Cowling Wheel Pants and Fairings

Updated 4/23/01

Installing the wheel pants was fairly straight forward.  They took some trimming and sanding to get the halves to fit together and there is quite a bit of filling and sanding still to do. 

I followed the instructions in the Orndorf video rather than the manual and am pleased with the results.  One thing the video does not take into account is a floor that is not flat.  Be sure to take this into account when measuring at the  rear of the fairing to set the pitch angle (that is the height of the back of the pant from the floor).

Once attached they seem amazingly sturdy.

The wheel pant clamped in position just before drilling
Fitting the cowl has proven to be very challenging. A scrap hub from the prop shop is used to hold the spinner in position while waiting the 20 weeks for the new prop to arrive.  The top section was not too bad as only the rear surface has to be trimmed and fit.  The bottom requires the front rear and horizontal sections all to match at the same time.

First  I trimmed to get the front overlapping section to fit.  The sides and rear sections were trimmed incrementally and alternately until until drilling of the cowl to the fuselage was possible.  Finally the halves were joined. I created a long sanding block by using double stick tape to attach strips of 36 grit sand paper to a 3 foot long level. This enabled sanding a long straight joint between the halves. 

The engine was intentionally placed 1/4" high in the cowl to allow for sagging over time. (hope it sags!) 

Fitting in Progress.

I stole this idea for attaching the cowling halves from Danny King via the RV-8 internet chat list.  Long hinge pins are inserted through the landing gear boxes and F-802 as shown above.  They continue through the baggage compartment (shown to the right) and firewall and into the hinges that attach the top and bottom cowl halves. 

I used 1/8" rigid brass tubing held in place with JB Weld as a channel for the hinge pins through the gear boxes and F-802.  A 12" drill bit was used to drill through the three bulkheads and keep the hole in line.

 Careful inspection of this picture shows the hinge pin running along the fuselage edge above all the other plumbing.  Also visible is the expensive vacuum regulator.
The empennage fairing was much easier to install than expected.  It fit really well right out of the box.  One has only to decide where to put the fasteners and then drill out some rivets on the edges of the HS and VS and replace them with nutplates.  I firmly pushed the fairing in position and drilled through into the open holes created in the stabilizers.  Once clecoed in place the fairing was marked, removed and trimmed to have equal overlap all around. 

The Empennage Fairing Drilled and Clecoed in Place

The Spinner with Gap Filler. Fiberglass from the oil door cutout was used to fill the gaps behind the propellor.  The curvature was nearly a perfect Fit.

Fastening the trailing edge if this guy was tricky.  I used "nutserts"  which are similar to rivnuts.  

Electrical tape is used to prevent the wind from peeling up the leading edge of the aft portion of the fairing in flight. Hopefully a matching colored tape can be found for the final paint.
  

The clay mold process was used to lay up all the intersection fairings. They are made of epoxy resin and 3 layers of 10 oz. glass.  
Bottom of the upper intersection fairing.  The trailing edge is held together with a loop of .020" safety wire temporarily.