Repairing fiberglass wheel pants

Remember, I did glass repair, body work, and straight and custom
painting for several years, so I can work pretty quickly. You might
figure on doing a little at a time over a couple of weeks. Now is the
best time of year to do this type of work because it is not excessively
hot or humid. It is more comfortable for you to cover up more, and paint
loves 75 degrees with 50% humidity.

Thanks for all the tips, Mike (and all).

My A&P is going to have a crack at them tomorrow, reinforcing the stressed
areas with sheet aluminum and re-drilling the holes.

He's estimating "no more than $1000" (ouch!), but I'm hoping for far less.
He's an experienced fiberglass and sheet metal guy, and new ones would cost
well over $2500.

These are the times that owning an airplane doesn't look quite as attractive
as renting...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
He's estimating "no more than $1000" (ouch!), but I'm hoping for far less.
He's an experienced fiberglass and sheet metal guy, and new ones would cost
well over $2500.

If a mechanic told me that it would be "no more than $1000" to fix wheel
pants, I'd go get them and take a crack at it, before he touches them.
Thats' just plain (or plane) crazy.

--- Jay



--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

If a mechanic told me that it would be "no more than $1000" to fix wheel
pants, I'd go get them and take a crack at it, before he touches them.
Thats' just plain (or plane) crazy.

While I agree with you, the odds of me having days -- or even hours -- free
to take a crack at fixing them are slim and none.

:-(
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

While I agree with you, the odds of me having days -- or even hours --
free
to take a crack at fixing them are slim and none.

Assuming that it IS OK for an owner to work on wheelpants themselves (as
it seems to be) then if I were you, I'd find a local composite aircraft
builder and offer to pay them to fix the pants. I bought prefabricated
wheel pants for my COZY MKIV for $250, and the repair you've described
would take me about 2-3 hours, max. Hell, if I lived anywhere near you,
I'd do it for nothing, just to see how the "certificated" wheel pants
were constructed.

$2500..... That's unbelievable..... Crap, even $1K is unbelievable.
If this guy things (at $60/hr) that it's going to take him 15 hours to
fix the pants, then he hasn't got a clue about composites.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://marc.zeitlin.home.comcast.net/
http://www.cozybuilders.org/
Copyright (c) 2004

("Marc J. Zeitlin" wrote)
Assuming that it IS OK for an owner to work on wheelpants themselves (as
it seems to be) then if I were you, I'd find a local composite aircraft
builder and offer to pay them to fix the pants. I bought prefabricated
wheel pants for my COZY MKIV for $250, and the repair you've described
would take me about 2-3 hours, max. Hell, if I lived anywhere near you,
I'd do it for nothing, just to see how the "certificated" wheel pants
were constructed.

$2500..... That's unbelievable..... Crap, even $1K is unbelievable.
If this guy things (at $60/hr) that it's going to take him 15 hours to
fix the pants, then he hasn't got a clue about composites.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://marc.zeitlin.home.comcast.net/
http://www.cozybuilders.org/


UPS? (Insured!!)

Oh. Plus painting?


Montblack g

Slight word of warning from my glider repair experience - Most boats
and autos use polyester resin and not epoxy. Make sure you use the
same as the pants. Polyester on epoxy will not stick properly and
will eventually pop off. What you find in the auto/boat store called
fiberglass resin is usually polyester because it's much cheaper. If
you don't do it yourself, find someone who is familiar with aircraft
composits. The auto guy doing Corvettes won't get it and don't do a
metal repair to the glass.

I'm an old A&P who finds epoxy much easier to work with than metal,
especially for compound shapes. The skills are much easier to learn
if you are starting from scratch. If you do the repair yourself, the
rules are -

Use the same glass cloth
Use the same number of layers in the same direction
Use the same epoxy
Use bondo (also polyester) to fill pin holes only. I use epoxy with
cotton flox or microbaloons for filler.

As the pants aren't structural, you can probably bend these rules a
bit such as type and weave of cloth, but stay away from polyester. My
approach would be to "make the holes disappear" by grinding a wide
scarf joint then re-drilling the holes after the glass work. Mount
them with large washers to spread the load and you have a long-lasting
repair. Total glass work minus curing time and painting shouldn't be
more than a few hours for a skilled repairman.


On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 10:03:18 -0500, "Montblack"
wrote:

("Marc J. Zeitlin" wrote)
Assuming that it IS OK for an owner to work on wheelpants themselves (as
it seems to be) then if I were you, I'd find a local composite aircraft
builder and offer to pay them to fix the pants. I bought prefabricated
wheel pants for my COZY MKIV for $250, and the repair you've described
would take me about 2-3 hours, max. Hell, if I lived anywhere near you,
I'd do it for nothing, just to see how the "certificated" wheel pants
were constructed.

$2500..... That's unbelievable..... Crap, even $1K is unbelievable.
If this guy things (at $60/hr) that it's going to take him 15 hours to
fix the pants, then he hasn't got a clue about composites.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://marc.zeitlin.home.comcast.net/
http://www.cozybuilders.org/


UPS? (Insured!!)

Oh. Plus painting?


Montblack g

"Marc J. Zeitlin" wrote
Assuming that it IS OK for an owner to work on wheelpants themselves

OK, reality check. First off, it's hard to argue that it's not.
Small simple repairs to nonstructural cowlings and fairings - spelled
out. And realistically - who will ever question it? If you have the
kind of IA who would have a problem with something like this at annual
- you need another IA.

I'd find a local composite aircraft
builder and offer to pay them to fix the pants.

Or anyone else with a clue. A fiberglass boat repair place comes to
mind.

Crap, even $1K is unbelievable.
If this guy things (at $60/hr) that it's going to take him 15 hours to
fix the pants, then he hasn't got a clue about composites.

Of course he doesn't. What he gave is the "no-clue, never-done-it"
estimate. In other words - he gave an upper-bound estimate for how
long it should take someone who is reasonably knowledgeable in
aviation, but has no clue about this sort of repair to do the job.

I've had similar repairs done to my engine nacelle nose cowlings. I
believe I paid about $150. Of course the mechanic in question knew
how to work with fiberbglass - he was only working as an A&P in
retirement, and used to work on cars.

Michael

Jay Honeck wrote:

He's estimating "no more than $1000" (ouch!), but I'm hoping for far less.
He's an experienced fiberglass and sheet metal guy, and new ones would cost
well over $2500.

You have a PA-28-235? Wag-Aero sells a set of three fairings with mounting hardware
for $782.00 for that plane. SKU #M-126-000. They don't have photos on the web, but
they probably will in their print catalog.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

G.R. Patterson III wrote:
: You have a PA-28-235? Wag-Aero sells a set of three fairings with mounting hardware
: for $782.00 for that plane. SKU #M-126-000. They don't have photos on the web, but
: they probably will in their print catalog.

Jay's got neato cool aftermarket hi-speed wheel fairings, not the useless
stock Piper fairings as sold in wag-aero. Besides, I though they were $3600
for the pair (for the ones that Jay has).
--
Aaron Coolidge

Aaron Coolidge wrote:

Jay's got neato cool aftermarket hi-speed wheel fairings, not the useless
stock Piper fairings as sold in wag-aero. Besides, I though they were $3600
for the pair (for the ones that Jay has).

Ah! So this thread is really a variation of the "How much is 5 knots worth to you"
thread? I see. :-)

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.