The Cessna 120-140 Association Forum

Hi all,
new member here, just bought a 1946 140 and want to install steps. I bought a used set on ebay but the gear legs don't have the holes. Thinking of taking the legs off and have a machine shop drill the holes for me. First, any issues with doing this, and if its ok to do can anyone supply the measurements of where the holes need to be, meaning how far up the leg they should be.

Thanks,
Brian

No holes? My guess is you don't have 120/140 gear legs.

I don't know if you can just drill holes without going through re-treating the springs. There are enough issues with broken gear legs attributed to cracks originating at those holes

I'm not even sure where you should start asking...

Like the previous poster, I'm surprised you have gear legs with no holes.

You may have later C-170 gear legs. The ealier C-170 legs had rivets in the holes, then after they ran out of "original gear legs", they manufactured them w/o the holes (as the 170 doesn't have steps like the 120/140 series does.

What size are your axles bolts?
Have pictures? especially the lower bend area, where the axle would bolt on.

I just went thru my ragwing 170 parts book, no step. But they did have some sort of clip to hold the brake line in place at that location.

Axle bolts are all AN5's.

I had a friend years ago with a 170. He wanted to put solid axles on it and had to enlarge the bolt holes. I'm not sure if it was 1/4" to 5/16" or 5/16" to something bigger. Anyhow, the legs are so hard they were eating up his drill bits. I think he ended up having to use carbide bits.

I had to use a carbide reamer to take out a very small wobble in one of my right gear step holes. Actually several reamers.

Ok, yes it sure does look like these are 170 gear legs. Going to forget about drilling holes and look at other options. Thanks to all for the advice.