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1. 07:13 PM - Re: Heads Up On Wheel Pant Fiberglass Quality... (e.ap)
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| Subject: | Re: Heads Up On Wheel Pant Fiberglass Quality... |
Don't you just get tired of pissing away good money for trash?? E!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Dralle" <dralle@matronics.com>
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 11:43 AM
Subject: RV9-List: Heads Up On Wheel Pant Fiberglass Quality...
>
> Dear Listers,
>
> I took delivery of an RV-8 QB finish kit around September 2008. Last
> weekend I started tackling the installation of the wheel pants. The first
> thing I noticed on inspection of the wheel pants was how horrible the
> quality was. The front piece didn't fit the back piece and the flange
> shoulder on the back pieces were not straight. Getting a even an "okay"
> fit was nearly impossible. The other issue was the quality of the
> fiberglass itself. On the rear part of the back piece, the epoxy resin
> was completely spider-cracked on both sides and on both pants. It was
> nothing a few more coats of resin and a bunch of sanding couldn't fix, but
> who wants to do that? Needless to say, I was fairly demoralized by the
> fact that there was really no way I was going to be able to make them
> really fit together "perfect".
>
> But, I plowed ahead anyway and started trying to mount them to the Grove
> Airfoiled gear. I had a lot of trouble getting them to fit correctly onto
> the landing gear. The main issue seemed to be that they are too small at
> the bottom and don't fit over the brake caliper without touching. I kept
> thinking that I must just not have them in the correct position, so I kept
> hogging out a little more glass here and there with the Dremel tool until
> basically the holes were all too big (for the gear leg and for the wheel).
> I finally found a couple of builder web sites where others have had the
> same issue with the brake caliper interference and they added a 2.5"
> "blister" to pooch out over the area that rubs. But by this time it was
> too late for that first set of pants.
>
> But here's the interesting part. Since I had basically destroyed both of
> the original pants trying to get them to fit, I decided to just order up a
> replacement set, take a sedative, and start over again on the whole thing.
> The new wheel pants arrived from Van's yesterday. The difference in
> quality between these replacement units and the ones from last year is
> incredible! The seams are nearly perfect on the replacements and only
> required a bit of sanding on the front part to get a *perfect*, and I mean
> *perfect* fit between the front and back halves. The consistency of the
> fiberglass layups is 100% better on the new units, and that seam at the
> top was already so flat, I didn't even have to sand it down. There are no
> spider cracks in the glass anywhere. I haven't actually weighed them, but
> replacements feel like they might be somewhat lighter as well.
>
> Obviously Van's switched fiberglass vendors at some point in the last 10
> months and the switch was well worth it. I've attached a couple of photos
> of the Circa September 2008 and Circa June 2009 sets I received. The only
> similarity is in the overall shape.
>
> FYI
>
> Matt Dralle
> RV-8 #82880 N998RV
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