Bambas Family Website

October 11,2016

The big day!  Dolly and I have been building this RV-7 for almost two years. Each has had a significant milepost.  In 2015 it was the test fitting of the wings to the fuselage.  This year it’s the airport move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dalton Airport (3DA) is a small private/public airport located on one of the main streets in Flushing, Michigan. Pole barn hangars with electric doors line the sides of both the sod and the 3500′ hard surface runway. EAA Chapter 77 owns a cavernous main hangar and one of the smaller hangars where I rent space.  That’s where we are going.
The move was blissfully uneventful. I had arranged for a tilt-bed automobile hauler from Norm’s Towing in Montrose.  Norm showed up on time; the plane was winched up the ramp and strapped down.  It was threatening rain, but we were prepared with a tarp.  Twelve miles and $100 later we were ensconced in our new home.

October 5, 2016

Please forgive the misleading headline of this post.  “Installing a motor mount and adding landing gear legs, wheels and brakes” just doesn’t work as a title.

Master and starter solenoids, the battery box and cabin heat valve were installed on the firewall. Then the motor mount was added.

Four ratchet straps were hung over a pole barn truss to lift the fuselage.

Notice the recessed cover had been riveted into the center of the firewall.

After a little excess powder coating was removed from the gear legs they slipped nicely into the mount tubes.  The retainer holes were reamed to 0.3115 inches for the close fit bolts which slid in with taps from a plastic hammer. Nuts were torqued to 190 in-lb, including 50 in-lb turning drag.

 

Beringer brake caliper mount holes were drilled to the axles and reamed to 0.3115″.  Hubs/tires were mounted with brake discs safetied on the hubs with 0.40″ wire.

Baby’s got legs!

October 3 to 27,   2016

There was almost as much masking, sanding and fitting of the rear window as for the tip-up canopy.  The rear window fits over the top of the roll bar and under the fuselage skin.  The sides and aft edge of the window are trimmed to about an inch beyond the edge of the skin.

The front edge of the window is cut and sanded to match the aft end of the closed canopy.  With the tip-up closed and the window removed, a fine line is drawn across the roll bar just behind the tip-up to guide glue application.

Gluing was done after moving the project to the Dalton Airport.  SIKA glue application was similar to that used for the tip-up canopy. The rear window was braced against the clecoed skin using thin battens and a board resting on the baggage compartment top longerons.

The rear skin was riveted, and the Inner and outer protective plastic film replaced with food wrap on the outside of the window.

This post is not meant to be a step by step guide as to gluing the window. Adjusting the window placement during gluing is difficult. There were many opening and closings of the tip-up during the process.