Corroded Lift Struts

[akflyer 1427]

Here are some pics of the lift struts I replaced on my "C" HH. The covering was in good shape, but I could see some rust beginning to show under the paint right above the lower strut attach. I pulled the covering off and the wood fell off in most places. There were a few areas that the epoxy had actually held on and those areas were OK, but all the areas the epoxy had not adhered real well, it looked like crap and was all rusty. I started to sand blast and was just going to recoat and put them back on, but after looking them over I said BS on that noise and made new lift struts.

[C5Engineer 1170]

Yikes that's kind of scary. Mine appeared to be awesome shape during my rebuild. Maybe I should cut into them and make sure.

[akflyer 1427]

Would not hurt to have them Xrayed just like you would a piper strut.  Spend 2-300 hundered bucks on the Xray and you would have to wonder anymore..

[Trackwelder 12]

AK FLYER I know when yu built your new lift struts you went with a larger diameter and ticker tubing, fr your adjustable ed did you have it custom machined or were youu able to find an off-the-shelf part. I amlooking atdoing the same thing but I want to make sure I am doing it safely, I mde new spar carry throughs out of 1 and 1/4 inch tubing and amlooking atwhatI will need to do to strengthen the seat truss for larger landing gear but wthot access to a lathe the adjustable threaded joint looks to be a hod up, any ideas. I am trying to build this to haveabout a 600lb load limit.

[akflyer 1427]

AK FLYER I know when yu built your new lift struts you went with a larger diameter and ticker tubing, fr your adjustable ed did you have it custom machined or were youu able to find an off-the-shelf part. I amlooking atdoing the same thing but I want to make sure I am doing it safely, I mde new spar carry throughs out of 1 and 1/4 inch tubing and amlooking atwhatI will need to do to strengthen the seat truss for larger landing gear but wthot access to a lathe the adjustable threaded joint looks to be a hod up, any ideas. I am trying to build this to haveabout a 600lb load limit.

I cut the ends off my existing struts and slid them into the new 1"X.058" tubing. I made a good wide fish mouth on the tubing and welded them on. I also bought a new threaded rod end from AVID and welded that in because mine had been bent in the wreck.