Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I removed the firewall recess for better access to the center rudder brace. I clamped the brace to the firewall angle, laid out some holes on the angle, and then drilled. It would have been quicker to drill from the other side, but my angle drill attachment hasn’t arrived yet from Cleaveland.

With the center brace firmly clecoed to the firewall, I positioned the center plastic block in a good position and drilled it to the center rudder brace in all four positions of the rudder tubes.

I then worked on lightening the center brace. I trimmed about an inch off the end of the brace, which wasn’t needed. I also cut two of the lightening holes depicted on the plans, and trimmed some off the top of the brace to the dimensions on the plans. The brace is now much lighter than it was.

I removed the rudder pedal assembly and set it aside. I shouldn’t need it again for a while.

Yesterday, as expected, was a full day job of installing french doors. It was actually fun to spend a day away from the plane on a different project. It will be awesome to have a nice patio out back this summer with the big french doors wide open. After a hard day of working on her doors, Julie didn’t even bother taking a picture of the completed project!

Today I managed to get some work done on the rudder/brake pedals. I drilled the brake cylinders to the brake pedals as I described in the previous post. With the brake pedals in just the right position, I swung one rudder tube at a time forward and marked a location to drill. I spent more time getting this perfect than was necessary.

Next I drilled holes through the plastic blocks that hold the tubes. I did that on the drill press. I used the Dan C method of measuring back 3″ on the side skin stiffeners from the firewall, removed them, and then drilled the plastic blocks to the stiffeners. I made 3 additional positions for the rudder pedals, each 7/8″ back from the prior one. I think that should work out ok. I’m pretty tall, so I’ll probably need the furthest forward position anyway.

I then put the stiffeners back in, and mounted the rudder tube assembly to it. I had to really pound on the plastic blocks to get them far enough onto the rudder tubes to fit between the side skins, but it eventually fit very nicely.

The next step was to figure out the center brace assembly. I cut the plastic center block in half with the band saw, after drilling it. The plans do not give a useful measurement for the relief cut in the center brace to clear the firewall recess. According to the plans, part of the brace should already be cut away, but it wasn’t. I just put the brace in place and marked how much to cut out. I also laid out the holes for riveting to the firewall angle, although I might have to move them since they could interfere with the rivets on the other leg of the firewall angle.

I clamped the center brace in place with the center plastic block to figure out the position of everything, but that’s as far as I got for today.

I bought a new toy that is absolutely essential for working under the fuselage. Highly recommended!

Riveted together the brake pedals and bolted them into the rudder tubes. After making sure the rudder tubes were both in the neutral position, I lined up all 4 brake pedals in the middle. I started using the Dan C method of clamping an aluminum bar across the two pedals, but looking down through the tubes they weren’t lining up very well. I ended up tightening the nuts holding the pedals on and then used friction to hold them in place. I think I can then swing the one tube enough to get a drill in there.

For now, I decided to just prime the brake pedal parts with the GBP-988 rattle can. I’ll probably paint them the same color as the rest of the interior. The primer comes off easily with acetone, so I can always spray them with something different later.

I spent some time thinking about the next steps. I need to assemble the brake pedals, drill the rudder assembly to the fuselage, drill the forward floor stiffeners and baggage area stiffeners. And then drill out everything else on the fuselage. Then it’s time for disassembly. Hopefully that will all happen this weekend, but it might not. I have a major project lined up tomorrow, replacing the living room picture window with french doors. What better time to cut a 6′ x 12′ hole in the side of the house than January?

I countersunk all of the holes for the brake pedals. In fact, I accidentally countersunk the hole for the attachment bolt. No big deal, since it gets drilled out to #12 anyway. So I went ahead and drilled out all the attachment bolt holes to #12.

I pulled out the rudder pedal weldment tubes to see how the whole thing goes together. I had to clean out the holes in that to #12, since the power coating built up a little. I put the tubes in the bearing blocks and mounted it temporarily to some blocks on the bench and added one brake pedal that is clecoed together. It looks very cool.

Tomorrow I’ll try to do some priming on the brake pedals. It’s way too cold to prime outside, so I’ll have to figure out a make-shift paint booth in the garage.

More deburring of the rudder/brake pedals. These things had a lot of rough edges on them. After countersinking and priming, they’ll be ready for riveting.

Drilled and partially deburred the rudder (actually the brake) pedal parts. All of the pedals seem to have a slight bow to them, probably from the punching process. I made sure the bow is going the same way on all of them, bowing forward.

The weather turned out to be absolutely fantastic today. It was cold, but perfectly clear with low wind. I rented a 172 and flew down to Westport and had lunch with my parents. I also took my dad up for a short flight. It was just the motivation I needed to get through the upcoming deburring and dimpling of all of the forward fuse parts.

I did do a little bit of edge prep and angle cutting for the brake pedals. I went for the passenger side brakes, so I have 4 pedals to make.

I worked on fitting and drilling the F-796B, C, and D, angle and spacers for the fuel tank attach point. The instructions and plans have you drill one hole and then use that to position the parts. I drilled the hole, but it was way off when I tried to fit the angle. I had to grind off quite a bit from the top of it. By the time I had it fitting well, there wasn’t much of an edge distance for the bolt at the bottom. Considering the tank attach brackets actually use the middle and top bolts, I’m not too worried about the edge distance of the bottom bolt.

I put the bottom skin back on in preparation for drilling out all the remaining holes. This point in the project uses a lot of clecos. I’m running especially short of 1/8″ clecos.

The forward fuselage has a lot of little parts that all need some tweaking. It’s tedious, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Next step was to fit the F-7101 gear attach webs. I used the Scotch-brite wheel to file a little off the top edge and then rounded the top and bottom edges so they would nest in the lower longeron and side stiffener.

Once I was happy with the fit, it was time for drilling. In order to get the web to sit flat, I had to remove the clecos from the aft half of the aux longeron. I put rivets in the holes to make sure the stiffener and skin remained lined up. I then drilled the F-7101 to the lower longeron, the F-704 bulkhead, and the aux longeron. I also drilled the skin to the F-902 bulkhead.

The instructions next say to fit the upper and lower tab of the F-902 to the longerons. The top tab needed a little bit of sideways tweaking so that it would sit flat against the longer. The plans then have a detail of drilling the lower longeron. Well, I got confused (again) since the fuselage is upside down and drilled the top tab. I went back and drilled the lower tab as well. I’m not sure if the top tab really needs to be drilled. It’s not clear. At this point, it doesn’t hurt.

I next started fabricating the parts for the fuel tank attach point, F-796B, C, and D. Up until this point, whenever parts needed to be fabricated from sheet, there was always a piece that was exactly the right size or slightly oversized. I hunted around for quite a while trying to organize the remaining sheet pieces and figure out what part Van’s had intended them to be used for. It would sure be nice if the inventory sheet called out that info. I finally decided that there was no perfect piece of sheet, so I cut up some pieces I hope are spare material.