Orginal Wheel Pants

[Jim Herpst]

Great New on a couple fronts Hank. I want to cover my brackets and appreciate your efforts. Since you have the pants in hand now I am interested in the size on the openings. It could still be mine were opened up a bit although with the rolled edge doubtful . My bet is yours look better than mine!!

[3Dreaming]

Tom , I am good if you are. I recall you or your brother or someone in your family coming up to me at SUN N Fun in 1999 when I owned 94984 with a good suggestion on making the fuselage to wing fairings fit where the rear half of the root of the wing sits lower than the fuselage. The forum is as good as the folks that participate and communicate . Hopefully I can help someone along the way as well.

It must have been my dad. He is also well versed in Taylorcraft. I was only to Sun'n Fun in 1995 with my BL-65, and I don't have a brother. I am also raising 2 boys who are learning along the way.

[Jim Herpst]

Makes sense.

[Ryan]

It appears I was dead wrong. Ryan you will recognize this as the Wag Aero hardware. After going through the package (duh hu) I found bolts and that the threaded holes accepted them. I thought at first glance only large enough for screws The outer hardware is not as robust as what Scott built but it will work. Any one Dejavu on the starting condition of the pants shown in previous post?

Those are the ones Jim and they are holding up just fine for me. Attached just as Scott describes. The other way of attaching the outside of the wheel pant that should be mentioned for completeness is the wheepant axel nut. There is an axel nut that is about 2-3 inches in length that is threaded on the outside to except a bolt. I have a set of those as well and can post a picture of them when I am to the airport next. I do believe they are difficult to find however.

[Jim Herpst]

Ryan, I was wondering about available "extensions" in my fathers pictures he took of the plane Circa 1969 it appears to have extensions out the center of the wheel. Ha retrieval on the way ! On second thought.. Why did you decide not to use them?
Hank, When you recover from the heat going to the hangar let me know. It has been a real bear in SC this summer also ! Thank you again for going way out of your way. Glad you received hopefully an award for that already!

[Hank Jarrett]

I have a set of the axle nuts on the 41 too. They shouldn't be hard to make. Just a piece of steel hex stock with a small hole drilled through and threaded followed by a larger hole partial drilled and threaded for the axle. Thee is also a small safety wire hole to keep them from turning if I remember right. I will get dimensions.
Turns out one of the pant sets I have are fiberglass and not aluminum, but are a really nice copy. Looks like they were made using a metal pant to make the mold. I had never put them on the plane before now and they were just up in the storage area behind a spare wing. DRAT!!!! At least the other set appear to be original metal ones with very few cracks or repairs and looks like original cut outs and marks in the paint from the cast attach hardware.

Oh yea, the oil temp turned out to be a Scott when I got it cleaned up, but has the indicator needle lowered like a U.S. Gauge so I am thinking I might be able to make a new face card for it.

Heat survival in the loft area? DON'T STAY THERE very long! Also stay VERY hydrated in the hangar. I found out I REALLY HATE the taste of Gatoraid! Probably should have tasted it before buying a whole case. Anyway, stopped sweating one time and knew that was a REALLY bad sign! Only thing available was some old Gatoraid in the hangar fridge. It tasted GREAT! Kind of like a lemon-aid flavored drink. Drank a whole bottle and started sweating again. A little later I got another bottle and it tasted like cold urine smells. Turns out when you are REALLY dehydrated the taste is different (at least to me). Now I always have a bottle in the fridge and take a taste every 15 or 20 minutes. If it tastes good.....it is time to stop and get cooled off.

[Ryan]

Ryan, I was wondering about available "extensions" in my fathers pictures he took of the plane Circa 1969 it appears to have extensions out the center of the wheel. Ha retrieval on the way ! On second thought.. Why did you decide not to use them?
Hank, When you recover from the heat going to the hangar let me know. It has been a real bear in SC this summer also ! Thank you again for going way out of your way. Glad you received hopefully an award for that already!

