MS is a blast...

There are threads on

• proper jacking techniques
• Challenges with various coatings...
• How to build and not build jacks...
• there is even a video of a Mooney falling off a set of jacks...

Enjoy the reading... it definitely helps with what questions to ask...

Best regards,

-a-

Those would be great topics for a FAQ section!

[RLCarter]

powder coating is very thick and requires baking, paint is much easier to touch up as needed. Powder in the wrong spot and you'll have to sand the crap out of it (plastic) for re-assembly, paint in the wrong place comes off with a razor blade....dont get me wrong I love powder coat, just wouldnt do my gear

[PT20J]

On 2/22/2020 at 8:10 PM, Luxuryairtravel said:

I would love to jack my bird up, remove, clean, and paint my gear! Has anyone here done this? What are the best jacks? Make my own jacks? Tail stand? Jack fitting? 

You’re going to have to have it up on jacks for an extended time. I would get a pair of real aircraft jacks with safety locking collars and make a tail weight (there are kits available). 

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