Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
4267 hours and counting

Work is continuing on painting. Some time back, Brent has painted my wheelpants in white. That already looked awesome.
Yesterday he showed up with the 2 wheelpants finalised using the paint scheme I had given him and I have to say that I'm blown away with the result.

Here is a drawing of the design I had given him.

These are pictures of the both sides of the finished wheel pants.
I'm very satisfied with the color choice I made before and we can now with a peacefull mind continue painting on the other components.

Here is an image of the outboard side

And an image of the inboard side.

The Bill Lane Plenum is finally finished... I took some images for fellow builders who need to form the mental pictures. I received some pictures from Bill himself which helped me picture the process so I hope this contributes to other people who also are looking for images of Bill's plenum. I described the process in earlier articles. Just search for Bill Lane or Plenum in the search and you"ll find them easily.
The plenum can be purchased at James Aircraft at https://www.jamesaircraft.com/ and I can warmly recommend it to everyone installing the James cowling. It allows you to use the standard Vans baffle kit and sits a lot higher above the cylinders than the version 1 James plenum does.

I decided to paint the finish color in the same color as my Superior Engine block. It came out really nice and the black rock covers stand out really well.

The fit is nice and tight, small remaining gaps will be filled with RTV on final installation.

 Passenger side top, #1 cylinder

Nice fit at the top on the baffle sides

A shot of the right side customised front baffle and anti rotation angle.

Similar shot on the left side.

It took me months to build this and get it finalised but I'm absolutly thrilled with the result !

I might still put some black paint in the air inlets for a nicer view from the front. That's on the to do list for final tweaking.

Milestone day ! 
This is one of those days that you know mark the timeline of building your airplane. The moment you hang the engine in the engine mount.
After many days of thinking about missing any things on the firewall, I came to the conclusion that this is the right moment to hang the engine and move on to the firewall forward work. There are some more things I need to do on the firewall, but it's not possible to be sure about the exact location to drill large holes in the firewall until I can actually evaluate the position with the engine in place. i'm thinking of the mixture and throttle cable and alternate air cable. Other than those, I'm pretty sure everything on the firewall is in place.

The same thinking goes for the rear of the engine case. Make sure the 45° restrictor fitting for the oil pressure is mounted in the engine case prior to hanging the engine. It's almost impossible to install this once the engine is on the engine mount. Mine was already installed by PMM during engine assembly. While you are at it, also install the other oil cooler fittings in the engine case (in and out). These can also be done later but it's easier now.

First step was to remove the safety straps that held the engine to the wood pallet that was used for transport. I want to keep track of how this was done as this engine is a brand new engine that has not yet been on the test bench. When all is ready, I will need to unhook the engine and bring it to PMM Wingservice to have it running on the test bench for a first time. This has the disadvantage of extra work on removing the engine and all connections again and having to do it again after it has been run. On the other hand, the major advantage is that I do not have to worry about corrosion and idle time of the engine as it has not yet been running. The cylinders are as if they would be in a stock location on a bench waiting for an engine. There has been no movement of the cylinder heads on the cylinder walls and everything has an oil film on it as delivered from Superior Air Parts. Whether building takes me another 3 years or just 1, it won't matter. I'm gladly willing to take that extra work knowing there is no pressure.

The engine was protected well on the front and rear crankcase and supported in the front under the front with some wood block supports. I'll have to keep all this in stock so that I can re use it in the same way when I bring the engine back to PMM.

Using the engine hoist, we pulled it up, removed the pallet and moved it over to the front of the airplane. Alain helped me on this task to keep the engine in position. It's best having some extra hands around when you do this as the engine is heavy and the bolts are not always willing to go in as easy as you think it would. 

The last part of the moving is the most critical as you don't want your magneto's or fuel pump to bump into the engine mount. Having one person moving and another one guiding the engine is no luxury.

Also notice I leveled the airplane in flight mode. This is much easier to position the engine than if it would be sitting on all tyres which would require you to position the engine at an angle. This leveled way makes it much easier.

I found some documentation online from someone who did this before and described the process. I studied this carefully and upfront, had a close look at the barry mounts and dyna bolt set. You can read it following this link https://www.myrv14.com/buildlog/20150917/Engine_Hanging.pdf. Vans Aircraft also has some drawings available which are not part of the standard plan set that you receive with the kit. 

Study the plans carefully, the barry mounts have to be positioned so that the engine rests on the compression side in the bottom and the compression side in the back on the top mounts. The compression barry mounts are the ones that have a step in the rubber. The non compression ones don't have the ribble on it and look like plain rubber. If I remember well, the non compression ones also are a little larger. Also take care that the washers are in the correct locations. The barry mounts come with one big washer in the box. It's good to assemble the order of all this before starting to move the engine and have thing prepared well. I colored the position of the large washer red in the picture above.

There are 2 lengths in the dyna bolt kit. 2 x AN7-43A and 2 x AN7-44A. The longer ones go on the bottom side, the shorter ones go on the top. The difference is not much more than the length of one of the washers.

