Fitting wheel pants - question

Fitting the wheel pants and on page 36-03 the instruction is to trim off the back end of the front half in order to align the dimples with the holes in U-00002.
Is this super critical with a "gotcha" moment later on, or can it be slightly out. Without trimming I see about 8/32 out.

Thanks!

Drill it.

Just finished this step yesterday and I made the executive call not to trim the front piece of the wheel pants to match up the dimples. Our wheel pants were lined up so nice I did not want to have to do that again.
On the RV-10, I had to jack the plane off the ground, draw lines on the ground and align the wheel pants perfectly to the airstream, there were no dimples. With the -12, those dimples should align everything without doing all that hard work. So what I thought was critical was having both sides the same. On mine, both U-00002's were off by the exact amount so I knew the wheel pant would be straight.
I drilled the front, top hole first, then aligned the back hole spacing it evenly vertically and drilled the back holes. Our holes were off by about 1/2 the distance of the #19 hole in the U-00002 bracket. So ours may be shifted by 1/16-1/8" back but should be perfect in pitch and yaw.

Good luck!

Thanks Scott,
I eventually did it as per plans last night. For one reason and this was that I have noticed that the dimples on the front half, where you drill and attach the plate nuts to hold the two halves together, were too close to the edge of the rear spat's flange.

Need advice on alignment

I am fitting my wheel pants and the right side pants came out right on, but I am .100 of an inch short on the inside front left wheel pant. The rear half of both pants are aligned correctly to the aircraft. I was too aggressive with my sanding and fitting on the left front wheel pant. The match lines are near perfect when I mate the pants, but after drilling the dimple the spacing is .100 to short on the inside wheel pant . When I attach it to the U-00002 bracket I have a gap on the inside of .100 of an inch. How critical is the alignment of the front of the wheel pants to the dimple. The rear wheel pant is aligned with the dimple so it is only the front rounded part of the wheel pant that is off. Will a .100 inch shift cause an averse Yaw if I close the gap by elongating the dimple hole in the front cover?

Can you fill the misplaced hole(s) in with chopped glass and resin, then re-drill?

Wheel Pants

Joe,
Thanks for your reply. I can deal with holes easy enough. I only have to rework holes if I assemble the two half?s of the pants together without any gap and elongate the factory dimpled holes. That is an easy way to continue the build.

The harder way is to use the dimpled hole supplied by Vans. I will need to fill in a gap of about .100 of an inch half way around the mating surfaces of the wheel pants.

I don?t want to unnecessarily make myself more work. Is the location of center-line of the front pant critical? If a shifting the center line of the front half of the main gear wheel pant by .100 inch doesn't cause a yaw or other aerodynamic problem, then It would be easier to elongate the hole, back fill with flox and move on.

Rick H

I am not qualified to answer an aerodynamic question. But if it were my plane, I would do as you wrote, elongate the hole, back fill with flox and move on.

Elongating the holes as you propose should not cause any serious problems. The alignment of the back portion is the most critical aerodynamically.
If you also keep in mind that when doing final prep for painting, a .040-.050 gap between parts is desired to allow for paint build up, etc., you probably don't need to displace it as far as you think.
If it were me, I would leave some of the gap and then finish to make it even once the installation has been completed.

rvbuilder2002 said:

... The alignment of the back portion is the most critical aerodynamically ...

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I don't remember seeing anything relating to the alignment of the back part of the fairings. How should they end up being aligned? Parallel to the center line of the fuse?

tomkk said:

I don't remember seeing anything relating to the alignment of the back part of the fairings. How should they end up being aligned? Parallel to the center line of the fuse?

Click to expand...

Tom,
If a builder follows the instruction and uses the dimples, the alignment is done for you.
So my point was since he isn't cheating the location of the rear dimples, the alignment is not being compromised much, if at all.

BTW, you need to update your blog with some flying pictures.....

Wheel Pants-Need advice on alignment

Scott has a good point. I'll leave a gap of .040" on the inside wheel pant, attache nut plates and sand other side to even the gap. An error of 1/16" is should be acceptable. Thanks for your help. I learn so much from this site.

rvbuilder2002 said:

If a builder follows the instruction and uses the dimples, the alignment is done for you.
So my point was since he isn't cheating the location of the rear dimples, the alignment is not being compromised much, if at all.

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks.

rvbuilder2002 said:

BTW, you need to update your blog with some flying pictures.....

Click to expand...

yeah, you're right. I've been waiting for it to get painted - it's at the paint shop now ...