April 2, 2007

This evening I continued with the wheelpants. I got the right hand one aligned and cleco’d. Next task was trimming the wheel hole and generally cleaning them up ready to assemble.

I did take pics tonight, but left the card in my camera. I wasn’t expecting to be updating the site this evening, but I need to come down from my late night soccer indoor soccer game.

I cleaned up the wheel openings on both wheelpants and then countersunk the holes for screws. Next I put #6 the nutplates on the rear half of the left pant, and riveted the outer bracket to it and put some epoxy and flox around the whole lot to give it some extra strength. I do like the flox stuff, it works pretty well.

I put drilled the inner brackets for nutplates too. Man that was a chore. We’re using stainless brackets, and they’re pretty darned tough. Then I riveted the nutplates on. Right now, the left wheelpant is about ready to be put on properly. Sweet! Now I need to catch up with the right side and get them on and fly the plane to see how much difference they make.