Hi folks,
I have been flying my RV 8 for about a year and 100 hours. I have been scratching my head about re-doing the wheel pants. I have Sam James pants and fit them a little too close to the tires. I use platenuts to hold the front and rear sections together. On the starboard side, two of the upper platenuts just slightly dig into the tire. Moreover, hard landings result in the rear of the pants scraping on the runway.
In my assessment, I have the pants too low over the tires. I thought I followed the instructions correctly in terms of spacing them off the ground and off the tires, but clearly they should be perhaps an inch higher. How exactly should one space them? How much tire/wheel should be exposed to the air and how much ground clearance is correct? I followed the thumb-thickness for clearance around the tires, so that has not been an issue.
I am thinking that I need to buy a new set and start from scratch. I molded in the fairing to the grove gear so re-positioning them higher would require a lot of fiberglass reworking. Might be simpler to keep flying with the current set while doing all the finish work on the new set.
I am looking for some guidance here.
I have been flying my RV 8 for about a year and 100 hours. I have been scratching my head about re-doing the wheel pants. I have Sam James pants and fit them a little too close to the tires. I use platenuts to hold the front and rear sections together. On the starboard side, two of the upper platenuts just slightly dig into the tire. Moreover, hard landings result in the rear of the pants scraping on the runway.
In my assessment, I have the pants too low over the tires. I thought I followed the instructions correctly in terms of spacing them off the ground and off the tires, but clearly they should be perhaps an inch higher. How exactly should one space them? How much tire/wheel should be exposed to the air and how much ground clearance is correct? I followed the thumb-thickness for clearance around the tires, so that has not been an issue.
I am thinking that I need to buy a new set and start from scratch. I molded in the fairing to the grove gear so re-positioning them higher would require a lot of fiberglass reworking. Might be simpler to keep flying with the current set while doing all the finish work on the new set.
I am looking for some guidance here.