I took the plane up for the first test flight with the wheel pants installed.  Everything seemed solid and the ball was still centered, so I guess I did a good job with the alignment.  On the taxi back however, I heard a funny sound coming from the wheels, so I pulled the wheel pants to see what was up.  I took a close look at all of the components and it was apparent that the bracket was being flexed into the brake rotor when the pants were installed.  I pulled the wheel and the bracket to take a better look.  You can pretty clearly see the mark that was being left on the bracket.  Fortunately, since this was stainless steel, the damage barely penetrates the surface and should be easy to remove.

The worst spot is right here and is still probably less than 10% of the thickness of the part.

You can see that the bracket was also damaging the brake rotor.  Since these are both steel, it looks like galling.

I used the scotchbrite disk to remove the marks from the bracket and then added an additional washer to push the bracket out an additional 1/16 of an inch.

I reinstalled the wheel pants and snaked an inspection camera inside to make sure there was still clearance between the bracket and the brake rotor.  Everything looked good, so I took it up for another test flight.  Problem solved.

I had another chunk of time today at the airport, so I decided to make a little more progress on the wheel pants.  I first drilled and mounted all of the nutplates on the mounting flanges.  These are stainless, so drilling them is a pain.

I also added 7 nutplates around the flange where the forward and aft halves of the left wheel pant join.  I also iterated a bit on the opening around the tire.  I now have 5/8″ of clearance all the way around with the weight on the tire.

With the pant attached to the mounting flanges, the left wheel pant is ready for flight.  I still have 2-3 hours of work to get the right pant to this stage, but then I’ll be ready for flight with these.