Glassed Inside of Wheel Pants

I added a couple of layers of fiberglass to reinforce the areas around the mounting bracket attach points.  I then added some flox to the epoxy and spread a reasonably thick layer over the area where the bracket will sit.  A bunch will extrude out, but it’s easier to grind off the extra than mix up subsequent batches because there were voids in the shims.

I taped over the mounting flanges, then reinstalled the wheel pants so that the epoxy/flox could set up in the right position.

You can see the extra flox through the wheel pant here.  I didn’t want to use clecos to clamp this while the epoxy cures because that would flex the mounting bracket and squeeze out the excess epoxy/flox.  Instead, I simply used some really long 3/32″ rivets to keep the holes aligned.  I’ll put the plane back up on jacks and realign the wheel pants while opening these holes up for screws since there could be some misalignment introduced as the holes are drilled out.

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