Start with the 2 top bolts. The first one is very easy... tighten the bolt but don't torque it yet, you'll probably have to loosen them again working on the bottom bolts.
You do need to tighten the first so that the barry mounts compress allowing the other hole to come in line with the engine case. Remember this is a dynafocal mount, the bolts point inwards. If the bolt is not tightened enough on one side, it's impossible to insert the second one. As you tighten the bolts, the barry mounts compress and also position themselves in the engine mount. That's important.

What I found very annoying is that you can't put a socket on the bolt head as the engine mount is in the way.  I used an extension on the wrench but that didn't make it easier.

The engine sometimes needs a bit of persuasion to get it in position :) Although I don't think this did much. Found out later it's more important to tigthen the other side and use the engine hoist to lower or lift the engine a bit in order to get a bolt in.

The large washer goes between the compression mount and the crankcase as a spacer for the bottom mounts. On the top mounts, I have put that washer on the compression mounts under the bolt head as you can see in the image below. The image has both top bolts in place and tightened.

From there on, things went less smooth and it took about an hour or 2 before I got the last bolt in so I did not take any more pictures until it was done.

I'll try to describe the further process I took.

As both top bolts were tightened, I lifted the engine a bit using the engine hoist. This allowed me to slip the barry mounts between the case and the engine mount. Don't forget the large washer between the barry cookie and the engine case. Don't forget the compression side of the barry mounts is against the engine for the bottom mounts. Then I lowered the engine again and after some wiggling I was able to put the 3rd bolt in. I did have to loosen the top bolts a bit though. 

The fourth bolt is the most difficult one. Looking with a mirror through the hole there was no way the bolt would go in. After a lot of moving up and down, I finally discovered my problem : the washer between the barry mount and the engine case was not aligned and the pressure on it is high enough that it makes it hard to move it. After lifting the engine a bit and tapping on it, I could get it more or less into place. 
A second trick I used was to take an old bolt which was smaller in size and grind down into a guide pin. Once I could slide that smaller bolt in, I was able to wiggle it around in order to get that washer and the engine hole into alignment. I put some grease on the final bolt shank and finally was able to put it in with only very light tapping of a rubber hammer.

I was feeling relieved as I bolted the final nut on that fourth bolt.

As final step, I torqued the bolts. These are AN7 which take 450 - 500 inch/lbs. I used the middle value of 480 inch/lbs. The engine will still need to come off as mentioned earlier but the position of the engine is very important when installing the cowling so I torqued it to the final value.

Took some pictures of the plane with the engine in place. This surely is a big milestone and is a "feel good" moment during the build.

Happy camper...

As I had some time left, I took out the fuel throttle body. This comes with a plastic spacer.

The orientation of the throttle body was a bit of a mystery at first but soon figured out what side was the throttle lever and which side the mixture. 
In the image below I installed it on the forward horizontal induction air intake at the cold sump of the engine. In the image below, the throttle lever is the gold colored arm.

Finally I covered the intake with some paper and masking tape in order not to get foreign objects entering the engine.

End of a productive day was off course celebrated with Alain with a good strong Belgian HQ beer.

Today was one of those days that makes airplane building fun. 
It was a long day but it was definitly worth it.
(Keep reading till the end, there's a nice video of the lights at the end of the article )

As all my electrical connections are made for the aircraft lights, I decided that I wanted to see it all in action with the wings on and the tips attached. I also needed to re-test my com radio and this is better done with the plane outside than in the workshop. Now with all the tips and fairings attached, this will give a more finished view of the airplane overall and leads to some good photo-memory-moments.

Slipping the wings on took a while and went more difficult than I remember from the last time but in the end we managed to slide the temporary bolts in place. The tips went on and the electrical connectors attached. With the RV standing on it's own legs, this is truly a wonderfull sight. As you can see, this was in front of my garage with the public street in front of it. No need to say I got a lot of very strange and surprised faces as people walked by.

wide angle view from the back.

Shot this video testing the rudder, elevator and trim movement

And another image from the front.

One of the reasons I also wanted to have the wings back on was to check the installation of my Deutsch Connectors in the wingroot and check how all of this would sit in relation to the aileron pushrods. I'm still also not decided on how the pitot and AOA tube will run there. The connectors are good. The space is very thight in there but the way I placed is a succes.

Wing tip lenses in place. Now it's time for the sun to go under and admire the lights.

Finally sunset... the wait was actually the longest part. Ready for some action.

Matthias shot this video as I tested the switches. His reaction after 15seconds when the strobes come on says enough. They are very very bright.

The lights you see in the video in sequence are : nav and position lights, strobes added, taxi lights, landing lights, wig wag mode and wig wag with strobes on.
When all is on, it's a lot worse than a flickering christmas tree. See and be seen won't be a problem in this one.

A very rewarding day that renews motivation for the rest to come.