Wheel Pants

I originally fit the wheel pants, per the plans, while building the fuselage. This is done with the plane in flight attitude, so the tail was up. Years pass. After the first couple flights flying without my pants on (gasp!), it was time. So I put them back on the plane, with the tail down this time, and found I had almost no ground clearance. I couldn't even push the plane out of the hanger without dragging them. Not good.

So they went back on the shelf for a couple months because flying is more fun than working on fiberglass. Later, when I tried to adjust the fit of the pants I found that lower corner of the brake caliper hit the lower edge of the pant. I had never heard of this happening. I asked around and did a little research and found I was the only one with the problem! Great. Fine...take a deep breath and cut a big hole.

The great thing about fiberglass is that you can always rework it. The bad thing is it's a lot of work. Here I've glassed in the relief I had to cut on the inboard edge of the pant. After fairing this in with some Evercoat Rage Gold, it's barely noticeable.

After covering with some 'hot rod gray' sandable primer, this is how they look. Not award winning, but not bad either. They sit a little tail-high, giving me 1" clearance at the back edge of the tire.