Nose gear SM-41 Help!

It sounds like you have a Dual Fork ( SK-17 ) nose gear assembly. Is your steering scissors aluminum or steel? If it is aluminum, you most likely have the SK-17 dual fork nose gear assembly installed on your Ercoupe. On the SK-17 assembly, the inner cylinder is held in place with snap rings, not screws as described in SM-41. These two snap rings can be accessed by pushing the inner cylinder upwards, then working in the gap created under the shock absorber and the outer cylinder remove the snap rings. The inner shaft assembly then can be removed out the top of the outer cylinder. If this does not work, please contact me directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. I have had difficulty in getting a couple of the nose gear apart, and can understand your frustration.

Neither my two A&P's nor I can figure out how to disassemble the oleo strut. All goes well until we get to (c) (2), "Push down cylinder head assembly into outer cylinder until oil retainer support is exposed." No way is that cylinder head going to go down far enough to expose anything. We thought maybe the (dual) fork needed to come off the inner tube, but that too is not about to come off the inner cylinder. I don't want to hurt anything by using force, so we're stuck. Everything appears to be in good shape; the reason for the tear down is oil leaking and broken or wrong taxi spring. Suggestions?