looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

[mhorowit]

I'd like to mount bike tires to the fuselage so I can push it around.
I'm open to suggestions on how that might be accomplished.

I could build two forks for the tires, then connect the two wheels at 90* and 4' distant. Any simpler ways? - Mike

[flyguy]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

How about a dolly? Misc types available.
DC

[mhorowit]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

How about a dolly? Misc types available.
DC

tell me more. how do you visualize mounting the bike tires? - Mike

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

A piece of wood with a hole drilled in each end for a steel rod to fit the front bike wheel bearing (a proper size bolt will work for this). Two 2x4s laminated would work for the wood). You need to wrap the ends of the wood to keep the bolt or rod from splitting it out.
Use the smaller "moto cross" type bike wheels, and only the front ones. Lots of those bikes get trashed when the kids break their arms jumping curbs (get straight wheels, potato chipped wheels are a LOT weaker). The wood should be wide enough to still get the doors open with the board under the gear mount lugs on the fuselage but as short as possible to keep the wood from bowing too much.
If you are really cheap like me you can just put an old bolt through the strut/gear lugs and wrap safety wire around the board and bolt to tie it together. If the boards start to bow too much just wrap some wire between the bolts/rods and wedge some blocks between the boards and wire on the bottom like a queen post.
Hope that is easy to understand. It's been a while and both my fuselages are back on the gear now.
Hank

[mhorowit]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

A piece of wood with a hole drilled in each end for a steel rod to fit the front bike wheel bearing (a proper size bolt will work for this). Two 2x4s laminated would work for the wood). You need to wrap the ends of the wood to keep the bolt or rod from splitting it out.
Use the smaller "moto cross" type bike wheels, and only the front ones. Lots of those bikes get trashed when the kids break their arms jumping curbs (get straight wheels, potato chipped wheels are a LOT weaker). The wood should be wide enough to still get the doors open with the board under the gear mount lugs on the fuselage but as short as possible to keep the wood from bowing too much.
If you are really cheap like me you can just put an old bolt through the strut/gear lugs and wrap safety wire around the board and bolt to tie it together. If the boards start to bow too much just wrap some wire between the bolts/rods and wedge some blocks between the boards and wire on the bottom like a queen post.
Hope that is easy to understand. It's been a while and both my fuselages are back on the gear now.
Hank

Hank - so just remove the existing axles and bearings and replace with a bolt, correct? - Mike

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

I don't remember removing the bearings, but for just rolling around the shop I guess you could. I would use a bolt with the grip in the wheel, not threads. If you use steel rod you just shim the wheel with washers and cotter key the last washer. I can't remember how the bolt or rod was held in the wood, but if I was doing it today i would just trap a couple of nuts between the 2x4s or maybe use a piece of wire through a cotter pin hole trapped between the 2x4s. The big problem I remember was to make sure you wrap the ends of the 2x4s. If you don't, the wood will split out from the bolts.
Hank

[VictorBravo]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

Buy three large casters, mount them on a 3x3 piece of plywood with round top carriage bolts, to create a dolly that will not damage your fuselage.

Put a piece of carpet on the dolly. It must be USED carpet, avocado green circa 1973, high plush pile, from a scrap heap, to work properly. I recommend LAMA brand carpet, which was made in Tibet in the mid 1970's.

Put the fuselage on the dolly, with the dolly EXACTLY 6 inches in front of the fuselage balance point. This will create a downforce of precisely 3 pounds on the tail end of the fuselage.

Place the tail end of the fuselage on a small square of contrasting carpet to prevent it from being scratched.

When you want to move the fuselage, grab it just behind the dolly, lift the tail off the floor, and roll the fuselage wherever you want it. Replace the small square of carpet under the tail when appropriate, so the tail downforce keeps the fuselage from rolling down a "path" to somewhere else on it's own.

If you have to move the fuselage slightly on the dolly to make the tail less heavy (to en-lighten the tail) you may do so.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, I call this method... The Dolly LAMA path to enlightenment.

[mhorowit]

problem solved -

I rescued the bicycle forks and will weld them to a piece of angle iron which will run across the bottom of the frame and bolt into the LG attach points(forward).

