jacking solutions for Kitfox's

[catz631]

Lowell,
How about inventing something to jack the wheel in the air for the bush gear ? This sure would be helpful for checking the brakes,greasing the bearings,etc.
I currently use a small floor jack and use the 1/4 inch of protruding axle on the other side of the wheel. It is VERY precarious ! I was thinking about a device like I used to use on my Cessna 120. It attached to the spring gear with a couple of bolts and made a flat surface to put a jack under.
Maybe a split tube,device with a flat plate welded on and attach it to the down tube where it attaches to the axle cluster ? You are a great inventor !
Dick

[t j]

A couple photos to get the Kitfox jack ideas flowing.

[catz631]

Thanks TJ ! What a simple solution ! I need a brain transplant.
Dick

[napierm]

I have a similar question for the Grove gear. The brake line fitting at the bottom of the gear is right in the way of a very good jack point. There are are clamp or slip on jack points but if I do leg fairings ala Ray Ward these won't work either.

[HighWing]

In the olden days just after the split that saw two partners go separate ways, that resulted in two competing companies, Grove and Hammerhead, I bought my spring gear. As I understand it the Hammerhead guy was the one that developed the gun drilling equipment and took that with him. I bought the Hammerhead gear as I didn't want to pay extra for the gun drilling.

Now to the point. I didn't like the brake line exit at the bottom of the gear leg with the plastic pigtail because I thought it to be in a very vulnerable location. I asked if it could exit on the back of the gear leg. The answer was yes. They drilled and tapped a hole exactly between the bolts holding the axle. The hole intersected the gun drilled hole and a 1/8" NPT plug was used to close out the bottom hole. In ten years and 900 hours including a hard landing that destroyed the airframe but didn't touch the gear, it never failed. As for the plug, I know somewhere there are plugs that use a hex head hole for tightening if you don't want the square plug extension interfering with the jack. This could be a fairly easy retrofit and a worthy annual project.

Lowell

[akarmy]

For the Grove gear here's what I did. You can also search the archives for many posts on ways to jack up various types of gear setups.

[Dave S]

Andy & all,

I don't want to embarrass anyone; but I would hate it more if someone got hurt and nobody said anything.

The wood blocks for the jack to hold the gear look great. Makes a nice recess to hold the top of the jack and keep it from sliding.

Take a look at the orientation of the cement blocks - with the cement blocks on their sides. Cement blocks have very little strength on their sides - if using cement blocks for this purpose - put them top side up and put a 2 X 10 under the jack - better yet - stick to wood blocks. Cement has tremendous compression strength - very little tensile strength - on their sides the blocks can easily be placed under tension between the webs and crush under very little weight.

They guys who do hand chops to break cement blocks and impress the rest of us hit them on the sides - the weak point between the web - never see them karate chopping a cement block from the top.

No offense - just don't want anyone getting hurt.

Sincerely,

Dave S

[akflyer]

For the Grove gear here's what I did. You can also search the archives for many posts on ways to jack up various types of gear setups.

This also looks like a great solution for those with grove gear. I know the kitfox is pretty light, however, you may consider making the block out of a good high grade piece of plywood. I once used a bottle jack to lift my boat up slightly to slip a piece of carpet on the trailer bunk.. I used a block of wood like you have pictured... then the wood block split. Made a nice hole in the bottom of the boat in a area I really did not want a thru hull fitting . Not a good way to treat my poor 68 Chris Craft plank boat. Boy are the mahogany planks expensive and a pain in the butt to replace!