My pants are too tight!

[John Slade]

A while back I managed to get on the list for the wheel pant molds. I believe these molds were orgininally designed for a Long-Ez.

I'm now fitting the wheel pants on my Cozy IV and finding them to be a little tight. Does anyone know how much clearance I should be looking for between the tire and the pants, both above the pant and at the sides? Also - how much tire should be showing?

Am I wasting my time?

[Nat Puffer]

Wheel pants designed for the Long EZ will require some modification to fit the Cozy Mark IV, mainly because the Mark IV struts are wider and the struts exit the wheel pants lower than on a Long EZ. What I did to make sure I had enough clearance between the tire and the wheelpants was to stick some 3/8 in. pvc foam to the tire at the spots which would come the closest. This provided clearance at the top of the tire, and also mounted the pants as low as possible. Low as possible will give the least drag, but can be very close to the ground when parked with the nose down, can bump the hangar door threshold when moving in and out, and can rest on the ground when parked on soft ground (like at Oshkosh and S & F). Both Vance and I found this out. So you may want to mount them with a little more clearance than 3/8 on top, and sacrifice 1 or 2 knots of speed. The Long EZ pants should be wide enough for the wheel, strut, and calipers. That is with Clevelands. Can't speak for something else.

[John Slade]

Thanks, Nat

The positions of the holes is no problem, and my Matco triple puck brake calipers fit inside the pant with plenty of room to spare. It was the 3/8 clearance I was looking for. One more measurement I'd like to compare is the amount of tire typically showing below the pant lip. I think this is where the LongEz molds are coming up a bit short.

[John Slade]

A final note on the wheel pants...

After a lot of shoving, pushing and wiggling, I decided that the pants were about 3/4 inch too narrow at the front of the wheel cut out. I slit them from the nose to the center of the wheel cutout and glassed in the V. Now they fit nicely. They're about level with the wheel rim, so they could be about 1.5 inches lower. I'm thinking of using the same technique to make them a bit deeper. In the end I'm hoping to have a pair of small wheel pants that fit the wheel with minimum drag. Isnt epoxy fun!

John Slade

[unick3]

I am totally convinced wheel pants take a tremendous amount of abuse. With 1600 hrs on my pants I have a recommendation.

 

I had to repaired a number of cracks, also the tearing and ripping of the glass on my pants. Especially around the opening for the wheel. I finally stopped this by putting 2 layers of Kevlar (1” wide) around the opening to prevent tearing of the original glass. Crackes (tearing) develop around the wheel opening because glass does not work well when you have a sharp edge (cut out opening) and then you put it in shear (vibration, wheel contact, rocks, etc). Glass is meant for tension, not shear. Kevlar seems to stop this problem.

 

Before you finish the pants take a close look at any place that could develop cracks (sharp corners, sharp edges of re-enforcing tape (not being feathered out) etc and correct the areas before you have problems because if you don’t you WILL.

 

My next pants will be made out of 1 layer glass and 2 layers Kevlar and every mounting point heavily strengthened (carbon). I am tired of fixing and repainting them (this is the 5th time).

[John Slade]

Thanks, Nick. I'd never heard that before. Too late for the kelvar, but I'll definately reinforce the edges and smooth everything out.

[unick3]

It probably not to late for the kevlar (I just did my second pant). All I did was put two layers on the INSIDE of the pant around the hole. Just rough up the glass and put it on. I did the first one hundred hrs or so ago and while repairing them AGAIN, I did the other side.