Installed F-6118 rudder pedal brace - 1 hour

 Short day in the garage today. I installed the F-6118 rudder pedal brace.

 As well I also installed the rivet for the top flange of the F-902 bulkheads (These are AN470AD3 to preserve the proper edge distance as the AD4 will blow all edge distances in this super tight area)

Installed the F-796A tank attach brackets - 2.5 hours

I want to get the fuel vent lines installed, but I'm concerned that I need to fit the tank attach brackets before the vent lines are installed as I do not want to damage the lines.

Frankly I was dreading installing these purely as the clearances to the edges are so tight as well as its tricky to drill thick material by hand. 

My idea to help make this easy was to use a piece of aluminum flat bar. I drilled one of the holes from the F-796A bracket into the flat bar and started to drill the second hole, enough to identify the center to allow for a #40 pilot hole. With this I have a template I can work with to mark and drill the remaining holes on the fuselage.

I am able to place the template on the fuse. Confirm the location of the #40 hole and start the new hole. Before drilling...I double checked that the alignment was good. Yup!! it is.

Using both the template bolted to the fuse and the ATS drill jig. I slowly started increasing the holes sizes using the drill. Stepping the holes, #40, #30, #19, etc etc. until I was able to ream the holes for the AN3 bolt. It was perfect!

 

 

Fitted the forward fuselage assembly - 2 hours

 Today I was keen on getting the forward top skin installed on the fuselage. I need to mark out the holes/alignment for the F-7105 center rib and in my opinion the only way to get it set correctly is to install the entire upper forward fuselage assembly. Once The assembly went together. I used a small square on the top of the firewall angle and set/marked the F-7105 center rib.

Riveted the F-695 fwd fuse gussets - 1 hour

I finally received an email back from Vans support about my question on using cherry max for the 10 forward rivets in the F-695 gusset that I was reluctant to set solo. Knowing how critical of an area it was...I do not want to mess this up.

While the email did not say no to the cherry rivets, it was not a great email. Perhaps it wasn't a fuzzy feel good email that I was hoping for, Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was the way I read the email, but it did nothing to alleviate my anxiety about riveting this area. I was soo pissed off. Out of shear anger I went out into garage and tried to set the rivets solo. Worst case....I can drill the bad ones out and use cherry max.

I used the AN470 solid rivets and by a complete stroke of luck, all of them set extremely well. Amazing cause I had to use the angled portion of the bucking bar which is always sketchy for me.

 

 

Installing the static line and seat belt anchors - 3.5 hours

 One small item that I need to eventually complete is to finish the remaining 10 rivets in the forward gussets at the fire wall. I didn't get a chance to do them yesterday with Mike, and given the difficult accessibility of the area I'm reluctant to attempt bucking these solo. Its a pretty critical area. I will send an email off to Van's to see about the use of Cherry Max rivets for this.

Now that the aft top skin is on...I can crawl in the inside and install the seat belt anchors. To do this I laid towels down on all of the bulkheads an baggage area. Next I laid fence boards that I cut down to size across the baggage area, then laid full length boards down on the inside resting on each bulkhead. About 4 boards fanned out did the trick. Next I placed some foam on top of the boards and now I can comfortably craft back there.

Bolting the seat belt anchors is quick and easy.

 

Next, I started to install the static line. I really did not want to use zip ties as the plans suggest, so I used adel clamps instead. Much more professional looking and less chance for chafing in my opinion. Getting the static line around the seat belt anchor plate was fun.

 

Now I can install the seat belt anchor cables. Straight away I can see that the clevis does not set on the anchor plate well. 

 I will need to use 2 'L' washers in between the clevis and the plate. By adding and adjusting washers. The fit is now really good.

Re-paint - 2 hours

So very interesting...My first small batch of paint didn’t mix right and the paint never really dried. I think when I depressed the underside of the 2K can it wasn't good enough. Only affected a handful of parts. Since the paint didn’t set correctly, it easily wipes off with acetone (epoxy primer stayed completely in-tact). After a little be of re-prep. I re-sprayed a handful of parts and things are looking very good. 

 

 

Painting Day! - 4 hours

 Well the day has finally arrived. I am ready to start painting the interior of the aircraft. For now I will just start painting the pieces first.

I need to give the parts a light coat of epoxy primer (to cover all of the exposed rivets, hardware, etc). Everything got a wipe down with acetone, then a spray with epoxy primer.

After a number of hours, I started to spray parts with a 2K single stage paint. Looks so good.

  Color by the way is a solid medium gray. Not too light, but not too dark (After reading forums and comments…Lots shy away from too dark a paint to keep the interior of plane cool). I jokingly call the color “Filing Cabinet Gray”. I still like it. Think it will look good with dark/black seats, accents and panel. 

Finished then stick boot rings and started brake assembly - 3 hours

Not much to write about. I finished cutting out the center of the stick boot rings. 

 Next I started in on some random tasks like prepping the area where the steps are so that I can prime the area for the future rivets. 

Then I started installing the brake pedals Took me a little time to research how to properly install a cotter pin. First time on the build that I need to install one so far. For the record…it looks like this;

 Unfortunately I didn’t get too far, and I soon realized I don’t have enough of the correct hardware to mount the co-pilot brakes and suit the larger Grove Brakes. I will need to put in an order to Aircraft Spruce…Again. 

Fabricated the stick boot rings - 2 hours

So one item that I've been delaying for quite some time was the stick boot rings. As usual like most things on the build is that it isn’t as bad as I thought.

I cut the required pieces of of some material I had sitting on the shelf. I then marked out the bend line, clamped them in the vice and bent the pieces by hand.

 

Next I drew reference lines on the plates and then set them on the seat pans and lined things up for the first holes. Drill and cleco!

 

Once it was all done, I then traced the control stick openings. I then found all of the center points to start drilling the radius corners of the cutouts.

 

I’ll cut these out tomorrow. 

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.