Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Went up to the NWEAA fly-in at Arlington with my friend Jeff today. It was much the same as last year. I was able to see the Advanced Flight Systems EFIS. It looks great. One vendor also had a Grand Rapids EFIS in a panel. I’m happy with my decision to go with the AFS-3400.

I stopped by the Cleaveland display and picked up a couple of tools and took a look at their fuel selector handle. It indeed looks very nice, so I bought one. Mike said he’s also working on some sort of elevated plate to go underneath the handle to take up the gap. Here’s the before and after picture.

After the show, we went out for a little cruise on my friend Steve’s newly acquired boat. It was an absolutely perfect day to be out on the water. While we were out, a train went by on shore carrying four 737 fuselages. Looked very cool.

I also borrowed the big crimper from Steve. I’m going to use this to make the battery, alternator, and starter cables.

No actual work done on the plane today, but had a blast!

I started making some new brackets for the vents. The ones from Experimental Air kind of sort of fit, but I decided I’d just rather have ones that really fit well. I used .040 instead of the .063 that seemed like overkill. I cut them, made the bends, and laid out the holes for the side skins.

Since I had the vise unburied for bending the brackets, I decided to work on the throttle quadrant clevis ends a bit. I picked up a perfect Dremel bit for the job from Lowes, a 1/8″ tungsten carbide cutter. I worked perfectly on the clevis ends and allowed the cable to follow a much better angle. Might take a tiny bit more grinding, but they’re nearly perfect. The grinding didn’t significantly impact the strength of the clevis ends at all. I supposed if they were holding 1000 pounds of load, I’d worry about it. This is a very low-load application. The picture shows the difference in angle I was able to achieve after grinding the clevis end.

Continuing in my quest to reduce the punch list, I worked on making the right brake line. Usually doing a task for the second time on this plane is easier, but I had an unusually difficult time with the brake line. It might be because the plane is jammed up against the side of the garage to make room for Julie’s car. Don’t know. I eventually got it right where I wanted it, cut and flared the ends (remembering the nuts this time), and torqued everything down. I slipped plastic tube over the line in 3 places and used electrical tape (per the instructions) to secure the lines to the legs. Doesn’t look super pretty, but is very secure. Crossed that task off the list.

Another easy task was to re-safety wire the oil filler tube. I put this off for a little while in case I needed the tube off again for some reason, but I think it’s there to stay.

It does feel good to knock items off the list.

Extra holiday day. Woo hoo! Slept in, went swimming in the morning, went by Home Depot, sprayed some weed killer around the house, rode mountain bikes with Adele and Leo the dog (his 4th birthday), bought fireworks, and still had some time for the plane.

After getting slightly frustrated at the LED lights and the amount of tweaking I’ll have to do to get the throttle quadrant installed, I decided to go back to the punch list and just knock off some low-hanging fruit. Securing the baffle fin wraps fell right into that category. It took me a couple tries on each side, but I used safety wire, washers and tubing to tie the wrap together. One of the oil return lines lies squarely in the way, but going around it seemed to be no problem.

The brake lines have been on my list for a long time, and it was time to attack them. I first safety wired the brakes, as it seems like I won’t need to take them off again. Again, it always seems to take me two tries to get the safety wire right, but it ends up looking very good. I then did a bunch of trial and error getting the tubing bent just the right way. I know a lot of people install flexible lines here, but the tubing has worked for many people and doesn’t take too much time to install. I only got one side done so far. And of course I forgot to put the nuts on before doing the flares. Luckily, I had enough extra to re-do the flares. What a rookie mistake.

Assembled the green LED position light and tested it. Adele held up the light in the garage while I walked across the street. Still plenty bright. I’m convinced you can see these from quite a distance.

I also assembled the mounting plates for the strobe lights. Unfortunately one screw is the wrong size, so I’ll have to order another one of those as well.

I decided to put together the LED position light kits. I swapped the band saw back to the blade I already ruined on fiberglass and cut the boards to size. I little sanding around the edges, and they fit perfect.

I next did a bunch of installing of tiny parts and soldering. Unfortunately, I didn’t read far enough ahead in the instructions and installed some of the LEDs too close to the board (and trimmed the leads) in order to get the necessary angle on them. I’ll have to order some extra LEDs and replace the ones I have. I hate making dumb mistakes, but I was able to test the red light. Works great. I can confirm that they are bright and you’ll see spots after staring into them. I’ll leave the green one for later.