Anybody have some tips on how to bend landing gear back to shape after they are bent back. These have the coil at the top an are in mechanical retracts. I do not want to tear them out of their mounts trying to straighten them.
Bob

Remove them to straighten them.


To do otherwise is the road to heartache.

If the blocks held up to whatever bend in them in the first place then you should be able to just pull them back by hand.

Well that is not totality correct, depending on how hard the bird hit, there gould be signific intinternal dammage, so I would remove the unit and check th air frame vary closely strighten the wire and then reinstall.

Just my HMO

cheers bob T

This is a definite no no IMHO, been there done that. Remove the defective unit from the model, straighten and re install.

+4 on removing them! I tried to bend them on the plane before and ended up doing a lot more repairs than was intended.

Remove the struts, drill a hole in a piece of wood, clamp wood to bench, put wire in hole, put screw driver, socket extension through spring hole, bend back to shape. I use a 1/4 socket extension.

Buzz.

It takes extra time to do it right . but if you do nor remove them to straighten them you are stressing everything behind them and the loads arent designed to go that way ..You could do more damage to the point of ripping them right out or possibly damage to the units themselves . There could be cracks in the frame work and now is a good time to have a good look to make sure everything is still solid ..I usually keep a spare set of gear in my flight box so that in the event of a hard landing I can swap out the gear in a matter of mins .and bend the old ones at home in my vice .

one alternative is to use a stock of aluminum bar 1"x7"x3/8" bent to look like a fork. cut a verticle slot in the short end of the "fork" bend, slip the short portion of the strut above the loop into the slot and hold tool firmly on strut to aleviate stress on gear mounts while bending lower portion of strut back to desired position. takes a little getting used to but will work great.