M

m3tt5

Active Member
I have the older style wheel pant's and they are in need of some repair and new paint. I like the old style because I keep it on a grass strip and I would like to go to the new style but not sure what would be better. Get someone to repair my old wheel pant's and paint them. Get the new style and put them on at which I have no idea how to do. I have a RV6a so is their a new style for the nose wheel? Would I gain much speed with the new style wheel pant's? I don't have intersection fairing's up buy the gear leg. Would that help anything or should I just leave the intersection fairing alone? Would they be more trouble than what I would gain? I now nothing about fiberglass repair and I'm finding out it is hard to find someone that dose fiberglass repair.
 
The easiest and least painful way to do this is to find someone who has built a composite airplane. Local EAA chapters, or online at ez.org or other sites can be a start.

Wheel pants are relatively trivial for these guys, and they can be bribed with beer, or the offer to intall a handful of rivets.

It's not all that hard, but easier to find someone local who has done it.
 
Just do it!

Repairing the wheel pants with fiberglass is like putting on a patch that can be sanded to perfect shape. There is nothing to it at all and you should do it to remove your blind spot in this part of aircraft building. There is no significant risk. The intersection fairings will give you more speed and they should be installed.

Bob Axsom
 
My 6A has the new style wheel pants for the mains, and old style two piece for the nose gear. The plane always seems fast when running with others, so who knows..

I'm retaining the older nose fork too, along with the Cleveland wheel & axle. The leg was updated around the year 2000.

L.Adamson ---- RV6A
 
I just wondering how much faster it will go as it seems to go pretty fast right now. But I alway's want to go faster. The only thing I have to compare to is a 180hp RV6 taildragger that seemed to be about 3mph faster maybe not much though he has a fixed pitch prop as I do to and I have a 160hp. So I was wondering if I put on the new wheel pant's and fairing's they say will gain about 5mph if this is true and maybe I will go faster than my buddy. I hate to go through a bunch of trouble for nothing.
 
Bob Axsom said:
Repairing the wheel pants with fiberglass is like putting on a patch that can be sanded to perfect shape. There is nothing to it at all and you should do it to remove your blind spot in this part of aircraft building. There is no significant risk. The intersection fairings will give you more speed and they should be installed.

Bob Axsom
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As a friend once told me, "Working with fiberglass is like working with drywall. If you mess it up, sand it off and put more on."

As someone else said, contact your local EAA chapter. If you can't get one of the composite guys to help, there will be an RV builder in the bunch who can give you some pointers.

New wheel pants and be put on "high" so you won't have an issue with the grass.
 
I did find a local guy that can work with fiberglass that thinks he can fix them. I am still thinking about putting the new style on and have this guy help.
 
The performance gain from the new pants is probably very small and I would be surprised if its more than a knot or two.

Do you have any pictures of the damage? I'd be happy to take a look and provide you with advice for repairing them. My neighbors wheel pants were missing HUGE chunks o the bottom. However, I was able to pull a mold off the bottom of my own pant, clecoe it onto his pant and lay up the missing area.
 
David Shelton said:
The performance gain from the new pants is probably very small and I would be surprised if its more than a knot or two.

Do you have any pictures of the damage? I'd be happy to take a look and provide you with advice for repairing them. My neighbors wheel pants were missing HUGE chunks o the bottom. However, I was able to pull a mold off the bottom of my own pant, clecoe it onto his pant and lay up the missing area.
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Thanks David But I found a guy here close and he picked them up tonight. I hope he does a good job or I'll be contacting you. Thanks
 
Old style are by far tougher

I've had both styles and enough hours to make a reasonable assessment of the durability of old vs. new. Though the new style will be able to give you an unmeasurable amount of extra speed, and look sexy at the same time The old style have never failed me. I have landed on countless unimproved rocky strips and never had a crack. The new style on the other hand has been a real problem. The first new style ones that I put on developed numerous internal holes from the inside out. I threw them away and installed a new pair of the new style. Again landing on a smooth gravel strip, I had repairs around the bottom, which was broken off. It was a simple repair. Just add material, fill and sand. Oh yea, and the paint too. The point is, if you have the old style stick with them. Steve Barnes "The Bjulders Coach"
 
Old style are by far tougher

I've had both styles and enough hours to make a reasonable assessment of the durability of old vs. new. Though the new style will be able to give you an unmeasurable amount of extra speed, and look sexy at the same time The old style have never failed me. I have landed on countless unimproved rocky strips and never had a crack. The new style on the other hand has been a real problem. The first new style ones that I put on developed numerous internal holes from the inside out. I threw them away and installed a new pair of the new style. Again landing on a smooth gravel strip, I had repairs around the bottom, which was broken off. It was a simple repair. Just add material, fill and sand. Oh yea, and the paint too. The point is, if you have the old style stick with them. Steve Barnes "The Builders Coach"
 
m3tt5 said:
But I alway's want to go faster. The only thing I have to compare to is a 180hp RV6 taildragger that seemed to be about 3mph faster maybe not much though he has a fixed pitch prop as I do to and I have a 160hp. So I was wondering if I put on the new wheel pant's and fairing's they say will gain about 5mph if this is true and maybe I will go faster than my buddy.

Matt maybe put the nose wheel on the tail and you might be able to pass your buddys plane? Merry Christmas
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Old vs new style

After about 500 hours on my RV6, I decided to change from the old to new style wheel pants. This included the newer type gear leg fairings and better intersection fairings. The old gear leg fairings were the two piece metal and the old intersection fairings on the fuselage weren't as clean as they could have been.
Since I knew the plan, I decided to do some speed runs, using the GPS in four directions to get average speed, before I started.
In the end, the speed gain was between 5 and 8 MPH, over several speed runs.
I flew the plane at least 400 hours more after the change and never had any issues with the new wheel pants or gear leg fairings. They looked like new when they went to the new owner.
Oh yeah, I added gear leg stiffeners at the same time and I will say that they did make a difference, taking some spring out of the gear legs. For me, that was a good mod to the gear legs.
 
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