Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Adele’s last soccer game of the season was last night, followed by a little party. No time for building.

I installed the bottom cowl to check the fit. Looks great without clecos. I secured the bottom camlocs. They’re adjustable, so I twisted them in a bit to make them flush with the cowl.

On to the top cowl. I roughed up the cowl and hinges with some 100 grit sandpaper and cleaned them off. A little epoxy, a little riveting, and it’s a done deal. I think it was even a little warmer tonight, as the epoxy seemed to set up really quickly.

On the avionics front, I finalized the equipment list and mailed a check off to John Stark. Here’s the list:
Garmin GNS-430 GPS
Garmin GTX-327 transponder
Garmin SL-40 comm
PS Engineering PMA-8000b audio panel
Trutrak Digiflight II autopilot

I’m also having John do the wiring harness to save myself the time, headache, and potential of ruining some expensive equipment. I’m only getting the tray for the GNS-430 at this point. There’s a rumor that the WAAS version of that unit will be available soon. I’m guessing it will be announced for Oshkosh. I’m going to wait to see what the price ends up being. I’d like to have WAAS.

Mixed up some epoxy and microfibers, spread it on the hinges, and riveted them to the bottom cowl. I used a bit too much goo on the first hinge and had to spend a bunch of time cleaning up the excess with a toothpick. I wanted to make sure the epoxy wasn’t getting into the eyelets or would interfere with the other half of the hinge. Two batches worked out perfectly for the four hinges. The stuff definitely cures much faster when it’s 70 degrees out versus 60.

I was getting a bit burned out on the camlocs. I decided to finish off the canopy and put it back in the guest room out of harms way. I riveted on the exterior handle and bolted on the latch fingers. Done deal. There’s some minor boogers in the primer, but it’s certainly good enough for flying.

Since I had the back rivet set out to do the canopy handle, I decided to work on the one rivet in the rear fuselage that needed back riveting. The rivet also holds a clip for the static line. Since the line transitions from under the longeron to above and it has to avoid the harness bracket, I made the clip stick out and up a ways. I also secured the static line while I was back there. Should be my last trip back there until inspection time.

From there I went back to the camloc strips. I trimmed the bottom ones a little more to avoid the honeycomb on the bottom cowl. I then riveted them to the firewall/bottom skin and riveted the camlocs to the strips. I was going to use solid rivets on the camlocs, but there is not much room. Since they provided cherry max blind rivets in the kit, I used those.

I installed the cabin frame, hopefully for the last time. I was going to rivet the support to the frame, but noticed it got pretty scratched up while fitting the canopy. I took it outside and shot it with another coat of paint.

Might as well install the F-704 covers. They’ve been waiting forever. I’m still not sure how to protect the wire to the lights that will be in the covers, but I’ll probably just use some poly tubing. I also installed the latch catch with spring. The catch is a bit stiff, but should loosen up over time.

I thought I was done for the day, but Julie went to work and Adele went to swim team practice. Might as well do some more. I had never done the final trim on the bottom cowl exhaust area. I trimmed that even with the rest of the cowl and sanded it smooth. I also started working on prepping the hinges to be riveted on. The instructions suggest drilling 1/4″ holes in the hinges for the epoxy to grab, so I did that every few inches. I also roughed up the hinges and cowl with some coarse sandpaper. The last item for the day was some retainer clips for the side hinge pins just like Dan did them.

Whew! Long, productive day.

Not much happened over the last few days with Julie’s birthday and other stuff going on.

I found some time today to work more on the camlock backing strips. I scalloped the other strips and countersunk all of the holes. Time consuming.

I also managed to do some painting in between rain storms. I put another coat on the cabin frame, painted the canopy latches, and put the final primer coat on the canopy fairing. Everything turned out great.