Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I first started messing with the fuel pump. I figured that if one of the connections was loose or faulty that the pump might be sucking air instead of fuel. I removed the line going directly into the pump to see if I could feel any suction at that point. None that I could detect. I fiddled with a few things, but nothing helped. I did other stuff until after lunch when I tried a new tactic. I removed the fuel pump assembly from the plane and rigged up some temporary input and output lines. I put the input into a small container of fuel. Rigged up power and nothing. I then moved my make-shift input line directly to the fuel pump. That’s when it finally started working. I put the assembly back together, and it still worked.

I put the assembly back in the plane, and it still worked. I’m very happy it’s all working, but I wish I knew why it wasn’t working. My guess is that there was some kind of air bubble stuck in the pump, and I finally knocked it loose. The EMS is reading 23 gph with the fuel running into a gas can. With the fuel hose hooked back up to the servo it’s reading 40 psi, which seems a bit high.

In between all of that I finished trimming the flaps, rigging the flap push rods, and temporarily rigging the aileron push rods. The flaps took a lot longer than I expected. Lots of iterations. The second one of course was easier. I still need to tweak the ailerons, as I was only approximating the in-trail position. It’s cool to have the flaps and ailerons working.

This is what I ended up for the left side flap push rod cut out. Ignore the squiggle. The Dremel got away from me. For symmetry I did almost the exact same squiggle on the other side.

Last thing for the day was to do the magnetometer calibration. I used the compass on my GPS to find approximate north. It’s good enough for now. I’m just tired of seeing the warning message on the EFIS every time I fire it up. Once I’m taxing, I’ll take her over to the compass rose for a proper calibration. It was very cool to pull the plane out of the hangar. She’s looking very close to ready.

When I ran out to grab a sandwich, a 737 was on the runway doing engine run-ups. It eventually taxied back to the end, turned around, and took off. Very cool to watch.

Went down to the hangar after work and started messing around with getting fuel to the engine in anticipation of starting it this weekend. I put a few gallon in each tank. No leaks. That’s good. I drained a bit out of each tank via a filter and didn’t see any junk. That’s good. Put a bit more fuel in the left tank. Disconnected the fuel line from the fuel servo and directed it into an empty gas can. Put the fuel selector on left and turned on the fuel pump. Nothing. Right tank, nothing. Tried more fuel in the tank. Nothing. I tried several more things including checking that I had the voltage to the pump correct. Still nothing. Frustrating.

Instead of burning the whole night on it, I decided to move onto something else. I started fitting the flaps. I first made up some hinge pins, although I’m about 3 feet short on pin material. I made do for now with a shorter piece. I did several iterations of marking the inboard edge of the flap where it abuts the fuselage, removing the flap, removing material with a Dremel, re-install, repeat. I also drilled out the starter holes for the flap push rod, and attached both push rods to the flaps.

I like that the plans spec a star washer in addition to the nut plate for the flap push rod attachment. Belt and suspenders. I soon got weary of the flap trimming and started packing up for the night.

One last thing I did was safety wire the oil plugs. Forgot to do that before.