I'd look at one of the Robart nose wheel struts. They will hold up better and look very scale like.

NP should be able to sell you replacement pants, but you could also use white wheel pants from other manufacturers and simply apply Ultra or Mono-coat on them to match the existing scheme.

I almost always pull of the pants until I've flown the plane for a while.

It's a good practice to engage in while you are getting the bugs out of any new plane.

You never know when you need to make a quick dead stick landing.