I did some research and discovered a service bulletin for the RV-7 that deals specifically with these doubler plates. As it turns out, the RV-3, -4, -6, -7, and -8 models originally didn't have doubler plates at all on the forward webs of the elevator spars, and many aircraft began displaying cracks in the spars around these areas. The fix was to install the now included E-00001A/B reinforcement plates by drilling and riveting the extra holes:
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| Yep, I'll need to drill and rivet the extra holes. |
I drilled and deburred these holes before priming everything a couple days ago. Now, I riveted them onto each spar. This went mostly okay, except I noticed that one of the shop heads had cracked while being set. I drilled that one out and replaced it, but I increased the gap between the sets a bit to keep the new rivet from getting too stressed this time around.
The platenuts were installed on the aft sides of the spars as well. Here the plans actually call for using a longer rivet for the platenuts unlike the diagram for the platenuts on the rudder.
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| Doublers and platenuts on spars. |
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| Shops head on the back side... |
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| ...and flush heads on the front side, all without removing any material from the spar! Dimpling was definitely the way to go. |
I went slightly out of order when riveting the tip ribs. There's an RV-7 "gotcha" thread on VAF that gives suggestions on when deviating from the plans may be advisable to make a difficult task easier or produce a better-looking result. Instead of riveting the E-703 and E-704 ribs together before riveting them to the spar, the thread suggested riveting the E-704 rib to the spar first so it would be easy to squeeze every rivet in this corner area. It was a good suggestion, and I took it.
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| This is my complicated setup designed to immobilize the whole assembly for squeezing the end ribs. Looks janky, works great. |
With the E-704 rib attached to the spar I clecoed the E-703 ribs onto the end and went to squeeze it on, only to find out that my 3 inch yoke wouldn't fit around the flanges. Aha! Time to use the 2.5 inch flange-nose yoke I just bought for the rudder!
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| Even this yoke just barely fit around the flanges. To make it fit I had to remove one set, shimmy the yoke around the flanges, then reinstall the set with the yoke in place. |
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| It's a tight fit, but it worked perfectly once it was in place. |
Repeat steps 1 through 3 for the left elevator and we have two skeletons nearly ready to go.
The last parts needed to complete the skeletons were the horns that will connect the elevators to the pushrod controls. Installing each was around a ten-minute affair.
Thus the skeletons were finished and ready to go. The left elevator skin needed a bit more work before it could be attached to the skeleton, so I decided to finish the right elevator first. The plans recommend putting dabs of RTV or tank sealant on the aft ends of the stiffeners to reduce the risk of cracking in the skins in this area. I didn't have any tank sealant on hand so I made a quick run to Harbor Freight and picked up some black RTV.
Putting the RTV in place isn't terribly difficult, but it got annoying trying to fit the large tube into such a tight space. Not to mention that the tube was pretty difficult to squeeze without really being able to get my fingers around it. I did finally manage to get a decent glob of RTV on each pair of stiffeners.
Like tank sealant, RTV is messy and has a pretty nasty odor as it cures, but once it's in place it should do its job well.
To make sure the RTV cures in the correct position I clecoed the skeleton into the skin and set the whole thing out of the way under my workbench.
To end the day I continued filing away material from the right elevator. I spent another hour on it this time and finally decided to quit once the hand and arm cramps came back. I briefly considered trying to cut away the remaining material using my bandsaw, but at this point there wasn't enough material left for the blade to not immediately slip out of place. If I wanted to go the bandsaw route I should have done so from the beginning.
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| I grabbed the roughest file I could find lying around the garage. It didn't make things go much faster. |
At this point I've got a good enough start on things that I can continue filing once the counterweight is installed on the elevator.
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| A lot of material removed, but still a fair amount left to go... |
