Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
2917 hours and counting
Some decisions in life are bare of any obvious logic

With all parameters of height defined, it's time to install the rear canopy blocks. These will hold the 2 pins in the frame that securely lock the frame into position when closed.
The work starts by positioning the 2 C-677 blocks on the slider deck just behind the slider rails. The rear pin mounts have to be positioned 1/8" inwards from the edge of the skin to allow for the shop heads of the rivets in the side skirts.
The black line in the picture is the 1/8 inch line.

Drilling without moving the mount is a little tricky. Therefor, I clamped a big aluminum angle on the ouside and will slide a 1/8" thick piece of aluminum in between. This allows me to safely drill through the longeron.

Each time I have to do some drilling on the longeron, I'm really punctual. It would be a nightmare drilling some wrong holes in there. First fit and marking the hole locations in the bottom of the rear pin mount.

The second angle which is 0.125 serves as a guide to get a perfect 1/8 inch clearence.

Drilled the two holes to #30.

Picture from the side.

Picture from the rear looking forward. I still have to trim back the rear part of the slider frame as per the plans.

I closed the frame with the canopy clecoed on and this is how the pin insert will look like.

Looking from the side, the fit is perfect. The end of the pin has very little clearence to the plastic block and will have full grip.

 Other side viewn from the rear. Do not drill the holes through the sides of C-677 yet. One side was a little lower than the other. Yours might be different too and the difference can be so big that you have to reposition those lateral holes.

Updrilled to #13 and reamed #12. AN3 Bolts temporarily installed on both sides. Now the more critical work of drilling the plastic blocks can start.

Did some more work on the rails today.
I first drilled the sideway holes through the canopy rear blocks and countersunk them. Then drilled the sliding rail to final size #19.
Next I adjusted the rear end of the slider rail side as per the plans to avoid chafing against the side skirts.

Drilling the holes in the C-665 rear anchor blocks is one of the more challenging tasks during installation of the sliding canopy.
The process is quite easy but you will have to be very precise in measurements and drilling.

During this process, you drill a hole in the plastic block which is offset in angle in 2 directions. This makes the drilling quite complicated.

You start of by sliding the plastic block in the C-677 rear pin mount which should by now be drilled to the longeron and locked in position.
Then you slide forward the canopy until the pin of the canopy frame touches the plastic block.
Marke the exact location of this touch point on the black.

Then you drill a small hole in the block and fit and try it again.

The pin now penetrates the drilled shallow holes slightly.
Use a metal ruler to extend the line formed by the pin on the slider frame. That's the direction of insertion.

Now in the same way, use a metal ruler to draw the parallel line to the slider rail.
These two lines will define the angles at which to drill.

View from the front, you see the slider rail direction is nicely continued on the plastic block in the rear.

Now take the block to the bench drill press and use a vise to hold the block.
You want the line to be perpendicular (as the drill is also perpendicular. This guarantees the right direction for the going forward motion.

Next, you look in the other direction and the best is to use some spacing material on one end of the vise to lift it up until the drill is perpendicular again to the line on the block.

Check again in the other direction and verify the drill starts perfectly in the earlier drilled shallow point already present in the block.

Here's a shot of the entire setup. Notice the spacer on the left side under the vise which tilt to the correct angle for following the line formed by the slider rail.

Measure twice, and then drill just deept enough to accomodate the rear pin. I used painters tape to indicate the dept.

remove and test fit. this worked out very nice. It's a bit snug to open the slider and maybe I have to enlarge the hole slightly but I'm gonna leave it like this for now.

Same thing done on the passenger side. Frame pin fully inserted and butts against the block.

Small remaining task on the rear anchor blocks. I still had to drill for the screw that hold the UHMW plastic block in the aluminum enclosing.
Depending on the height of your rear frame pin entry point, you may want to play with different positions compared to the ones given on the plans.
Mine are still ok and I drilled in the plan locations. As I still have some priming to do, I secured them temporarily with anchor nuts.

Now that the anchor blocks are placed and all is locked in position, it's time to drill the remaining holes on the slider bar to full size.
I marked the positions as per the plans making sure they are in the middle of existing rivets.

After drilling, it looks good from the inside

Here are the holes seen from the top.

Finally installed the screws and nuts and torqued them for permanent installation.