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, I call this method... The Dolly LAMA path to enlightenment.

And you sir are a sick puppy!

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

Be REAL careful with the forks! If you bolt them to the landing gear lugs so that they apply a to them you could damage the airframe. The reason for the wood across the fuselage and the wheels in the middle is to NOT apply anything but a straight UP load on the lugs.
Hank
Honestly, the casters on the plywood sounds simpler and more effective than my design anyway, and it has lots of other uses when you are done with the fuselage! Use big enough wheels to make it easy to roll your full trash can all the way to the airport dumpster. I HATE hauling that stupid thing!

[flyguy]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

Just get you 4 made in China caster-type wheels, 4 pieces of 2X4, nail the boards together, tack a piece of plywood on top, mount the casters on the 2 x4's, and set the fuselage on it. Moves in any direction. Got thick plywood, forget the 2 X4's, like Bill says. Little more practical to have around the hangar/garage with 4 wheels.
DC

[VictorBravo]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

Mike, if you weld the bike wheel axles to an angle iron, just forget about bolting it to the LG mounts. By doing that you remove any and all chances of doing damage to the fuselage of a 60+ year old airplane. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to take that risk and all downside if something goes wrong.

Make up the angle iron/axle assembly as you said. Put a piece of $2 foam tube pipe insulation over the angle iron, to protect the fuselage. Set the fuselage onto this padded angle iron, and just tie a rope around the forward landing gear area lower longeron clusters and around the padded axle on each side.

You're done, no bolts, no chance of bending anything, no fuselage damage, no leverage force applied somewhere it should not be, no cost/time of bolts, no holes to drill... and 100% of the same utility and convenience to move the fuselage around.

Spend your precious time and money fixing the !($*% airplane instead of making shop fixtures!

[Len Petterson]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

Mike remember : K.I.S.S!
Keep it simple stubid. Gott me out of truble may times by not making something I din't needed.
If it involves alot of work it is too complicated.
No offence meant, we all need a reminder sometime, me too.
Len

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

K.I.S.S.? Come on, I worked for NASA!

Victor Bravo has the right idea (although I would half lap the wood frame under the plywood so the ply wouldn't get a bowing load and the top would stay flat, but again NOTHING is simple at NASA). You might want to nail a couple of pieces of ply to the top with square cutouts as sockets for the gear lugs to sit in so the fuselage doesn't try to spin on the carpet atop the ply.
Fixtures are great, but ONLY if they reduce the total work, NOT when they become the project!
Hank

I don't take offense. I'm a contractor now and seeing my old agency from the outside can be a real eye opener!

[mikerice]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

I used a carpeted furniture dolly all the time at the Taylorcraft factory. It was cheap - 19.95 at Home Depot and 14.95 at Northern Tool.

It was easy to rock the fuselage on to the furniture dolly, the carpet protected the frame, it was easy to maneuver by one person. It was as KISS as it gets!

It preferred a concrete floor, but it handled rough surfaces pretty well. Across gravel, I just laid down 2 thin plywood sheets and swapped the sheets as I drove a 500lb Cessna 310 wing across the sheets by myself.


Of course if I was still working at NASA, this would have been my preference:
a hovercraft pad!

[crispy critter]

Re: looking for suggestions - mounting bicycle tires to fuse?

If you just want to keep it mobile so one person can easily move it around how about just buying a piece of straight half inch(or whatever size it takes to fit the inside of your wheels with the axles removed)round stock long enough to go across the width of the bottom of the fuslage between the front gear fittings brackets. Clamp it to the tubing some how(lots if big zip ties would probably work),then jusst remove the axle from the bicycle wheels and slide them on the clamped axle. Drill a cotter pin hole on each side of where you want the wheels to mount,put a washer on each side of the wheel with a cotter pin on each side to hold it where you want it. Quick,cheap,simple,and easy. If you can not remove the axles from the bike wheels then you can still pick up some type of coaster type wheels at almost any hardware store or bicycle shop that will work for $20-40 bucks for the pair(depending on how tall and fancy you want them to be). Then one person can pick it up by the tail post area and move it anywhere you want. If you want to make it lighter on the tail to pick up and move then simply move your axle back to the rear gear mounting location.