Time to remove and install landing gear

[Mike A]

My gear is starting to look a little rough.  Thinking about having them taken off, cleaned, and painted at my next annual.  Anyone have an estimate on removal and installation labor hours?

[McMooney]

same

 

[RLCarter]

Considering the same, I've had my gear apart for shock disks then the nose gear out for bushings. If I pull the trigger on this I'm allocating 1 day for removal and dis-assembly, 1 day for prep and paint (or powder coating) and 1 day for assembly. I should have done it a few years back when most of it was apart for the disk . My times are guesses based on how fast I work, well it should be how fast I dont work.....

[N201MKTurbo]

Never paid anybody to do it, I’ve done it 3 times. About 20 hours to do it right.

Removing and installing is not too hard. Stripping, priming and painting is tedious.

They will look amazing afterwards. 

[N201MKTurbo]

The If you are a do it yourselfer, I’ve found that stripper, wire brush, stripper, wire brush them glass bead is the way to go. It depends a lot on what paint is on it. 

Hang the big parts from a wire and spray away.

[kortopates]

I did my mains when I did my Encore conversion. I avoided all that tedious stripping, priming and painting by dropping my parts off at the Powder Coat shop. Still had a minor tedious task to mask off the sections not to powder coat but I think the finish will last much longer than paint.

Suggest planing on having mostly new hardware available when you do it; at least nuts, bushings washers and perhaps some bolts depending.  You'll need to budget a few days for the powder coating shop time.

[GeeBee]

Just an inquiry, not knowledgable. Powder coating requires baking at 400. degrees. Are you not worried about annealing the metal?

 

[carusoam]

What’s the annealing temperature of the steel legs?

Ordinary steels... 500°F to 1400°F depending on alloy...

Great question, just need some more detail...

What alloy is our gear legs made out of?

Best regards,

-a-

[jetdriven]

The biggest thing with powdercoat,. It is thick and tough enough to hide a crack. 

[Nukemzzz]

I just sent my truss assembly to Lasar for overhaul and bushing swap. It will come back primered unless I pay for them to paint it. I would paint it myself, I’ve painted cars and motorcycles, however, I don’t know where to start with painting this kind of part.  Like what kind of paint to use. The primer will be epoxy they said.  
 

Any hints or advice?

[jetdriven]

2 part urethane from the paint supply store. Nason full-thane or omni 2-stage.  Add activator. A little reducer. Spray through a Sharpe Finex gun. 

[carusoam]

Pick some cool color other than cool white!

-a-

[Nukemzzz]

Hmm, maybe I'll just have them paint it.  There are too many big words in your recipe.  lol

[Nukemzzz]

On 5/9/2020 at 3:30 PM, Mike A said:

My gear is starting to look a little rough.  Thinking about having them taken off, cleaned, and painted at my next annual.  Anyone have an estimate on removal and installation labor hours?

I don't know what year your bird is so you may not have the same issues as me.  What I found is a lot of slop in pretty much everything that moves and I'm replacing a lot of parts while also getting the truss rod tubes replaced.  There are a lot of linkages, rod ends, and bushings that adjust the pedal authority for commanding nose gear direction as the gear retracts into the bay.  Don't be surprised if you find some things that need attention.  Lasar seems to have a lot of these parts or they can refresh what you have.