Excellent question! We did. They are aluminum and our wheel pant vibrated enough that it wore the threads in one of them. We fly off grass and in the summer can get hard and rough, which may not be an issue if you are based on pavement.. Also our airplane had the off airport excursion going to Oshkosh a few years ago and that may have played a part.

[Hank Jarrett]

Took the first wheel pant into the shower and scrubbed a couple of decades of dirt off today. (Yea, my wife is getting used to me doing weird stuff like showering with filthy airplane parts, at least she comes home to a wet wheel pant drying in the bathroom and not some strange young woman). I will clean up the other one tomorrow. Hey, I'm a gentleman. I only shower with one at a time! ;-) These are the metal ones and I will get some photos before I strip the old paint off and start really tapping out all the small damage. I will also trace all the doublers and try to show any old repairs. I need to stick a support under the gear and get one of the wheel nuts to determine what both threads are.

[Hank Jarrett]

Got some photos of the metal pants from the 41. Hope you guys can let me know if these were like the production ones before or after the war. My 45 was an "odd bird" in that it has lots of parts from Pre-War and Post-War. The 41 has what looks to me to be an aftermarket GRP pants with odd mount holes. I will be starting a thread on restoration of them in the"Model B - 1941 Deluxe production topic area". If it turns out the metal pants are also like the 41 I will post the resto process there too. Nice winter projects for when it goes from too hot in the hangar to too cold.

[Hank Jarrett]

Note that there are LARGE external doublers on the sides of each pant. These are aluminum while the internal doublers are steel. The square doubler in the 4th picture next to the cutout dobler looks like a repair. There are also a few (surprisingly few) aluminum repairs . I need to get a shot of the outboard side doubler that reinforces the bolt hole that is normally covered by the "Bird". It is also steel and I will get some tracings of all of the doublers now that the pants are clean enough to be in the house (and yes, I did have to clean the shower!)

[Hank Jarrett]

I have also moved my discussion on pants to the "Model B - 1941 Deluxe production topic area".

[Ragwing nut]

Got some photos of the metal pants from the 41. Hope you guys can let me know if these were like the production ones before or after the war. My 45 was an "odd bird" in that it has lots of parts from Pre-War and Post-War. The 41 has what looks to me to be an aftermarket GRP pants with odd mount holes. I will be starting a thread on restoration of them in the"Model B - 1941 Deluxe production topic area". If it turns out the metal pants are also like the 41 I will post the resto process there too. Nice winter projects for when it goes from too hot in the hangar to too cold.

They have the chrome strip so they are postwar pants.

[3Dreaming]

I was thinking the same thing.

[Hank Jarrett]

I have seen a number of pre war planes with polished aluminum seam strips but of course there is no way to tell if the pants on the plane were original to the plane. I got the GRP pants all cleaned up and can guarantee they were from way after the war. I may start restoration on those and see if I can make them a better replica of the metal ones. The quality is NOT very good and I seriously doubt I would use them for anything but display. I also have one of the earlier pre-war "spats" type wheel covers. They are really neat, but I would have to make a mirror image one for the other side.
The first photo attached is supposed to be from a 1941 advertisement
. The pants have he "bird wing" and polished seam strip but more importantly also the SS and cast aluminum nose trim which wasn't supposed to be available after the war (and yse I know, it says BC-12D not BC12-65 but that label was put on by Skyways Plane Portraits, not Taylorcraft. The other thing that is off is that is a POST war color layout. I kind of wonder if this might be one of the early 1945 birds that used a lot of left over pre-war parts.



This photo is a FOR SURE pre-war pant on NC-24332. Note the crimped seam and tear drop "bird" Also note the welded attach fitting.

[Hank Jarrett]

This is Tom Bakers 41 wheel pants (probably the best 41 T around). It shows the crimped seam and a really nice cast attach fitting.