e-starter landing gear

[sheldo78]

Has anyone had problems with the landing gear on these things. After a couple hard landings on a dirt road the gear and the insert in the foam has ripped out. I have repaired by inserting a grooved piece of wood in the foam but I'm not sure this was the best fix. Will changing to foam tires help. Does anyone have a better fix. My e-starter has steerable rear wheel. Is the tricycle set-up better. Any advice is greatly appriciated!!!!

[firemanbill]

I put foam tires on ours and they seemed to work well.

I did rip the gear out a time or two but a whole bunch of 5 minute epoxy took care of that problem... Prolly added a bit of weight but they didn't come back out again!;-)

[herk_1]

Lots of people report the gear mount coming out on their E-Starter, and it happened on mine too. When mine came off, I could see that the amount of surface area where the epoxy had been making contact between both the plastic piece and the styrofoam was minimal; that piece just doesn't fit very snugly. I fixed it up by reinforcing the area around the gear mount with plywood, then Gorilla-gluing in the plastic mount (see photo; I painted over the plywood). My method was probably overkill (and a lot of work). Other people have said that using Gorilla glue alone fixed it, because of the way it foams up and fills in the area, so you don't have that minimal contact issue.