Bush removal from Boeing 737 undercarriage components

737 undercarrige

Hanley Smith has developed a tool kit specifically to remove bushes from a Boeing 737 undercarriage set. By integrating the flexible ‘BushOut’ system with the collet system; bushes from 3.5″ down to 0.25″ inside diameter and with varying lengths are removed.

drawing of undercarriage

There are a number of considerations to be handled when removing bushes from aircraft components.

  1. To cater for a wide variation of bush sizes and including bushes that are mounted back to back.
  2. Remove bushes without damage to the main component.
  3. Take the tooling to the job to avoid moving large assemblies around the workshop. The standard BushOut tool is flexible and can be configured for bush sizes from 1.69″ to 3.5″. The kit used in this tool kit is designed to pull out bushes using a ram and a combination of cups to support the tool. Also included are pressure plates to apply the force evenly to the interlocked element ring.

Bushout elements Undercarriage bushes operating

Inserting the ‘BushOut’ elements to remove back to back bushes that are closely mounted.

The collet system handles bushes below 1.69″ both standard and back to back with diameters from 0.25″ up to 1.49″. The collets have been designed to remove multiple bushes from the undercarriage leg.

This picture shows an expanding collet being used for bushes below 1.69” enabling back to back bushes to be removed.

component assembly

Components assembled to pull out the bush from an aircraft leg

Smaller sizes of bush that are not fitted back to back and are removed using a combination of specially designed adapters to cater for single bushes mounted one inside another.

removing bushsmall bushes

Small bushes mounted one in another are removed using specially designed adapters
to cater for single bushes and with one internal to another

The ‘BushOut’ in combination with the collet system removes the bushes from a Boeing 737 undercarriage legs, arms and struts.

Hanley Smith Ltd can build a bush removal kit to your requirements.