Donald. Did you try to freeze up the rusted pistons with some rust penetrating fluid? You should be able to squirt it in between strut and piston. I have never heard of the MLG struts to rust frozen. I know it won't help you much, but here a few pictures of the strut removal. http://www.ercoupe.info/?n=Main.MainGearServicing
When I had everything out, including the upper portion of the strut (piston) I had the wings off. I noticed that is almost impossible to get the upper bolt off, because one needs to reach to a cotter pin first and then can put a wrench on one side, but the other side is held by a screw driver, since this is a big clevis pin. Really, without the wings off, hard to do. Don't smash the MLG with the bigger hammer. Maybe fill the gap between piston and strut and let sit for a few days and try again by wiggling the thing off. Gee that is a nasty problem. Hartmut From: Donald Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 12:02 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ercoupe-tech] Re: MLG Problems, long post, Need Help! I guess I was not clear, the snap ring has nothing to do with my problem. My problem is that the center portion of the strut is frozen to the outer housing - in a compressed state. In all probability it got rusty, then on a landing it forced it up and stuck there. --- In [email protected], BRIAN BARAGWANATH <baragwana...@...> wrote: > > once you remove the snap ring they should fall apart. > > Brian Baragwanath > N3085H > Cranland-28M > > --- On Sun, 5/23/10, Donald <dongen...@...> wrote: > > > From: Donald <dongen...@...> > Subject: [ercoupe-tech] MLG Problems, long post, Need Help! > To: [email protected] > Date: Sunday, May 23, 2010, 5:20 PM > > > Fitting in with the MLG postings of late, I decidewd to jack mine up and put > in the spacers to raise my tail today. As I was taking thinga apart, I was > surprised to see there were already a set of spacers there. Strange, my tail > is pretty low. > I decided to measure my donut stack, three and 1/2 inches, although the > rubbers look as good as new. I jacked it up to measure again no load - still > three and a half! What the heck is going on here. I have a pair of > bellville spring equipped struts, measured them, and the stack is about four > and a quarter inches! > I decide to take things apart to see what is going on, drop the bottom bolt, > swing the strut back to pull it off - and it won't move! Now I understand > why the rubbers are compressed - the strut is froze solid in a compressed > state! Take the other side off, same thing. > Easy, just pull the top bolt out - whoops, I think you must have to pull the > wings to do that AND have some special wrenches, not what I wanted. I found > I could put a drift down thru between the wing and center section, and pound > on the top of the strut to try to beat the bottom part off. No luck, gave up > for the day and came home to get a bigger hammer - a LOT BIGGER hammer. I > may have to heat the outside of the strut to release it, probably burn up the > rubbers, and I don't even know for sure WHERE the sticking is! > Has anybody else had this problem? I could sure use an easy solution right > now. > No wonder I had such a devil of a time with smooth landings, darned thing had > NO spring action whatever! > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links >
