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Bit of help and advise required please!

spackrackman

I'm New Here
Hi all from the UK, I have very excitedly bought myself a RV6a kit from a deceased estate, the aircraft has not been touched since the mid 1990's and been in storage for a good few years. The aircraft at some point has been on its wheels and engine (0-360) fitted.
I am now working away through the service bulletins and the big one standing out it is the nose leg updates. This is where my problems begin.

I have an early nose leg. I have a pal who has a RV7a engine frame and nose leg that he does not want. Can I just use his combination and fit it to mine? I am told that I cannot just have the nose leg as it will have been match drilled the engine frame is this true? I am not that keen on shipping my old nose leg back the the USA and ordering a new nose leg when I have one easily available here in the UK.
What are peoples thoughts?
Will the nose 7a nose leg fit my 6a mid 1990's engine frame?
Will the 7a engine frame fit my already drilled mid 1990's 6a firewall?

Many thanks in advance!
Jonnie
 
Ideally you would swap the engine mount & leg assembly from the 7A (as they are match drilled) over to your 6A.

Exactly, replace the mount and the nose gear leg together. I did this because I had damage to my engine mount (crack) and needed the nose leg upgrade. Unless you buy an undrilled nose gear leg and match drill yourself, mixing the rV7 leg with the existing mount won’t necessarily work. The only thing to be aware of is that the engine mounts were not made to the same tooling and the holes in the firewall may not line up exactly. I was able to persuade mine into place with some minor hole mismatch. If the
 
The RV-6(A) is no longer front and center on the parts production line. The RV-6(A) engine mount fabricator is no longer in operation. Typically, RV-6(A) builds now will get RV-7(A) engine mount and landing gear in the RV-6(A) Finishing Kit. The RV-7(A) engine mount and landing gear all come match drilled from Van's Aircraft. Anything new should swap out correctly with any of the other new RV-7(A) engine mount and or landing gear parts. The RV-7(A) engine mount fabricator made new tooling jigs from new drawings and the location of the old RV-6(A) engine mount tooling is unknown. RV-6(A) and RV-7(A) engine mounts most likely will not be a perfect swap with each other as they came from different fabricators using different tooling.

The early RV-6(A) engine mount and landing gear may have come undrilled. All the later production RV-6(A) engine mount and landing gear came drilled. IF you have a pre-drilled RV-6(A) engine mount, it may or may not match up with replacement RV-7(A) mount and or gear.

You may be able to find a machine shop local to you that can do the match drilling or check to see if they are done the same. The instruction for match drilling is on the web so it appears to not be a trade secret.
 
Congrats Jonnie on your new project, I am sure it will be fun finishing and flying the aeroplane.

There is a new style engine mount and nose gear and some people have been retrofitting in place of the older style setup. There are several threads on VAF that discuss the work and this may be somewhat relevant and give an idea for what's involved in swapping engine mounts in your situation.
e.g. https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=173499&highlight=new+nose+gear
 
new style articulated nose gear.

If you decide you need to replace the gear and engine mount, you have an opportunity to convert to the new articulated nose gear
 
Not sure it’s that simple for us here in the U.K.
I suspect you would have to have engineering approval from the LAA via a Mod form, and an inspector willing to sign it off.

I would think that Van’s would be the first port of call to see if it’s even possible.
 
Thanks all. Not yet decided what I am going to do. My frame has already been fitted so all holes have been drilled. I am going to see if I can borrow the rv7 frame and nose leg and see out of interest what matches and what does not and take it from there. Else I will order an un drilled new leg and get someone over here to match drill.

To be honest I do not even want a nose wheel aircraft but to take steps back and the cost in changing to tail wheel puts me off. I just want to go flying!! Plus since flying tailwheel I am a more wary of when I go flying more than when I had my Eurostar. I shall update this thread when I decide what to do. Thanks for the advice so far. Its going to be an interesting journey!
 
Congrats Jonnie on your new project, I am sure it will be fun finishing and flying the aeroplane.

There is a new style engine mount and nose gear and some people have been retrofitting in place of the older style setup. There are several threads on VAF that discuss the work and this may be somewhat relevant and give an idea for what's involved in swapping engine mounts in your situation.
e.g. https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=173499&highlight=new+nose+gear

Just had a quick scan though. How much better is this new setup? So I could order an un drilled frame and nose gear. Any idea how much it costs?

Jonnie
 
I think the new design nose gear is much better than the old design and it is now standard on current -7A and -9A kits. The concern with the old nose gear is the number of accidents where the spring leg has flexed back and dug in and flipped the aircraft upside down.
Cost of the new engine mount, gear leg, fork and fittings etc. as of August 2019 is $3,225.00 plus shipping so that is the main downside. But you get a safer aeroplane and some people think it is worth it.

Here's the service letter that goes into the detail:

https://www.vansaircraft.com/service-information-and-revisions/sl-19-04-30/
 
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