Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Did a bunch of miscellaneous stuff, getting the left fuel tanks ready for assembly. Dimpled all of the fuel tank skin holes with the C-frame. I decided to try dimpling on the floor. Hammering on the C-frame definitely has a more solid feel, but it’s very uncomfortable being on the floor. You’ll also notice that I taped over the holes that are counersunk already. I didn’t trust myself not to accidentally dimple them.

Smoothed the edge of the tank skin. Deburred and smoothed the tank baffle. Fabricated a little cover for the tooling hole in the outboard rib.

Soldered and crimped on connectors for the capacitive fuel sender.

Cleaned up the shop a bit and read through the assembly instructions again. There are an incredible number of parts that go into the fuel tanks. Here are most of the parts, excluding the tank skin and the vent line.

Deburred all of the holes for the cover plate and countersunk the holes in the reinforcement ring. Dimpled the screw holes in the tank skin.

Drilled all of the holes for the fuel tank cover plate, including the nut plate rivets. Started deburring the holes.

I finally got up the nerve to cut the big hole in the inboard rib for the left tank. For some reason, that step had me nervous. I used the fly cutter. The hole came out great. Since I had everything set up, I decided to cut the hole for the right tank as well.

I also located and cut holes in the ribs for the vent line and the connector for the capacitive fuel sender. The final thing I did for the night was to cut holes in the blank access covers for the standard fuel pickup. I used the other cover with the extra hole for the float sender as a template. I decided to move the anti-rotation bracket just a few millimeters closer to the angle fitting, so that it wouldn’t interfere with the pick-up attachment.

I started to drill the holes for the cover plate screws, but decided to wait until tomorrow when my order from Cleaveland arrives with the black clecos. That should make the job a bit easier.