CHAPTER 4
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| Monday, April 10th, 2006 | Finishing Kit arrived. Quick inspection... |
| Today, after some delay in the local transportation, this big box arrived. I planned to make a quick inspection because I leave at the end of this week for some holidays... So, in case something went wrong... | |
| The canopy frame... perfect condition. | |
| All epoxy wheel covers and fairings... perfect... | |
| Spinner and parts... perfect condition. | |
| Engine mount... perfect condition. | |
| Engine nose covers, ... perfect condition. | |
| The canopy ... perfect condition. What a beauty !! | |
| Andair fuel selector... perfect condition. | |
| It's too late but with the finishing kit I also ordered some electronics. Dimmer system, over and under voltage warning and the high pressure fuel pump system. All perfect delivered... | |
| Monday, April 10th, 2006 | Finishing Kit arrived. Quick inspection... |
| Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 | Installing AutoPilot in Right Wing |
| During my holidays the Trio EZ1 Autopilot arrived. Beautiful piece of technology. So, I have to built this into the right wing before we can close this. And that has to be done before we can move on with the next fuselage parts. And this is what we planned to do today... | |
| First of all we put the wires for the Autopilot into the conduit and connected it to the Amphenol connector. | |
| And then we made a backplate on the place where the autopilot has to be installed... You can see the shielded wire coming out of the conduit... | |
| And here from the other side the temporarily clecoed backplate. | |
| Then we mounted the wire in place and bolted the backplate in place. You see the 4 attach bolts for the servo. | |
| The servo was installed in place and we made the servo arm to the exact length... | |
| Here the complete assembly as final installed, | |
| with a detail of the attachement to the belcrank. | |
| and the detail of the servo... | |
| Time spent for this | 13 hours |
| Saturday, May 5th, 2006 | Left wing connector and fuel pump |
| Hi, I'm back in town... After a wonderful flight camp in Nuits-Saint-Georges, the Bordeaux region with the best wines in France, I can restart my project... Very motivated after some unbelievable flights in the neighbourhood of the Mont Blanc in the French Alpes. I'm really looking forward to do this with my RV-7.
Well, back to business... I started with finishing the wiring job of the left wing. Keep in mind that this takes time... Soldering, labeling,.... For this connector it took half a day of labour... |
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| To prevent the wiring conduit, and of course also the wires inside, from scratching over the "sharp" edges of the rib's holes, I installed plastic channels in it. | |
| I finished the electricity part of the wing and decided to go further with the high pressure fuel pump I bought with the finishing kit. This starts with modifications on thye F-782 C. Some parts have to be removed. | |
| This in a way that the overall length remains the same after bringing the new F-7115 bottom cover in place. | |
| Once this part is done, the assembling of the F-7115 Fuel Pump Cover Assembly can be done. |
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| Followed by the first steps to install the pump and the filter on the bottom plate with hose clamps. | |
| Then I installed the Andair fuel valve/handle on the fule valve cover plate (F-983A). | |
| And a picture from the rear side after installing some platenuts on the selector. And, finally, the complete assembly as shown hereunder... | |
| Time spent for this | 15 hours |
| Saturday, May 13th, 2006 | Continue fuel pump |
| First thing to be done today, rivet the fuel pump covers together and install all necessary platenuts. | |
| All remaining tubes were bend so far as possible. Using the Andair Fuel tank selector and this high pressure fuel pump, the T-connector isn't the right. So I ordered a new one at www.PegasusAutoRacing.com . The part you need to solve this problem is a 6AN Tee with female Swivel on Run. Part nr. 3283-06. This Female Swivel is needed to connect the Tee to the Andair part. It wasn't delivered yet, but, using a normal Tee, I could already bend all tubes. Hopely next week this part will come. |
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| Next we put both wings back in the cradle. We controlled all connections inside the wing, controlled all bolts been torqued. To be short, next week we plan to close the bottom of the wings, so, all these last inspections are necessary now. Here you see the landing light connectors. | |
| A last inspection on the auto pilot servo and the connector. With some tiewraps I secured the male and female connector of the servo. In this way they can not disconnect due to vibrations... | |
| Connecting the Pitot tube and the wires for the heating element. | |
| And last but not least, all soldered connector pins were checked and finally the connectors were closed... Next week we can start closing the wings. Last step before continuing the fuselage. The closed wings are needed to proceed the attachment of the wings to the fuselage... |
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| Time spent for this | 13 hours |
| Saturday, May 20th, 2006 | Closing the wings... |
| Ladies and Gentlemen...
may I proudly present you the most magnificent team in the world... THE GREAT WINGCLOSERS !!!!! Today I had the help of these three enthousiastic fellows to close the wings. Gerry at the left, Joost in the middje and Ronny at the right... |
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| After investigating, studying the manual and the plans, discussing, the action started. Well documented and prepared we started to rivet the inboard skins to the wingframe.
