Ivan's RV-7

Fitting the aft top skinsTimer icon5h

July 1, 2023

Spent close to 4 hours just clecoing the aft top skins.

It was a real pain, but I managed to get the skins fitted. There are a couple of holes I might need to upsize to -4 rivets. They just don't fit well no matter what I tried to do with the bulkhead flanges.

The F-707 bulkhead right side gave me the most trouble. I might have overdone it with the fluting. However, every time I tried to reduce the amount of fluting, things would get worse.

The aft top skins.

The view from the back.

I also routed the rudder cables. I figured I would do it now while I can still reach the area easily. Instead of SB625-7 snap bushings, I used SB625-8, which has a slightly larger opening. The cable fits through these bushings with no problem, even when the bushing is already installed in the hole. The plan is to use slitted SB500-4 bushings as sacrificial ones. They click nicely into the SB625-8 bushings and will be easy to replace if needed.