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Grove gear and brake caliper clearance

kasTX

Member
For those of you who have the Grove regular (non-airfoil, two piece aluminum) landing gear and the standard Cleveland brakes I have a question.

While making and installing the brake lines I noticed that it would not be possible to remove the caliper to change brake pads without disconnecting the brake lines. Looking at the pictures of the left main wheel you can see why:

Lbrakefittingcloseup071006.jpg

Lcaliperinsideview071006.jpg

Lbrakewheelpantbracketview071006.jpg


In order to get that caliper off, it has to slide inboard on the two pins. Unfortunately, the fitting and line hit the inner wheel pant bracket before the caliper can slide far enough to come off and provide access to the inner brake pads.

I have double checked the plans and I am pretty sure I have everything in the right place, but I have to be missing something since others have not reported having to remove the lines to change brakes.

So what am I doing wrong here? :confused:
 
Your correct.
You can remove the 4 nuts off the axel and slide the wheel pant bracket off, and your in business.

Best,
 
kasTX said:
I have double checked the plans and I am pretty sure I have everything in the right place, but I have to be missing something since others have not reported having to remove the lines to change brakes.

So what am I doing wrong here? :confused:

Kelly,

I think the reason that you haven't heard others reporting this is that in actual practice, it doesn't really matter. That's because at each condition inspection you'll be pulling the wheels off to either rotate/replace the tires and/or repack the wheel bearings. With the wheels removed, you can easily slide that inboard pad off without undoing the brake lines.

Another thing to note is that if you follow the plans, they tell you to put the two lower axle bolts in with the heads inboard (opposite of the top two) in order to prevent interference with the wheel pant. It looks like you have yours mounted with temporary nuts and bolts now, but you might want to check that before you mount things permanently. I took that admonition on faith (I didn't know any better back then :rolleyes: ) and when it came time to install the pants, I don't know if I really checked to see if the protruding bolts would have actually interfered. But if you do things per the plans, you won't be able to just remove the axle nuts to remove the pant bracket.
 
Ahhhhhhhhh. Now I get it. Thanks to both of you for your replies.

Kind of a bummer to have to jack it up and pull a wheel just to put new pads on it, but if that is what you have to do, that is what you have to do. The plane I fly now only requires you pull the two bolts. Couldn't get much easier.

As for the bolts being in backwards, yes, they are just temporary. I figured I would put them on and take them off a dozen times before I was done and didn't want to mess up the real bolts and nuts. I am probably over my initial estimate of a dozen by a factor of two by now, and I'm not even done yet. :eek:

Thanks again for your help.
 
Jack Fromm said:
Kelly,
With the wheels removed, you can easily slide that inboard pad off without undoing the brake lines.

Thats true, BUT, you can not change the brake linings on a grove gear installation without removing the wheel pant bracket or the brake line. Just the way it is.
 
You will notice the the picture here shows a lot of clearance for the cliper to be removed from the guid pins. I suspect this caliper would come off without removing the wheel pant bracket. Sorry for the giant pic.
20050718203705756_4_original.JPG


You will notice in this picture there is nearly no clearance. No chance that this one comes off without removing the wheel pant bracket.
Lbrakewheelpantbracketview071006.jpg
 
Kahuna,

Good catch. Since I am not looking at the setup as I type that, I did not remember that the bracket the guide pins go into is bolted on along with the axle, and would prevent the inner brake pad from coming off unless the bracket is unbolted.

Dave,

Looking at the picture you have, it still doesn't look as though there is enough clearance to get the caliper off without the line hitting the bracket. I take it you got that picture from Mickey's site? I sent Mickey and e-mail a while ago, but haven't heard back from him yet. Maybe I have the wrong address? I have been in contact with him before and he has been most helpful. He might be on travel. I'll post anything I find out from him.
 
brake caliper

Hi Scott,

Sorry I missed your e-mail. I doubt I can add much more
than has already been said in this thread. I have not yet tried
to remove my calipers without removing the wheels or
the bracket. I'd give it a try now if I were not so lazy! :)

If you would like more pictures, I'll be happy to shoot some.
 
Mickey,

Thanks for the response - I wasn't sure you would find the thread.

