RV-7 #70257

[CZ79]

Well, pulled the trigger on what I thought was a good deal for an RV-7 kit, and now am looking forward to building. I'm sure you all will get sick of my questions, but this seems to be the brain trust outside of Vans. Not my pics or dog but this is what I bought.

 

[Desert Rat]

Very cool. I started my build with a set of second hand wings like that and inherited builder number 72651 with them.

I have a few suggestions. Apologies if you've already researched this.

First, contact Vans ASAP if you haven't already. There's a process for dealing with a kit ownership change. Basically, they are going to need a copy of the bill of sale you got from the seller so that they can transfer the build number to you and establish a paper trail from the original purchaser to you. This is vital because if they don't have that paper trail, then they wont be able to supply a bill of sale from Vans to you for the whole thing when the time come to submit it to the feds to get your registration and apply for the airworthiness certificate.

Next, remove all that blue vinyl. Yeah, it keeps everything looking pretty, but it can entrap moisture, especially around the edges and the aluminum will start corroding under it. This doesn't happen overnight, but judging from your build number, that kit is older than mine, probably somewhere around 20 years at this point. In addition to corrosion, the longer that stuff stays on there, the harder it is to peel off.

Speaking of old kits, There are several service bulletins that have come out over the years. Things like adding doublers to areas that started developing cracks after a few years in service. These parts are incorporated into the kits that are delivering today, but for pre service bulletin planes Vans will sell you a service bulletin kit to add them. Typically, it's much easier to deal with that stuff during the build than on a completed airframe. For example, I can see from your pictures that the lower wing skins are just clecoed on. This is a good thing, because there's a service bulletin to add doublers on the forward face of the aft spar at the inboard aileron hinge. It's pretty easy to do when you have access, but a bear to accomplish if the wing is already buttoned up.

Those wings might be in the era where they had something called "ski jump trailing edge". My wing kit delivered to the original purchaser in 2007 and had this issue. You can find old threads on here where people have discussed this and ho two fix it. Basically, there was a run of aft wing spars where the upper flange was under bent. This results in the trailing edge of the upper skin curling up aft of that spar flange. It's not dramatic, but it does result in about a 1/4" gap between the flap and the wing trailing edge when the flaps are retracted instead of them tucking under the skin and nesting with no gap there. If you have that, there are ways to deal with it.

There's a document on Vans's website under the support/tech Q&A tab called "Buying a Second-Hand RV kit" that goes into more detail on a lot of this.

Best of luck and welcome to a great community.

 

[CZ79]

Very cool. I started my build with a set of second hand wings like that and inherited builder number 72651 with them.

I have a few suggestions. Apologies if you've already researched this.

First, contact Vans ASAP if you haven't already. There's a process for dealing with a kit ownership change. Basically, they are going to need a copy of the bill of sale you got from the seller so that they can transfer the build number to you and establish a paper trail from the original purchaser to you. This is vital because if they don't have that paper trail, then they wont be able to supply a bill of sale from Vans to you for the whole thing when the time come to submit it to the feds to get your registration and apply for the airworthiness certificate.

Next, remove all that blue vinyl. Yeah, it keeps everything looking pretty, but it can entrap moisture, especially around the edges and the aluminum will start corroding under it. This doesn't happen overnight, but judging from your build number, that kit is older than mine, probably somewhere around 20 years at this point. In addition to corrosion, the longer that stuff stays on there, the harder it is to peel off.

Speaking of old kits, There are several service bulletins that have come out over the years. Things like adding doublers to areas that started developing cracks after a few years in service. These parts are incorporated into the kits that are delivering today, but for pre service bulletin planes Vans will sell you a service bulletin kit to add them. Typically, it's much easier to deal with that stuff during the build than on a completed airframe. For example, I can see from your pictures that the lower wing skins are just clecoed on. This is a good thing, because there's a service bulletin to add doublers on the forward face of the aft spar at the inboard aileron hinge. It's pretty easy to do when you have access, but a bear to accomplish if the wing is already buttoned up.

Those wings might be in the era where they had something called "ski jump trailing edge". My wing kit delivered to the original purchaser in 2007 and had this issue. You can find old threads on here where people have discussed this and ho two fix it. Basically, there was a run of aft wing spars where the upper flange was under bent. This results in the trailing edge of the upper skin curling up aft of that spar flange. It's not dramatic, but it does result in about a 1/4" gap between the flap and the wing trailing edge when the flaps are retracted instead of them tucking under the skin and nesting with no gap there. If you have that, there are ways to deal with it.

There's a document on Vans's website under the support/tech Q&A tab called "Buying a Second-Hand RV kit" that goes into more detail on a lot of this.

Best of luck and welcome to a great community.

Awesome thanks for the advice, will take it.

 

[planenutz]

The first thing you need to do is get rid of those terrible weldments on the left side of the second photo. You don't need those. The main gear mounts directly onto the engine mount.

 

[DHerzTX87]

The port side horizontal stabilizer already has a ding in it.

 

[CZ79]

The port side horizontal stabilizer already has a ding in it.

I'm aware, been working with Vans for a fix.