We followed the described L-pattern of Vans which worked well... |
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| For the inboard skins we put the wings topside down on the table. Then we riveted it to the ribs and the spars. | |
| Then, to continue with the outboard skins, we put the wing back in it's cradle while Ronny used the pneumatic hammer to rivet, Gerry was the bucker, Joost put the rivets in place and I..., well I took the pictures, held the skin in place in a way that both other gentlemen could work as free as possible. And, naturally, somebody had to keep an eye on the progress. And believe me, all these hands are absolutely necessary to do this hell of a job... | |
| An impression in which directions you have to swing your arm to finalise some of these little bastards... | |
| another look... | |
| At the end, we finished one and two-third of the wings today. Next week we can finish this completely.
Thanks guys for the help. I'm really happy for the helping hands today. Without this, I think it should have taken a couple of weeks... Again very THANK YOU!!! Really appreciate this... |
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| Time spent (all helping hands) | 31 hours |
| Thursday, May 25th, 2006 | Closing the wings and cntn'd wingtips... |
| Gerry came to the workshop to help me finishing the wing. We worked together for three hours to finish this. Both wings are closed and we could go on with the finalising of the wingtips... | |
| One after the other we installed the template into the belcranck and lined out the ailerons exactly as described in the instructions. This had to be done befor the installation of the tips. Once this was done, we drilled all remaining holes to attach the tips to the skin. We followed this with clecoes in all holes. The fitting was perfect. | |
| We did the same for the second wingtip. Afterwards all holes were drilled to accept the screws necessary to attach the tips to the wing with platenuts. | |
| Here we installed the 32 platenuts to the fiberglass tips. With the necessary platenuts, rivets everything was finished and we installed the tips to the wing. Perfect fitting... | |
| Next thing to be done, attaching the piano hinge pins to the flaps. I inspired me to the way David did this in his wing. Tomorrow I go on with this part... | |
| Time spent together | 18 hours |
| Friday, May 26th, 2006 | Continue finishing wings... |
| I continued securing the piano hinge pin. These two plates will keep it in place... | |
| And this is how it looks like once it is installed... | |
| I spent the whole day with the installation of the flaps. Both wings are almost finished now. The only remaining task is finalize the tips. I start with this and will continue tomorrow... | |
| Some tape will help me to keep the wing tip lenses in place. Tomorrow I will continue with drilling and installing te nutplates for these. And then, hopely, I will prepare and prime both wings. Once this is finished, I can go on with the fuselage... | |
| Time spent together | 9,5 hours |
| Saturday, May 27th, 2006 | Continue finishing wings... |
| I started with the completion of the wingtips. First I installed the platenuts for the lenses, then I chromed the nav light compartiment to have a better reflection. | |
| After a lot of scotchbrite work, cleaning etc..., I primed the two wings with zinc chromate... | |
| ... and then the top primer. As planned, I finished the two wings completely today with the help of Ronny. So, next week we can go on with the fuselage... | |
| Time spent together | 16 hours |
| Saturday, June 3th, 2006 | Mounting the wings to the fuselage |
| To prevent the NAS Bolts from the wing to get damaged during this first mounting proces from the wings to the fuselage, and to facilitate the process, I decided to follow Checkoway's way of working. Using driftpins to hold the wings in place... | |
| Gerry made this set of driftpins from standard bolts. Some 100ths of a milimeter smaller than the final bolts and conical in the front. This beautiful set of driftpins will help us to bring the wings straight in place... | |
| Before noon I prepared all kind of small to do's in a way that the afternoon could be used to attach the wings. All non-used rivet holes were used to draw a 3" line outward to find and measure back the holes to be drilled in the bottom skin after attaching the wing. | |
| There was still a part that had to be trimmed. The rear spar needs some trimming to fit later. Afterwards we had to trim two extra mm's to get the right straight line of the wing... | |
| A view after trimming... | |
| Then finally, I riveted and screwed on the tank attachement bracket. | |
| To be hounest, this went quite easy. We had to bring in the previously made bushings to keep the exact width of the center section opening. But, once these were in place the attachement of the wing went very good. | |
| Especially with these drift pins we brought the wing quite quick in place... | |
| And then we measured from an identical reference point near the wingtip to a point just before the tailwheel. Immediately we reached a difference of 0,5 mm. This is really nothing over that length... | |
| And then, the 4 points we drew on the ground starting from the dropping plumb lines. And there we measured a difference of 1 cm in the middle two reference points. Sh...., we had to start over. Remove the wings, cutting some more from the rear spar attach brackets, mounting again, measuring again to the tail, again the 4 plumb lines, .... 0,5 cm...
And again until we had the perfect fit. Now we reached the straight line over the leading edge of the wing... This took almost half a day but... the result is perfect... |
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| And then... the incidence of the wing. Measuring digitally the incidence in the way Van's describes it. On the root we had 0,1° against the 0° on the longeron. | |
| At the tip 0°. A perfect fit though.