I had to modify my wheel pant brackets ever so slightly to allow the caliper to clear with the fitting attached. Only after that did I remember that there would be a line attached to that fitting making that mod essentially worthless. :rolleyes: Prior planning prevents ...

I guess it will have to be good the way it is, unless I scheme a way to route the line inboard of the wheel pant bracket and into a 90 degree fitting. Probably not worth the hassle.

A note on those braided lines: I have the stainless braided lines on the brakes on the Starduster I fly and they work great, but they have the annoying habit of gnawing through anything they touch if the vibrate at all. You might want to make sure you have something like plastic tubing around them anywhere they might rub.
 
Another option

brake_line_mod_002.jpg


Here's what I did to attach the brake line from the caliper to the bottom of the grove gear leg. I cut the existing
pre-made line shorter, (the shortest it comes pre-made is 12") then I put on a straight compression fitting
and attached it to a 45 degree fitting at the bottom hole in Grove Gear.

Doing it this way will still allow me to remove the caliper to change the pads without having to remove the wheel pant bracket.
 
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Dave,
Your brake line out of the gear is in a completely different location than mine. Did you move it?
Mine comes out the exact bottom of the gear. You have a blue plug in there in the picture above.
 
At first glance, drilling the inside surface of the leg to tap the internal passage would make me a little bit nervous. If I recall correctly, the stress concentration of a hole is about 3x. The new hole is located near the bend and near a change in section. The size of the leg at that point may have been governed by axle attachment; perhaps there is an excess of material and stress is low....or perhaps not.
 
brake lines

Unless my eyes are deceiving me, I believe the hose is just laying on the gear leg, not attached there. Compare to mine, and I believe you can see the coolness of Dave's idea.

 
Last edited:
<<Unless my eyes are deceiving me, I believe the hose is just laying on the gear leg..>

Ahh, you're right. Good eyes Mickey, duh on me. Wait, Kahuna mislead me. Yeah, yeah, it's Mike's fault! <g>
 
<<Unless my eyes are deceiving me, I believe the hose is just laying on the gear leg..>

Ahh, you're right. Good eyes Mickey, duh on me. Wait, Kahuna mislead me. Yeah, yeah, it's Mike's fault! <g>

OK I sent you guys down the wrong path. Picture fooled me!
Its never happened before and it wont happen again:)

I have been able to pull my pant support bracket away from the caliper enough to get it on and off without pulling the axle.
 
Dave,
Your brake line out of the gear is in a completely different location than mine. Did you move it?
Mine comes out the exact bottom of the gear. You have a blue plug in there in the picture above.

Mike,

I'm going to attach the line to were the blue plug is.. I just had to order a straight (1/8th NPT to -3) fitting to replace the 90 degree one that comes from Vans.
 
I knew I should have waited to post a final picture... LOL

I'm not drilling any new holes on the side. The line is just laying there to show the general curve the line will take when it's cut and shortened to attach to the original Grove brake line attach point on the bottom where the blue plug is.

I'll post a picture when it's completed later this weekend or early next week.

The only downside I see to this routing location, is it does lower the ground clearance a bit on the stainless steel braided line but I think as long as I can keep it short enough to have the line stay above the cleveland rim, it should be ok even if I get a flat tire.
 
At first glance, drilling the inside surface of the leg to tap the internal passage would make me a little bit nervous. If I recall correctly, the stress concentration of a hole is about 3x. The new hole is located near the bend and near a change in section. The size of the leg at that point may have been governed by axle attachment; perhaps there is an excess of material and stress is low....or perhaps not.

There's no hole there Dan... it's just the fitting laying on top of the bracket.
I haven't cut it yet.
 
Compare to mine, and I believe you can see the coolness of Dave's idea.

Thanks Mickey,
But I can't take all the credit. If it wasn't for your helpful website posts on the initial idea to use the braided flexible lines and fittings. I might not have come up with the idea to modify mine.
 
Borrowed idea

Thanks Mickey,
But I can't take all the credit. If it wasn't for your helpful website posts on the initial idea to use the braided flexible lines and fittings. I might not have come up with the idea to modify mine.
Thank you, but I "borrowed" the idea from Jack Fromm, who was kind enough to even send me the parts list, and the supplier contact info! It's no wonder these aircraft keep getting better and better when we all share ideas, tips, and tricks. I'm sure glad Al Gore invented the internet. :)
 
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