Sam James wheel pants install pics

With so little info out there on how the SJ pants are installed, I thought I post some pics of what I'm doing...I tossed the instructions.

Made these using the drawings provided-



Checked positioning of the front halves using cleco clamps (lots of trim iterations)-



Drilled the two halves together-



Since the pants are clear, it's easy to see the bracket to drill the pilot holes-



'Glassed the AL washer in place-



That's as far as I got over the last couple of days...more to come!

Why SJ

Is there something better about the SJ pants. Noticed they look shorter.

*Supposed* to be faster, but there isn't really any hard evidence that they are. Less frontal area is the main reason from what I understand. Other than that, it's a matter of which look one likes better...I like the flatter looking pant vs. the bulbous Van's pants.

Chad,
Please check PM's
Ryan

Few more pics from the last couple of days leading to installation...

'Glassed in a mud wall-




Inside shot of the brackets and front half-




Installed!






Still need the intersection fairings, but they were ordered today!

A different Sam James wheelpant installation technique. Not necessarily better, just different. 330 trouble free hours on turf.

Sam James wheelpants installation about 1/3 of the way down the page.

Vince, is the starfish-type bracket your design, or is that how the SJ pants used to be mounted? If it's in your text I missed it...read thru it tho, and it's great info!

I honestly don't recall if I made it up or saw it somewhere else. Chances are that if it is a good idea... it was shamelessly copied!

Chad, where did you get those axle nuts?

Axle nuts come from Van's in the finish kit with the 7. I think they come with the fuselage kit in the A's because the gear legs come in that kit...I think.

James vs. Vans wheel fairings

I have Sam James wheel fairings on my RV6. The common reason for SJ wheel fairings is because they are epoxy and, at the time, Van's had only polyester wheel fairings meaning the SJ units held their shape better and were faster. Then, sometime about 1999, Van's came out with the now common "pressure recovery" wheel fairing which were faster than the old polyester. James wheel fairings lost their appeal at that point.

My mounting brackets look exactly like the one's Chad built but the aluminum in mine is .090" thick since I had a 4' sheet of it around. In 375 hours with some operations off sod there has been no issues although I purposely did mount my fairings somewhat high with a wide space around the tires. One negative...a couple screws which hold the fairings to the mounting plate are difficult to get at because the landing gear leg fairings are in the way. If I were laying out the hole pattern again the spacing would be different.

In 2005 I rebuilt a wrecked RV4 as an insurance job. The polyester Van's fairings as well as the motor mount/landing gear were beyond reasonable repair so this was all replaced with new parts. To fit the new style Van's wheel fairing is considerably less work (I would say at least half as much labor) than the Sam James fairings. I cannot attest to any performance differences between the two epoxy units models.

Van's also had a problem and it was cracking in the mounting bracket and someone was making a heavier stainless steel aftermarket mount to replace the aluminum Van's part. Others will have to report on any cracking of Van's brackets because they may have solved that problem as well since 2005. Given the choices I had at the time I would say SJ is great but today I would use Van's and maybe beef up the bracket somewhat.

Dick DeCramer
RV6 N500DD
RV8 SB Fuselage complete
Northfield, MN

cjensen said:

Axle nuts come from Van's in the finish kit with the 7. I think they come with the fuselage kit in the A's because the gear legs come in that kit...I think.

Click to expand...

Thanks, no help to me. I'm installing James pants on my Pitts, so there is no finish kit for me! Thanks for the post and info!

Grant