Began installing the Airward parking brake holder - 2.5 hours

 So after visiting a local builder friend. He mentioned that he had a spare Airward park brake holder if I was interested in purchasing. After looking into it and seeing his installation, I decided to go ahead and buy it from him. 

The unit is pretty slick. It’s machined from solid aluminum and fits on the standard vans mount on the firewall. Originally it was designed for the RV10 but it fits just fine on the RV7.

I needed to drill out the 8 rivets on the firewall that hold the original brake line bracket.

 

Now the interesting part. I need to install the included MK nutplates into the back of the mounting plate. Not much room here for any tool I have. However I figured out that my small/slim bucking bar fits just fine. So a couple taps with the mallet and the rivets are set.

 

Temporarily installed. This will work well. 

 

Assembled the center tunnel cover parts - 3.5 hours

Now that the center tunnel parts are primed. It’s time to rivet all the misc pieces together and install all of the nutplates. Lots of nutplates.

 

Another priming day - 6 hours

 It’s been so busy at work I’ve just not had a chance to work on the plane at all. I managed to get out there an do a whole bunch of prep on all the interior cabin parts. After clean (soap), scrub (scotchbrite, rinse and MEK) acid etch (and MEK) I primed all the parts. 

 A long productive day on the build finally. Did I mention I hate 2K epoxy primer?

Deburring and cleaning up the fuel pump cover and center tunnel cover parts - 3 hours

 Tedious night tonight. Just cleaning up all of the edges and nooks and crannies. Dubur and smooth out all of the edges. Getting things ready for priming.

 

 

Finishing the tunnel cover mounts - 3.5 hours

 A bit of detailed work today to finish off the tunnel cover/fuel pump mount. With the pump in its final fit configuration, I need to drill the mounting holes into the tunnel cover. Getting this right took some time and some precise work.

 

Next all of the mounting holes needed to be drilled for the nutplates. And there is an amount of them. I also need to make a hole in the cover to allow the fuel pump wiring to rise up through the tunnel cover. This is basically guess work at this point to figure where the hole should be. A larger hole was made in the stiffener than the tunnel cover. I will eventually install a snap bushing. 

 

Fixing the fuel line - 1 hour

 So when drilling the top most (left) hole in the fuel selector cover (to attach the dog house) the drill bit just nicked the fuel line. It wasn’t horrible, but I decided to make a new one. The fuel line and the mounting hole are perfectly aligned and installation of a screw in this hole will be an issue. So to start off, I decided to make a brand new fuel line (Gascolator to pump) to ensure that the line was perfect. Next, I needed to put a slight jog in the top most run to ensure that the future screw would not interfere. 

My thumbs are really sore. That 3/8” line is not easy to work with, without leverage. But I’m happy with the result.

 

Final fitting work on the doghouse cover - 2 hours

 So today was a small job of cleaning up all the edges of the dog house cover and rounding out the corners. This also allowed me to double check the final fit of all the internal components to make sure that I had adequate clearance. I completed drilling the doghouse cover to the tunnel and to the fuel selector cover.

The fit overall is excellent however, I notice that I will have a conflict between one of the mounting screws and the fuel selector cover. At present installation of the screw will press into the fuel line running from the gascolator to the fuel pump. I will need to make some adjustments in the line to ensure proper clearances.