The airplane isn’t finished until the wheel pants are on. Heat issues require leaving them off while taxi testing and on early flights, but now that that’s over…… Sam James seems to be the best name in wheel pants. My Cozy pilot neighbor, being the racing type, actually removed a perfectly good set of wheel pants to install a set of Sam James, so they must be good.
The instructions clearly say to solve any wheel alignment issues before fitting wheel pants. I tried a laser but a string seemed to actually be easier and quite accurate. The plans say you can heat and twist the landing gear. I say that’s fine if you know what you’re doing. I chose to remove the axle, put a glob of flox behind it and slowly re-tighten the axle bolts just until alignment is correct and let it harden. Later, replace the bolts that came up short with longer ones.
Cutting holes is unnerving, but you can repair your mistakes. It’s fiber glass!
These pants are designed for the Long EZ. You even get a choice of wheel/tire size.
The fairing starts with clay. I traced the teardrop outline on the pant surface and start pressing clay into shape. It’s really very simple. Glass it when you are happy. It was my personal choice to split the fairing so that it is completely removable. Some day I’ll be grinding into the gear leg to replace the brake line.
This requires a third mounting point. You have two mounting points on either side of the axle. The third I had to invent without drilling into the landing gear, thus, one more nut in a glob of flox on the landing gear.
The rest is body work and painting. The plans estimate of 25 hours installation time seems about right.
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