Wheel Paint & Gear Leg Fairing Steps?

Hello All,
I am working on the wheel pant to gear leg fairings and the gear leg to fuse fairings. I purchased the ones from Vans and they look really nice. Does anyone have the steps and/or photos of how they went about fitting to the aircraft. Any best practices or builder tricks for these? This is on a 7.

Thanks,

John

pilot28906 said:

Hello All,
I am working on the wheel pant to gear leg fairings and the gear leg to fuse fairings. I purchased the ones from Vans and they look really nice. Does anyone have the steps and/or photos of how they went about fitting to the aircraft. Any best practices or builder tricks for these? This is on a 7.Thanks, John

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No expert on RV-A's (only built tail drag'ers), but I believe they all come with steps. Call Van Aircraft and tell them you want steps and support structure for your RV-7, they should be able to help you. I think the fuselage should be able to accept it. I looked at preview plans and did not see it. My RV-7 planes are not handy.

Sorry, I meant what are the steps (process) to fit the fairings on an RV-7.

pilot28906 said:

Sorry, I meant what are the steps (process) to fit the fairings on an RV-7.

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When I did mine I installed the gear leg fairings first. Aircraft level in flight attitude and off the gear on sawhorses. Aligned the fairings as per the string method in the manual. Wheel pants were then aligned and installed, again, as per the manual and some build sites that I followed. My Vans intersection fairings were a terrible fit. I got some from RV Bits which fit great, instead of trying to rework the Vans fairings. The intersection fairings were installed as per the instructions using nut plates and #6 FH screws. I drilled pilot holes through the fairing and fuse at the firewall flange and installed nut plates, one at the top and one at the bottom for the uppers. Some people choose to glass the lowers to the pant and split them at the pant split line. Glass is not my thing so I just installed them with 3 nut plates and #6 FH screws as one piece. Just be sure to miss the brakes/lines and tire when you drill the pilot holes if you are screwing them on.

Technically I believe you are supposed to fly the plane before installing the pants and leg fairings to ensure it flies straight, then install the gear leg fairings and test fly again to ensure they are correctly aligned as it can have quite an effect if they are misaligned. Lastly install the pants and intersection fairings. I didn't do this. Lucked out I suppose since the plane flies straight.

Leg fairings and wheel pants first. Once those are in place, then the intersection fairing positions are set to those.
The Van's fairings come with a lot more edge flange than is necessary, so you can cut them back quite a bit and they will fit better to the wheel pants and leg fairings. Drill a couple of holes through the intersection fairings and into the wheel pants to hold the correct position and then you can do the slicing into forward and rear sections on the wheel pants.
If you like pictures, see my build log here: https://www.overthehills.com/RV-9A-Project/Finish-Kit/Landing-Gear/

Thanks for the info all.

Bruce the photos are great. My Van's fairing's instructions say to lay up two additional layers of glass for strength. Did you do this or just use them as they came?

Thanks,