Support for wheel pants

[A Bruce Hughes]

My longeze has finished flight testing.   Now I want to improve it.

The most obvious way is to put the wheel pants on.

I have a pair that should be trimmed.   I think I can do that.

I bought the pair of axle nuts long ago.

Now I need to see how to support the other side.

I will appreciate any diagrams and a description.

Those must be in an archive but I am new to this group and do not know how to search.

The picture is poor; I can take better ones; I was not prepared.

Thank you for any comments.

Bruce Hughes

[Kent Ashton]

Bruce, a good way to search the web is with Google Verbatim.   https://www.google.com/webhp?tbs=li:1   Then select IMAGES and your search words.  It will search only for the words you enter.  Search for COZY WHEEL PANT BRACKET or COZY or LONG-EZ WHEEL PANT BRACKET will bring up many photos and expositions on how to mount wheel pants.  Google does not seem to catch all the photos on the other canard forums and groups so you will have to search them separately.

Many ways to do it but for the inside mount, I use a steel bracket--maybe .040 4130--with two nutplates (pic 2, bracket is reversed from the first pic) which gives a three-point mount (nut, bracket, bracket).  The bracket is drilled for the axle bolt pattern.  For this bracket, you would would have to remove your axles and sandwich the bracket between the strut and your brake lines.  Below is a photo from outside the wheel showing the bracket.   The bracket can be bent to match the inner contour of the pant.

One of the best Ideas I read for drilling the pant to the bracket was to position a laser pointer to point at the nutplate hole, then mount the pant and it will show where to drill for the bolt.  Or at strong light inside the pant will show the nutplate hole.    

It is a very fiddly process.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Kent Ashton

[Marc Zeitlin]

5 hours ago, Kent Ashton said:

any ways to do it but for the inside mount, I use a steel bracket--maybe .040 4130--with two nutplates (pic 2, bracket is reversed from the first pic) which gives a three-point mount (nut, bracket, bracket).

I have something very similar to what Kent describes on my plane, but I don't use that method anymore. I find that something like the image below is far more robust - having a large flange attached to the gear leg itself, with fore/aft halves of the pants and one outboard connection using the Vans axle nut gives a much stiffer connection with no loosening over time.

This is now what I install on customers' planes when they ask for wheel pants installations.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Marc Zeitlin

[A Bruce Hughes]

Kent, thank you VERY much for your reply.   That method sounds very good.   I will be out of state for 4 months so am trying to plan ahead.   If I use that method, I will treat the steel with chromate.  In the past I have used a lot of nut plates in various places.

--------------------------

Marc, thank you VERY much.  I suspect that I will use that method.   I will have about 4 other jobs to do first.  Time ran out before finishing them.  

Bruce

[Kent Ashton]

16 hours ago, Marc Zeitlin said:

I find that something like the image below is far more robust

Nice Marc, but there might be more to repair there after a tipback.  I have had two of them in different airplanes.  It broke the pant-fairing around the strut and did other damage but I was able to patch them up.  Come to think of, if you use a bracket like mine, it might be good to make it the arms out of horizontal pieces that will bend.  In my case, the aft end of the pant was forced up and the pant rotated around the outside axle nut.  My bracket did not bend very much which damaged the pant a little more.  If the bracket had bent, maybe my damage might have been limited to the fairing

I have seen guys that made a very strong rigid arm on the strut that stuck out in the rear of the pant to catch the airplane in a tipback but it does not seem very practical.  

Yeah, wheel pants are a pain.

[Ron Springer]

22 hours ago, Marc Zeitlin said:

This is now what I install on customers' planes when they ask for wheel pants installations.

Is there a write-up somewhere on the procedure to build a gear leg attachment like this?

[Marc Zeitlin]

3 hours ago, Ron Springer said:

Is there a write-up somewhere on the procedure to build a gear leg attachment like this?

Not of which I'm aware. I've got a customer who wants pants installed in the next couple of months sometime - I'll try to remember to take notes and create a write-up.

[A Bruce Hughes]

I also have to reshape the wheel pants as they are kinda short.   My tires are NOT thin from side to side

so it will be some work..

The 2 parts are inner and outer, not front and back like Marc's picture.