Wings

Today I worked on the fuel pick up tubes and mounted them in the anti-rotational brackets. The plans supply four of the brackets and you have to pick out the one that works with the fuel pickup tubes after you have torqued the nuts to the elbow that passes through the tank cover plate. Once you get that in position and the tubes are bent to lie on the bottom of the tank you rivet the bracket on the cover plate. After that I mixed up some of the tank sealant and dabbed it over the rivets to ensure the seal and I also put some on the AN connections just to make sure that were sealed up and wouldn't leak by.

3 Hours

Wings - 44 Hours

Empennage - 195 Hours

Total hours on project - 239

Wings

I continued to read and study the plans today and came to the part where you work with the float type fuel senders. I had ordered the fuel float senders along with the wings so I was ready to get these done today. I pulled out the mulitmeter and did the electrical checks as was recommended in the plans and was able to verify a reading of 32 ohms in the 'full' position, and 240 ohms in the 'empty' position.

Using the lengths specified in Van's plans I made two 3" bends in the float arm that were offset by 90 degrees and cut off the extra lenth so as to fit the assembly. Both fuel senders are now ready to install in the fuel tanks. In my next session I'll install the fuel pick up tubes and should be able to close up the tanks.

2 Hours

Wings - 41 Hours

Empannage - 195 Hours

Total hours on project - 236

Wings

I got busy on the other wing today and got all the holes drilled for the conduit in about 2 hours. Then I had to deburr all the holes to smooth them up in both wings and then wrestled the conduit into the wings. I thought the conduit would be easier to get through the holes, but it was quite a task. Once I got that part done I tapped the holes for the tie-down rings in both wings with a 3/8 - 16 tap.

5 Hours

Wings - 39 hours

Empennage - 195 hours

Total hours on project - 234

Wings

It's been a while since I've been able to work on the RV-7 project and I was glad to get back in the garage and get started again. Since my last post I've spent my 28 days in Africa and made it back home on September 27th. The last couple of weeks I was in Chad I had something that was going around that was kind of like the flu and I didn't feel too well when I got back. I had to go to Well Control School for four days the Monday after I got back and then there were all the 'honey-do's' that had to be taken care of. So I've been home for almsot three weeks now and this was my first effort to work on the RV project.

I've been reading through the plans to see what I need to do next and since there are no specific Quick-Build plans to go by it gets kind of confusing in knowing what needs to be done and when. So I decided to start at the beginning and just read through the plans and actually put my hands on each step as if I had done the work so I'd be familiar with how the wing is built. I checked off each step as I went along and today I got to the point where it tells you to make provisions for running wires for wingtip position lights, strobes and landing lights.

I looked at a few other builder web sites to see how they did this and I thought it was pretty straightforward. I got some electrical flex conduit from Home Depot and the outside diameter is slightly larger than 13/16". So I used my Unibit that goes up the 7/8" to have room to slide the conduit in. I think it should have been easier, but with all my measuring and the contortions I had to go through to get the drill aligned, it took a while. But now that I've got one wing done and have it mostly figured out, I hope that the other one will go a lot quicker.

4 Hours

Wings - 34 Hours

Empennage - 195 Hours

Total hours on project - 229 Hours