As soon as I opened the hangar door I could see an error from yesterday's work. The left wheel pant did not tilt in the horizontal direction as much as the the right pant. I must have drilled the holes into the pant in the wrong place for the inboard bracket. After spending some time to pop a new airplane center line, I measured the pant nose and tail distances from the CL and they were equal. I then looked at the pant CL and noted that it did not line up with the tire tread CL. The wooden strip that we used to hold the position while we marked the bracket holes must have slipped, therefore the holes were drilled in the wrong position.
The good thing about fiberglass is that it is easy to fill in holes and redrill. We didn't notice the problem yesterday because we were too close to see it, and we were tired. I marked the new position for the bracket holes. Next I removed both wheel pants and sanded the inside to add layers of glass cloth in the area of the holes for strength. The cloth will cover the old holes and they will be filled in with filler. Tomorrow I'll mix the epoxy and wet the cloth on the pants and leg fairings for reinforcement in hole areas. After curing overnight I'll redrill the holes in the pant.
Pants and leg farings ready to be strengthened with glass cloth in weak areas.
