My parents were visiting for the month of July, and during that time, Dad and I worked on the wheel pants. These turned out to be rather time consuming, and having Dad’s help was amazing. As a boat builder by trade, Dad’s an expert at working with fiberglass, amongst many other skills. The quality of his work and attention to detail are second only to his work ethic. Despite turning 80 this year, Dad was working in the garage from 7am until 10pm each day. He was working up until the last minute, and managed to see the wheel pants through to completion. Thanks Dad!!
I didn’t realize how long the wheel pants section was in the Vans instructions. Part of it is the details they provide on each step to prepare and finish the fiberglass parts. Despite the length of the instructions, we found there were some things missing that would have been super helpful. For example, some dimensions of how the pants should sit, relative to a level ground, would have allowed us to verify placement, before final drilling the pants.
A lot of the work involved fitting and finishing the pants, the gear leg fairings, and the upper and lower gap fairings. Lots of filling and sanding to get things to line up correctly and to fair out the transitions between parts.
In hindsight, it might have been worth looking at some 3rd party wheel pants, just to save some time. I’m happy with how the parts turned out, although I’m sure there will be a little more work before they are ready to be painted.
After mum and dad left, I painted the parts with Stuart Systems Ecoprime, a two part epoxy primer.
Trimming the various fiberglass fairingsAfter the initial attempt to install hinges in the gear leg fairings didn’t work out, Dad used some 2×4 to glue the hinges into position before riveting. This resulted in a much better finish.Initial test fit to locate the wheel pantsLocating the wheel pants onto the brackets which mount to the wheel assemblyLocating the wheel pantsTest fitting the gear leg and upper gap fairingsTest fitting the gear leg fairing and upper gap fairingsSome of the fairings had been repaired by Vans, including the edge of this fairing that was repaired with filler, which cracked and fell out. Dad cleaned this up and added some fiberglass for strengthSome of the fairings had been repaired by Vans, including the edge of this fairing that was repaired with filler, which cracked and fell out. Dad cleaned this up and added some fiberglass for strengthAttempting to get the correct angle for the wheel pants prior to final drilling holes.Installing nutplates on the wheel pantsTest fitting the wheel pants after installing nutplatesFitting the upper gap fairings. These needed some sanding, glassing, and filling to get a tight fit on the cowling Fairing the transition between the wheel pants and the lower gap fairingsFairing the transition between fore and aft halves of the wheel pants.Glassing up the aft flange of the upper gap fairings. Peel ply helps remove some excess resin and allowed me to clamp the glass down Before trimming the aft fiberglass flange on the upper gap fairings Two overlapping fiberglass flanges help to stabilize the trailing edge of the upper gap fairingsFinal fitting of the right wheel pants prior to removing, installing nutplates on the cowling, and then painting these parts.Parts removed and primed. Note the tail fairing also received some paint
