One of the questions we pondered when I first mentioned this project to my wife was "what will the neighbors think?"
Well, we never answered that question but whatever it is - they're probably thinking it right about now...

I started out this weekend by removing the left side gear - here is the jackstrut mount as viewed from inside.
A view that is only possible with a digital camera (unless you have a head that's less than 3 inches in diameter)

Here's the left gear leg from inside the gearbox. It's mounted directly to the structure - no shackle on this side

Here's the right gear leg and that pesky shackle that won't budge

Yikes! the Oleo is coming out like a big ugly turd

Inside the filthy gearbox with everything removed except that stinkin' right gear leg and shackle

Bottoms Up

After the stress management therapy of last week and careful thought - combined with a generous outpouring of helpful
advice from the folks on the Luscombe Digest I determined that the only way to get those frozen bolts out is to use
horrid, brutal force. So I sprung the seven bucks for a "Handy-Hack" with some extra blades and rolled up my sleeves
A new shackle was ordered from DLAHF along with new bushings

Okay... let's start here
The non-skid wrapped around the gear leg is to prevent the hacksaw from scratching it

It's a slow, tedious process - luckily I have a lot of patience

There's less clearance on the forward end so I have to hack in the up direction
this requires even MORE patience

Here is the lower link section that I cut out. You can see how the bolt and shackle are, for all intents and purposes, fused

Of course this means that the outer sections of the link are also still fused to the fwd and aft bolt sections that are still in there...
It's time to get "Midevil" with this sucker
You can't really tell from this picture but that's a triple cut bit that will tear right through just about anything on Earth

After carefully grinding through the shackle - emphasis on the word CAREFUL - I finally get it to let go of the bolt
The bolt end is still frozen in the mount bushing however. That's another task for another day - one thing at a time

The rest of the weekend was spent organizing the shop

With the fuselage elevated on the stand there's room to work sub-projects underneath - pretty neat
The little Luscombe can easily be worked in a standard sized two car garage
Ask me how I know...

A mechanical work of art

My "locker art" Don't ask why I had a 100 pound drum of MSG

What else would one do with a bunch of old Maxim issues?
 

The bulletin board with a decidedly Luscombe leaning format these days

I haven't abandoned the polishing. Once the gear is all out I'll be spraying some zinc chromate and some of the overspray
will inevitably get onto the fuselage so I've stopped polishing for now while I concentrate on the mechanical stuff