PA28-180 Wing Jack recomendations

Thinking about buying a wing jack for my Archer. I see a couple of designs
sold by Spruce, one a simple hydraulic jack with an adapter for cradling the
bottom of the main gear strut, another designed to catch the coned lift
point under the wing. Is there a reason to prefer one style over the other?

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Best Regards,
Mike

http://photoshow.comcast.net/mikenoel

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:42:08 -0700, "Mike Noel"
wrote:

Thinking about buying a wing jack for my Archer. I see a couple of designs
sold by Spruce, one a simple hydraulic jack with an adapter for cradling the
bottom of the main gear strut, another designed to catch the coned lift
point under the wing. Is there a reason to prefer one style over the other?

they both sound awfully suspect.

I've made successful wing jacks which the guys I built them for have
used incident free for over 10 years now.

essentially they are a wide stable base with supports up to a hollow
vertical tube. there should be enough space under the tube for a
standard hydraulic jack to fit. the jack should sit on a portion of
the base that is rigidly attached to the wide stable base.
sitting on the jack up through the vertical tube is a push bar.
the push bar is typically a tube with rigid end caps welded on. the
bottom cap has a recess to fit over the top of the jack. the top end
has a conical recess to mate with the wing support cone.
in operation you pump up the jack which pushes the push bar up mating
with the cone and lifting the wing up. it also helps if a transverse
pin can safety the extended bar in position to guard against hydraulic
leaks in the jack.

important considerations.
if the aircraft comes off the jack there will be major structural
damage done. my bases were hexagons in 2 inch diameter tube about a
metre across.
if the push bar ever disengages from the top of the jack there will be
major structural damage done. make sure that in operation the things
cant come apart.

with the jack pushing down on some bars across the hexagon they are
nearly impossible to tip over. being a hexagonal base there are 3
supports up to the outer guide tube.

you can weld quite suitable ones up yourself if you have a lathe to
turn the end recesses.

Stealth Pilot

"Mike Noel" wrote in message
. ..
Thinking about buying a wing jack for my Archer. I see a couple of
designs sold by Spruce, one a simple hydraulic jack with an adapter for
cradling the bottom of the main gear strut, another designed to catch the
coned lift point under the wing. Is there a reason to prefer one style
over the other?

The one that cradles the bottom of the main strut is useful for servicing
tires/wheels but prevents strut maintenance.

The lift point under the wing allows more variety of maintenance.

The one that picks up the jack cones on the wing spar is preferred..

The strut adapter type will not enable inspection/servicing the gear
struts and mounts.

Dave




On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:42:08 -0700, "Mike Noel"
wrote:

Thinking about buying a wing jack for my Archer. I see a couple of designs
sold by Spruce, one a simple hydraulic jack with an adapter for cradling the
bottom of the main gear strut, another designed to catch the coned lift
point under the wing. Is there a reason to prefer one style over the other?