Main wheel fairings aligned and drilled

Due to the Beringer wheels having different dimensions from the stock wheels (stock wheels are recessed at the center), the axle extensions from Aircraft Specialty needed trimming (reducing the length by 3/4", then deepening the side hole back to 1" of depth), which was easily done on a lathe, except I didn't have one, so a friend was kind enough to do it for me:

Shortened axle extensions

Trimmed axle extension installed in place

With that, we could finally get the the wheel fairings properly aligned - with lots of measurements, markings on the floor (in case it helps anyone, both ends ended up at just about 110.5cm from the airplane's centerline), and a self-leveling laser to help, and slowly opening up the gear leg hole a bit more, we got it aligned just right, then used used magnets to "sight" the hole location from the inside and drill it #40 (with only one minor mistake, which will later get filled with flox anyway) - we used pin punches and drill bits to keep it in place while drilling the other holes:

Measuring the distance from the aircraft centerline

Self-leveling laser marking the horizontal reference for aligning the fairing

Right wheel fairing aligned just right thanks to the self-leveling laser

Right wheel fairing "temporarily attached" with the drill bit itself and a pin punch

I then opened up the holes to #36/#27 and tapped the bracket for screws:

Right wheel fairing screwed in place

Rinse, repeat it all for the left side:

Left wheel fairing in place

We measured and marked the required gaps around the gear legs and the tires, then trimmed the fairings to those markings:

Marking the required gap around the tire is slightly awkward

I then started the nose wheel fairing, with a similar process to make the parts fit together:

Nose gear forward fairing attachment holes marked and drilled

Nose gear fairing center markings

As a last step that I could do before the nose wheel is on (which requires jacking the aircraft a bit higher) was to open up the large hole that the nose gear leg goes through:

Nose gear forward fairing with gear leg hole cut out

Next we need to start filling/reinforcing the inside of the main fairings, and then also align and match-drilled the nose gear fairing.

Time lapse:


Total gear leg and wheel fairing time: 26.0h

No comments:

Post a Comment