Engine Update July 2009 Updates
July 26, 2009
Gear Fairings and Wheel Pants.... - 5.0 hrs

Today I used my new wing jacks to jack the plane up. I place a 1 x 4 on the bottom of the wing spar and positioned the jacks on each side. Worked like a champ. But then the front of the plane is nose heavy. I don't want to hear and tail dragger jokes! SO I put up some auto jacks with a 1 x 4 across that span and used 2 HD bottle jacks at the firewall edge. Works like a champ.

Next with the wheels off the ground each gear moved in like an inflight position. The tires spin freely. The left side brake line was just too big of a loop to fit nicely in the wheel pants so I had been needing to redo the loop. I removed the fitting and used a tubing cutter to cut off the flare. I reshaped the loop to a tighter fit and reflared the end. Perfect.

Then it was on to the gear fairings. I placed each fairing on the plan sheet and marked the cutlines on each end. Next I placed the cut pieces down again and marked the cut lines for the hose clamps. I reclamped each gearleg in place. So far so good.

Last I cut the notches out with the dremel tool. Reinstalled and clamped in place with the hose clamps. Also had to cut trim the bottoms to route the brakelines. Then it was back onto the wheel pants. Cut out some angle pieces to work up some jigs to hole the pants in place for fitting. Stealing this idea from Jeff B!



This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft.
My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.