The last update was on the nose wheel fairings. After I was done with that I started on the mains. Basically the process is similar, but because of the angle of the mains when unloaded it's pretty important to install the wheel fairing and particularly the leg fairing with the gear unweighted so that it's aligned with the line of flight when airborne.
This first shot is how I did that. I have a couple of boxes that I use to stand on and a long piece of dead straight aluminum angle (from riveting the rudder trailing edge way back when). I dropped plumb lines from the fuse centerline down to the angle, which I leveled and weighted so it would be dead straight fore and aft and I could use it to align the longitudinal axis of the wheel fairing to. It's easier than it sounds.
The stand with the jack on it is how I got the wheel off the ground. I put a long 2x6 under the main spar and jacked against that. Worked great.
Just starting to get the fairing trimmed to get it over the wheel and around the gear leg. The 2x4 block at the back is to hold the aft fairing level. I also taped a wood block 7/8" (IIRC) to the top of the wheel to give correct internal tire clearance per the plans.
This shot gives an idea of what the gear looks like unweighted. It definitely is canted from the vertical.
I clecoed the two halves together when trimming the cutout for the wheel to keep it symmetrical and so the lines would line up. Used my Bosch jig saw with a metal blade for cutting, which worked very well and left a pretty clean edge. Just needed a quick hit with sandpaper to take the sharp edges off.
Starting to get close to a decent fit at this point.
Inner view of the same setup.
It was pretty easy to drill the holes for the mounts to the tabs. Just marked them with a sharpie and they were easy to see through the glass. They only needed to be bent slightly to sit true to the glass surface. Nut plates were installed later.
I finally hit on the best trimming method when I was on the last (right side in my case) fairing. I just screwed two 2 foot 2x4's to my bench at the right distance apart, then clamped directly to them. Worked really really well.
Fitting the right aft side.
Better shot of how I did the plumb bobs and the angle I used to make sure everything was straight fore and aft.
Rather than make my own intersection fairings, I found some on the net. There is a guy in South Africa (http://rvbits.mybigcommerce.com/) that makes fairings and everyone spoke pretty highly of them. I was going to order from him when I found that Cleaveland had them. Cost nearly the same and I got them in 2 or 3 days. I'm not an expert, but I don't think I could have made fairings as good as these even in two or three tries. They look and fit great and are very well made. Really happy with them.
Starting on the leg fairings.
Notches at the top for the hose clamp that will secure them to the gear leg.
Quick mockup to make sure they are the correct length. I hadn't installed the hinges yet.
Here's the right side after it's finished. Came out pretty well. Hopefully I got it aligned correctly, but I won't really know that until first flight.
Here's another shot of the whole thing set up. I'll secure the intersection fairings either with screws, hinges or perhaps a combination.
Time to move on to the bottom wing skins.