We repeated this for both wings and this fit is the same for the other wing... So, very happy and satisfied with the result. Next week we can try to get rid of this 0,1°... before bolting the wing finally... |
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| Once everything in place we had a perfect fit of the flaps against the fuselage. | |
| Time spent together | 14 hours |
| Monday, June 5th, 2006 | Preparing some parts for cabin |
| Gerry promised to come over next Saturday to final drill the wings to the fuselage. So, today I planned to do some intermediate jobs together with Ronny. We started making two reinforcement plates for the Naca vents. Here you see the final painted assembly... | |
| And next preparing and painting some remaining parts for inside the cabin. We disassembled the electric fuel pump, | |
| prepared the parts, painted in the Gray for the inside cabin color. | |
| Another view, once assembled. Everything fits again perfectly. | |
| The flap motor assembly was prepared and painted. | |
| After assembling a closer look to the interior where the flap motor is. You can see the wire tie-up for the motor. Just to prevent the wires for touching the moving parts...
All these parts can be final installed one of the coming weeks. |
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| Time spent together | 11 hours |
| Saturday, June 10th, 2006 | Drilling wings together with fuselage |
| To get rid of the small incidence discrepancy we had to lift the rear spar a very little. For this we needed some weight inside to prevent the complete airplane being tilted-up. It was'nt hard to find a volunteer. Proud and satisfied... and a perfect job to be done in the first summer temperatures of about 30° C... | |
| Once the incidence was perfect, we drilled the rear spar to the attachement braces in the fuselage... This was done for both wings.
The fit is again perfect. |
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| Gerry went under the airplane to measure and drill the bottom skins of the wings to the fuselage. | |
| This had to be done by measuring the 3" from the reference marks I made some weeks ago. And Yesss, again a perfect fit. All holes drilled and perfectly aligned with the pre-drilled holes in the wings. Platenuts and dimpling will be done later when the wings are separated again from the fuselage. | |
| Time to do the plumbing job... I bought a nice flaring tool from Spruce a time ago. This is a need-to-have which you don't see in the offered toolkits. But, you really need this... | |
| ... to make these 37° flares for the tubings. | |
| And then measuring, | |
| ... and measuring and tube plies, ....
This takes a lot of time. And it needs to be done perfectly... |
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| We started from the endpoint of the fuel ventilation line just behind the firewal. Going up from there to the upside | |
| then parrallel to the longeron, | |
| ... and then again down to the exit place from the fuselage. | |
| Look out for the ruddercable hole on the bottom. | |
| And then, the fuel line. This is hard to do because it is one complete line starting on the tank and straight to the fuel pump, through all the holes and without a connection point. This needs special attention and a briljant technical vision... For this, I was glad to have Gerry on board. This guy looks through all technical "problems" on the spot.... I will make some more pictures from the complete assembly later to show the way this goes... | |
| The rubber bushing prevents the tube scratching against the skin. | |
| Two short curves bring the tube in position. | |
| After several tries, this is the result. The endpoint: two flares with AN-fittings where the tube will be connected to the fuel pump... |
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| Time spent together (Me + Ron + Ger) | 21 hours |
| Saturday, June 17th, 2006 | Continue with brake lines |
| Next thing to do... the brake lines.
In three pictures this shows how to connect the special fittings to the high-pressure lines. First of all: do never forget to bring these both rings to the line before attaching it to the fitting. |
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| Secondly, you have to insert the small cupper pipe into the fitting. This can be done by heating the tube a little with a heat gun or by bringing it into a boiling pan of water... This will help you a lot in the construction of these fittings... | |
| And then, last but not least, insert the tube with the small cupper pipe into the fitting and fasten the nut. You can see the small cupper conical part which will keep the tube perfectly in place... | |
| This job takes a while but, once this is done, the result is really satisfying... | |
| Here the complete pedal assembly in place... | |
| A closer view to the left pedals. On top you see the T-fitting going through the firewall to the brake fluid reservoir. | |
| The left part with a closer view on the tie-up wraps and the two special (delivered) tubes bringing the complete assembly to the front side of the firewall. Notice the two blue fittings on the bottom side of the brake cilinders.
This took almost a full day. But OK, there was some visit and this resulted in the morning in some nice but unproductive hours... |
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| Once the pedal assembly finished we started on the mounting job for the flap motor assembly. We had to stop after this because I do need a tap from 1/4" / 28 to drill and tap he flap pushrods first... I will order this immediately. | |
| I decided to go for a glass cockpit but, some alalogue instruments are mandatory in Belgium So I ordered some gauges. This one came in and will be the clock/chrono/G-Meter for my RV-7. |
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| The 3 1/8 UMA altitude gauge | |
| And the UMA airspeed indicator. | |
| Time spent together (Me + Ron) | 11 hours |
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