Break Like Access

[pawalker]

Hello Everyone,

I went out to fly yesterday and was dismayed to find a puddle of red fluid under our '46 140. I have tracked the leak down to the inner end of the 90 degree fitting where the break line exits the aircraft on the right hand side. It should be a matter of simply tightening the fitting however, it appears the landing gear leg may have to come out in order to gain access? Is there some trick to this that I am not seeing that would avoid having to remove the leg? If the leg does have to come off, what is the best way to jack up the aircraft during this time?
Thanks in advance for your guidance.
Patrick

IMG_7644 copy.jpg (255.03 KiB) Viewed 1743 times

[6863]

Patrick, I have had to gain access to this area twice on my airplane. Both times the leak was not at the fitting but at a puncture in the line from the fairing fastening screw bottom aft within the circle you drew on your photo. This required replacing that approx 6 inch length of brake line both times. I did it the first time without pulling the gear leg. The second time I pulled the gear leg which made the entire job much easier. The reason I had to go in a second time is because the first go around I thought I could solve the problem by simply shortening the screw. Not so. The second time around I fabricated a new fairing minus a hole in that location and simply eliminated the screw. Problem solved. Ok all you inspectors out there, your're welcome to jump on my case for eliminating that fairing screw. It won't do any good. As long as I own this airplane there will never again be a screw installed in that location.

[pawalker]

Hi John, thank you for the insight! I did notice that one of the screw tips had scratched the nut on the fitting so potentially it moved it and loosened it or maybe I have a puncture like you had that I cannot see. When you took the landing gear leg off how did you jack up the aircraft?
Thanks,
Patrick

[6277]

I took a gear leg off. I made a cushioned cradle that had the same shape as the bottom of the fuselage. One of the problems I had was putting it back together. I found that the there are two AN 4 bolts that hold the wedges in place are screwed into nut plates. The threads on the nut plates on my plane were corroded and when I unscrewed the bolts the rivets holding the nut plates broke however I did not know they broke until I tried to reattach them. The plates are in a channel that will not allow the plates to turn and the bolts will come right out but they are hard as heck to get back in.

[6597]

Great thread. I just checked that cover plate and sure enough one of the fastening screws was quite close to the brake line. Ground it a little shorter so now I won't worry as much, thanks for the tip-

[6863]

Hi John, thank you for the insight! I did notice that one of the screw tips had scratched the nut on the fitting so potentially it moved it and loosened it or maybe I have a puncture like you had that I cannot see. When you took the landing gear leg off how did you jack up the aircraft?
Thanks,
Patrick

I (we) lifted it up with jack stands under the outer wing strut attach poinst. My suggestion would be to lift both sides so as to have the airplane as level as possible for stability reasons.

[8224]

I went through essentially the same procedure a few months ago. I didn’t jack the plane up, I used my engine hoist and tied a nylon rope to the top engine mount against the fire wall on the side of the plane I was removing the gear leg. My hoist creeps down over night so cut a small board to go between the top of the hydraulic cylinder and the lifting beam. Worked like a charm. To be extra safe I placed a towel on the top of the wing directly above the strut attach point and placed a 25 pound block of lead on the towel. The plane stayed in that configuration for the best part of a week.
Steve Hawley

[pawalker]

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies! We're going to take a look with out mechanic tomorrow and see if he has any tricks for access of if we'll have to start preparing for a leg removal.