Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I drilled and blind riveted the ends on the push tube, thus closing out my work on the fuselage for now. Yipee!!

It was a busy day, so I didn’t get too much done. I riveted the crotch strap attach brackets in place.

I also put the ends on the front elevator push tube. Talk about a tight fit. It took some hammering to get the things to seat in place. Hopefully that doesn’t cause problems down the road. I looked up the part number for the rod ends in the Spruce catalog and they’re supposed to be used for tubing that has a smaller wall thickness. No wonder they didn’t fit.

I had a very productive day. I deburred the remainder of the subpanel parts, except for the skin.

I next pulled out the crotch strap attach kit. Matthew was right. I’d eventually need to pull the control column stuff out again–like two days after I installed it. The attach kit has been sitting waiting for a long time, mainly because I knew it would be unpleasant. Leaning over the sides of the fuselage trying to drill with the angle drill lived up to my expectations. I basically clamped the aft half in place where the plans indicated and drilled the holes. After that I clamped the front half to the aft half with some 1/8″ spacers and drilled that. I drilled out the holes for the AN5 bolt next and then drilled the seat skin to the brackets. The passenger side turned out really good, but the pilot side has some marginal edge distances in the top of the bracket. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I guess my measurement of 1/32″ back from the screw hole wasn’t precise enough. My suggestion would be to mark some center lines on the tops of the brackets and verify they line up (or are at least visible) through the seat skin holes before drilling the brackets to the seat ribs. And my biggest suggestion is to install these things much earlier, like when you’re assembling the center section. There’s no reason to wait.

The last thing I did for the day was to prime the last push tubes.

Deburred more of the subpanel.

I did a bunch of little stuff on the plane. My builder friend Matthew mentioned that the control stick assembly gets in the way during wiring. Instead of going crazy trying to get it permanently installed, I just stuck in a few bolts and made sure the thing moves around as expected. Pretty fun.

In my attempt to finish up the fuselage kit, I looked around to see if anything else needed to be completed. I realized I never made the forward elevator push tube or the flap push rods. I pulled out the materials, cut them to length, and prepped for priming.

Getting back to the subpanel area, I drilled the forward top skin to the underlying structure. I pre-bent the skin a bit before I put it on, which helped quite a bit. The fit is actually quite good. I only had trouble with the outboard-most holes on the subpanel itself. Those two holes didn’t line up very well. Drilling to the firewall went extremely well. I followed Dan’s lead and peeled back one side of the skin to drill the angle that holds the middle rib to the firewall. I immediately removed the skin and deburred the firewall. It only took one hole in my finger to remember how sharp those stainless steel burrs are.

The holes holding the subpanel to the F-902 ribs were very tricky to drill, especially since I already have my forward canopy decks installed. It might have been better to leave those off until now. I managed by leaning over the sides and using the reflection in the aluminum to guide the angle drill.

I did a bunch more deburring on various parts. It shouldn’t take long to get everything deburred and dimpled.

For something different, I pulled out the control columns and started figuring out the assembly. The first step appears to be putting the crossbar into the fuselage. I tried a couple different combinations of washers, but couldn’t get the thing to move freely. I’ll have to read up on other web sites.

I riveted the ribs to the outboard portions of the subpanel and clecoed the whole subpanel together. I clecoed the skin on in preparation for drilling.

I riveted the seal supports to the subpanel. I also made the big cut on the left rib. Dan outlined this modification on his web site. As supplied in the kit, the rib ends up right in the middle of the pilot’s field of view. By cutting it and moving the aft portion of the rib toward the center of the plane, there is much more flexibility in the placement of instruments.

I drilled the seal supports to the subpanel. I also drilled the ribs to the subpanel and deburred everything. There’s really no trick to the subpanel so far. It’s going together as described in the instructions.

There hasn’t been a lot of progress lately. I’ve been busy with many other activities and projects.

I did manage to debur some subpanel parts.