Chuck, I had a shimmy problem with the nose gear on my 74 Archer and had it
fixed by an FBO that specialized in such things. After verifying the shimmy
damper was OK, they replaced a small clevis bolt under the cowling, removed
the wheel pant and made sure it had not accumulated any mud, then fastened
an ounce or two of lead to the inside bottom forward area of the pant. It
was the best $100 dollars I ever spent on the plane.

--
Mike Noel,
Tucson, Arizona

'Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from
religious conviction.'

-Blaise Pascal
"Chuck" wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:
Hey all. I've got a hershey-bar PA-28 that's been without wheel pants
since
we bought it. Looks a bit ghetto, and I'd like the speed increase
available by
putting some on. Awhile back, I ebayed up a set of archer pants
thinking I may be
able to make them work. After looking at it, it seemed unlikely since a
new strut
fairing and some skinwork would have to be done.

Yesterday, I ran across http://www.speedpants.com/. They sell wheel
pants
that are more or less directly compatible with the Piper pants. They've
also got a
retrofit kit for the earlier cherokees like mine. I'm thinking of
trying to get a
field approval to put them on with the pants I've got.

Sound insane? Maybe it'd be better to go with all Piper parts (i.e.
fairings,
etc). Just curious if anyone else has done such a thing.

-Cory

--


************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss
*
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student
*
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

I have the pants on the mains of my Archer and have removed the nose
pant. Repeated tests found that I had ocasional shimmy with the nose
pant on and never with it off. Several attemps to "tighten up the nose
assembly" didn't help. I could not tell the speed difference with the
nose pant on or off.
YMMV

Chuck