[Dgamble]

Being as I'm (overly?) paranoid about the little tab that's intended to secure the leg fairings breaking, I added a thin (.020) aluminum doubler to hopefully strengthen the tab. My concern now is that I'm going to be placing a piece of aluminum (albeit Alclad) in direct contact with the gear leg. Should I put some kind of buffer between the two metals to prevent dissimilar metal corrosion? If so, any suggestions on what to use?

 

[kentb]

Use more fiberglass

One of my tabs broke. I wrapped the leg with plastic wrap. slapped a couple of layers of fiberglass on the leg under the tab and then carefully and loosely clamped the fairing back on. After hardening I removed the plastic and re-clamped. So far so good. I think it might even be stronger with some aluminum in between, but having a glass layer that is a perfect fit the leg helps make sure the the glass is not under clamping stress.

Kent

 

[dan]

Fill the leg with Great Stuff spray foam (from Home Depot). Holds the fairing nicely. I tried clamps, fiberglass reinforcement, aluminum reinforcement, and they all failed eventually. Great Stuff foam has held my leg fairings in place perfectly...coming up on 1200 hours.

 

[szicree]

Dan,

How bad do you think it would be if you had to remove the fairings? Did you just dump the foam in from the top?

 

[dan]

Dan,

How bad do you think it would be if you had to remove the fairings? Did you just dump the foam in from the top?

Pour gas in, it's gone. No big deal.

I "injected" the foam in from the top and the bottom. The Great Stuff cans have like 7 or 8" long extension tubes.

Some would say you just need to fill the top and bottom ends and leave the middle empty. I'd tend to agree with that, but mine are full fwiw.