Greetings,
I am converting my Nexstar to a taildrager. I have found alot of useful info on this forum. I have everything figured out except for the drilling and tapping of the existing holes in the gear (I am re-using the original Nexstar landing gear.

A quote from Britbrat :
"Fit the gear onto the bearer block & drill & tap holes for 1/4-20 nylon bolts at the hole locations in the landing legs where the original snap buttons fit into the gear (you will have to plug those holes in the gear first & clearance-drill them for the 1/4-20 bolts)."

What I get from this is that since the original holes are too big for the bolts, they need to be plugged and redrilled and tapped.

My question is how do you plug those holes? with what?

Thanks for your help

Is the gear aluminum? If so, then I wouldn't try to plug them--I'd just re-drill some holes that will allow the 1/4 X 20 nylon bolts to slide through. then, drill into the block of wood inside of the fuse (using the gear holes as a pattern), and install some blind nuts. All should be good. Really, this is a no-brainer mod. Don't make it too difficult. Just make sure the gear block is sturdy, and is tied to the side doublers with some triangle or square stock, epoxied in. Other than that, make sure the axles will line up with the LE of the wing, and don't forget to re-balance when you are done!

These are Britbat's pics of the NexStar Taildragger Mods. Hope this helps.

Actually, I mis-spoke myself. You drill the gear & blocks -- then tap the holes in the blocks. The gear should be clearance-drilled & the blocks drilled for tapping 1/4-20.

You are correct that the original holes are too large. If I'm doing a re-build of a crashed Nexstar, I just cut-off the snap-in buttons & use them as gromets to fill the hole & drill to size. You can also fill the holes with high-strength epoxy -- JB Weld is great.

You can also purchase for about 8 bucks at my LHS a set of aluminum gear for 40 or 60 size, they are blanks so you can just drill accordingly, then tap the mounting block like Brit's talking about. I think that is the way I'm gonna go. It's less work & they are a wider one piece gear. (wider at the mounting block)


http://h1072469.hobbyshopnow.com/pro...sp?prod=HAN140

These are very similar to the ones I saw at the store. They are apparrently pre-drilled as well. I thouhgt they were blanks, better yet.

Thank you all for the info.


I am seriously considering going to my LHS and check out what they have for landing gears.

If not I will first look at using some epoxy as suggested by Britbrat. If that dosent work, I'll just drill 2 new holes in each piece of the landing gear.

Much appreciated