Well. I'm planning to use a set of CJM I bought many years ago for my platt Focke wulf. Well to make a long story short, I'm a mechanical engineer and work on planes every day, so I sort of know what I'm doing. I had some problems with the gear, so I ordered parts from Bruce but they took to long so I picked up a set of platts in the meantime and they went in to the FW. now I've had these retracts lying around the shop for some time when this plane came on the market, the plane cost considerably less than the CJ retracts but its a chance to use them. So a little $ at the local Model shop and I have what is in the picture below.

For those that do not know how to take OLEO’s apart, at least CJ OLEO’s here we go. #5 is the strut as it comes from CJ, #4 is the strut with the roll pin removed and the strut to retract adapter removed. You can see the spring sticking out the top. I went to the local machine shop and had new adapters #2 made to allow the strut to come out of the retract straight no bending forward. This will allow me to position the retract mechanism for best fit in the wing. Now because I’m using the left over FW struts I will have to adjust its length and the length of the spring but I’ll deal with that as it comes up in the build.

At this point my plan is to remove all the factory supports, install maple retract bearing blocks, dremel holes in the existing support ribs, adding a ply doubler where possible. While doing this I will turn the mounts to give me the forward rake I want, push them as far into the wing as I can, and angle the strut out.

Joe