Right wheel pant drilled and reinforced: 3 hours

• Drilled both halves of the wheel pant to the inboard mounting bracket
• Reinforced screw and rivet holes on the wheel pant with 3 layers of fiberglass tape

Ready to apply epoxy and fiberglass:

Right wheel pant drilled to brackets:

Misc. left wheel work, started on right wheel pant: 6 hours

This work was done over several days:

• Sanded left wheel pant fiberglass reinforcements
• Drilled left wheel pant mounting holes to final size and installed nut plates on wheel pant bracket
• Installed all left disk brake components and torqued all bolts and brake line fitting. I also installed the cotter pin in the axle nut.
• Riveted outboard bracket to left wheel pant. I also put some CA glue on the rivets to help lock them in.
• Started sanding and trimming on right wheel pant
• Followed the same steps as the left and got the aft wheel pant drilled to the outboard bracket

Aft right wheel pant attached to outboard bracket:

Finding the center (approximate!) of the right wheel pant:

Left wheel pant bracket riveted in place:

Finished with left wheel assembly:

Left wheel pant: 7 hours

This work was done over several days:

• Sanded and trimmed left wheel pant - for several hours
• Used the shop crane to raise the plane and get the weight off of the gear
• Used plumb bobs and my 6' level to create a reference for the wheel pant
• Getting wheel pant lined up required a good bit of bending on the metal brackets that it mounts to
• Used a laser to help mark wheel pant center line
• Drilled aft section of wheel pant to outboard bracket then put front wheel pant section on and got measurements off of reference line
• Drilled all wheel pant mounts
• Reinforced all mounting locations on wheel pants with 3 layers of fiberglass and clecoed wheel pant to mounts

Wheel pant reinforcement curing:

Reinforcements in place:

Wheel pant drilled in place

Lining up aft wheel pant:

Slowly trimming / fitting wheel pant:

Initial sanding done:

Worked on brakes: 3 hours

• Worked on fitting brakes. I found that the left brake pins were binding so I used the shop crane to lift the plane and remove the wheel. I was able to eliminate the binding by flipping the orientation of the brake mounting plate - easy fix.
• Installed the AN elbow fittings in the brake calipers
• Ran the Bonaco brake lines and secured with self fusing tape and several adel clamps. I used my adel clamp pliers and I'm impressed with how well they work. They are going to be very handy after we hang the engine.

Brake lines permanently installed:

Calipers and wheel will get fully installed after wheel pants are fitted:

Adel clamp pliers work great:

Main landing gear installed: 3 hours

• Bled and tested my harbor freight shop crane
• Used some old climbing slings through the engine mount to hoist the fuselage. 
• Installed landing gear legs and found that the left side was contacting the fuselage skin and the right was a little to close. I marked the spots that needed to be trimmed, removed the landing gear and used the trusty dremel to trim the fuselage skin.
• Re-installed the landing gear and torqued bolts. Hopefully gear is now on permanently.

The plane looks bigger on the gear!

Harbor Freight shop crane worked great:

I was a little nervous about having the fuselage in the air:

Landing gear prep, tail wheel install: 6 hours

• Trimmed both inboard wheel pant mounts to clear Matco calipers
• Cleaned up wheel pant mounts
• Installed right brake caliper mount and wheel pant mount on gear leg.
• Installed tail wheel yoke on tail spring. Taper pins work great!
• Greased and installed Screaming Eagle tail wheel fork and steering arm with tie down ring.
• Also installed my light weight tail wheel.
• Readied left gear leg and wheel assembly for install including drilling the axle for the cotter pin and all the same steps as the right gear  (this one went a bit faster then the right!).

Left gear leg with caliper mount and wheel pant mount:

Cotter pin hole drilled in left axle:

Tail wheel installed:

Roll trim, landing gear work: 6 hours

The following work was done over several days:

• Used metal model airplane pushrods and clevises to attach the roll trim servo to the springs attached to each stick roll axis.
• Researched mounting of wheels brakes and other landing gear components.
• Cleaned excess powder coat from right landing gear leg and both brake flanges. Also used reamer to clean up bolt holes.
• Drilled right axle for cotter pin that secures the axle nut. I started this with everything in place using my angle drill and a very short #30 bit. I then removed the wheel and used a series of bits to get the holes done.
• Played around with placement of the brake caliper and wheel pant mount.

Mocking up caliper and wheel pant bracket locations:

Cotter pin hole done:

Ready to drill the axle for the cotter pin:

Cleaning up the right gear leg axle:

Spring bias roll trim hooked up: