Well progress at last, F16 1/8 advanced version

Right as many of you are aware theirs been concern about the landing gear not locking down and folding upon landing something i did not want happening to mine, so having read through many post on here thought i'd have a go a sorting it out once and for all.

#1 the front retract, what i found her was that if you pushed the cylinder and rod together (pic R1) you can see that the drag link does not fully straighten, hence the folding on landing, so what some people have recommended here is to refile the flat spots on the spindles that the two bell cranks attach to, what this made me realise was that the cylinder needed to close a tad further, this was further proved by disconnecting the bolt attaching the clevis at the end of the cylinder rod to the bell crank, now if you push the cylinder rod all the way in then manually push both bell cranks together your notice that firstly the drag link straightens no problem and locks the gear, but more important aling the centre of the clivis hole (bolt you just removed) with the bell crank hole it just came out of and they don't line up.

So the easy fix looking the (pic R2) what i did was the file away a section of the clevis (indicated by black lines R2), what this allows for is the two bell cranks to pull closer together and allow the drag link to straighten and lock, with no ill effect on the retract operation, this was tested about 50 times with a lock up every time.

Job sorted at last or so i thought, reinstalled the front retract, tested once again but it would'nt lock up, reason being the cylinder catches on the body shell (pic R3) indicated again by black line, so simple solution here is the place a packing piece under both front and rear mounts to keep things equal, with the test card underneath, locked up every time.

#2 the rear main retract assembly, this as well as the front has been stripped down cylinders stripped cleaned, silicone grease installed and all put back together, basically these worked fine the the left hand unit was'nt always locking down, so just like the fronts i found that by fileing at bit off the drag link clevis ( pic R4 again indicated by black lines), this has rsulted in a lock up on every operation since, looking at it now i can see that the geometry was'nt quite right.

What i've also done is replace the door rams with PRO-LYNX units these are by far better quality ( pic R5) only draw back being the 2mm mounting holes with no room for drilling out but no major issue in fitting

Lots of pipes but with a bit of carefull routing things soon look tidy and in order (R6)

Hope this helps and makes sense i know my system is now working great, was worth all the hassle of the last few months.

lozza