Wheel Pant Quality

I?m about to fit my wheel pants & fairings. Last night I was test-fitting the front & back halves of the mains & found that the fit is really bad. The lip around the rear (large) part seems to be fair but will require a little fine tuning. However, when I slip the smaller front part on, it appears that I?ll need to do some considerable glass-work to get close to a good match. When I say glass work, I mean adding as much as 1/4" in places around the edge, not just 'sand-to-fit'.
I?ve been through all the other glass work on the plane (cowl, wing-tips, empennage fairing, etc.) and am familiar with the ups & downs of Van?s composite parts. But, I believe the wheel pants is some of the poorest. Is this what some of you have found?

What happened to Dan's post?

deek said:

What happened to Dan's post?

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I deleted it.

I just did my pants. well rough in mounted, yes they will require a lof of glass and sand work to make them show quality, but out of the box I would say they are a ten foot finish.

I guess I'm just whining. I'm so close to flying this thing I can taste it. Guess I thought I wasn't going to have to "worry" things into place any more. Silly me!
Like a good friend once told me. "Take your time on the last 10%, as that makes the difference between a 'good' plane and a 'great' plane."

Okay...now where is that sanding block?...

TX7A said:

I guess I'm just whining. I'm so close to flying this thing I can taste it...

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No need to have wheel pants to fly it! At the 4 year flying point I'm finally getting around to doing mine.

Mark

Crude

We've all been there. I found that using packaging tape as mold release, and dry micro as filler to get a good fit and contour, I had "aerodynamically serviceable" wheel pants in an evening or two. Two years later, they're still in primer with open pinholes. I'll finish them one of these days, but the plane flies fine as-is.

M

The quality of the wheel pants has most certainly slipped over the years. They used to fit together fairly well had few pin holes. The current issue wheel pants I think are built up with 100% recycled failure.

I had to lay up about 2 layers of 9 oz cloth to get the top of the back half to come flush with the front. Also had a major issue with the cowling as my two halves were not even overlapping when I first fit them. I did call Van's and they said they have since change suppliers of some of the Fiberglass parts such as the cowling.

Smilin' Jack

I recently finished off my wheel pants. No issues with the quality of the fiberglass. I started by trimming back the edges to the scribe lines. The over lap area should have some faint lines there to trim to. You can sand the trimmed area further to match up with the edge of the overlap. There is a bit of a ridge down the middle of the pants where the two sides come together. You have to sand that down on the overlap to make the front and back sit flush. I did a little bit of filling along that area, but not much on the rest of the pants.



You do need to open up the bottom of the wheel pant quite a bit to get it to fit around the tire. The scribed line needs to be opened up well over 1/2" just to start, and more after that to get a good 5/8" to 3/4" space between the pant and tire.

Mine were pretty bad too, but I did exactly what Bruce did. A little packing tape and some micro and it dresses them up quite well.