RV-10 Doors

This is the final install of the doors - well until they are taken off and remounted for paint! But this does give me a chance to cover some of the finer point I have learned about fitting the doors.

First I never could get the Van's door seals to fit correctly. So, following what other RV10 builders have done I installed McMaster Carr seal material it's part number 1120A311.




As you can see it gives a nice seal.






Of course with any modification there is extra work. First the door frame needed to be trimmed to fit the new seal.






















Also, the door hinge area on the top of the door must be covered to provide a new seal landing over the hinges. I used fiberglass scrapes left over from trimming the door and epoxied these into place and glassed over them.













Now this creates a new challenge. The frame mount for the gas strut hits the the new door seal area. To solve this, I choose to make new strut mount landing that moves the strut mount down by 1/4". These were made from 1/4" aluminum blocks and filled in around them with epoxy and flox. (One other possible fix is the make the area over the rear hinge convexed to clear the strut mount.)











I have to say I am pleased both with the appearence and the fit.

One other small fix has to do with the locking rods and locking gear rack. On a few other RV-10 I have noticed some surface damage to the inner door panel casued by the pin that is safety wired to the gear rack and door lock rod. In fact, if you look at the picture below note the area were the grey primer is visable. To solve this interference I installed a small washer on the back side of the pin before finishing the safety wiring the pin in place. The washer keeps the pin from sticking out and hitting the inner fiberglass panel.

One other quick mod was having the door hinges chromed by a local shop and replaced the supplied steel screws with structual stainless hardware from Aircraft Spruce. At the same time I also had the two bolt that hold the front sholder harnesses to the cabin top chromed as well.

The cabin top hinge pockets where also fill in to fit snuggly around the hinges. This is done by appling packing tap over the hinges, bolting them in place and filling the void with epoxy and flox. If you do this make sure there is enough area around the hinge for the thikness of the paint.

Electrical Runs Under the baggage Floor

From time to time the question of 'how to run the electrical under the baggage floor' comes up. Well, here is how I did it. As you will notice I ran a total of 6 of Van's Aircraft's conduit under the floor broads. This may be over kill, but I have used 5 of them so far.

Auxilary Battery placement in the RV10

Being we're building this RV10 for IFR flying I wanted a backup electric system for the Advance Flight Systems AFS 3500 EFIS. Rob Hickman makes a great built in battery pack that will give an hours worth of power for his EFIS system, however I also have a TruTrak ADI I want to run as well. So where to put a second battery? After trying a number of places I decided to mount a 7 amh gel cell on the top of the tunnel cover at the very front.

It was a easy modification with the "tray" made from 1/16" by 3/4" aluminum anlge bent and riveted to the top of the tunnel cover. Then a hold down bar was made and two K1000-8 nut plates were added to the underside of the cover to hold everything in place. Also a sheet of foam rubber was added under the battery to finish the job. This set up should give me about 2 to 3 hours worth of power for the EFIS system. For charging I followed AeroElectric's guidelines for two battery systems.

Making the Bottom Rudder Fairing Removable on the RV 10

Van's Aircraft plans calls for riveting on the lower rudder cap fairing, however I wanted mine removable. The idea is to have the area behind it assessable so I can put electrical connectors for the strobe, nav light and electric rudder trim.

It's a fairly easy modification. The pre-punched rivet holes are drilled out with a #27 drill bit. Then K1000-6 nut plates are installed (similar to the wing tips are installed). The screw holes and rivet holes are countersunk into the fiberglass cap. Were as the screw holes in the aluminum are dimpled with a set for a #6 screw. The screws used are AN 507-C632R8, these are stainless screw but could be substituted with steel AN507-6R8.

ELT & Strobe Power Supply Installation with Van's Mounts

Van's Aircraft has come up with a nice pair of ELT/Strobe power supply mounts for both the right and left sides of the RV 10. These are not part of the kit, but are available separately. At the time I installed these they did not make one for the right side. But with a little work I was able to get it to fit. As you can see they are mounted into the J channels with "pop rivets." They come pre-punched for the Whelen strobe power supply with the rivets and nutplates included. To mount the ELT I had to drill new mounting holes in the left mounting plate that matched the Emergency Beacon Corps unit. All in all these mounts make for a nice clean installation.

Modifcation of the Front Fresh Air Vents

Being value minded, when it came to the front air vents for the RV 10, I wanted a nice set of vents without paying an arm and a leg. OK well maybe just an arm. The simple solution was the fresh air vent AV125B available from SteinAir. Aircraft Spruce carries as well. Most people who use these are also using a custom instrument panel, however I had opted for the stock panel from Van's Aircraft. So how does one mount the vents without an extended panel? The idea for the fix came from the Matronics group. First cut off the bell end of the cabin side of the vent and then use a adapter made from a rubber pipe coupler from Home Depot. You only need one coupler and then cut it in half. Using fuel tank sealant I glued the coupler to the plastic vent and a hose clamp secures the vent in the coupler. One other nice touch is to take some stainless wire screen and glue it into the middle of the plastic neck with fuel sealant to keep the bugs out.

Modifying the RV-10 lower cowl mounts

Experimental aircraft have the advantage of allowing the homebuilder to make modifications when needed. One that has come up with other RV-10 builders is the two lower cowl mounts will crack. The original Van's kit called for using aluminum hinge material. It's referred to on pages 41-7, 41-8, 47-6. Others have replaced this with 0.063 aluminum sheet and nut-plates with good results. We followed suit.

The dimensions of the 0.063 aluminum is 1.5" by 6 ". The smaller aluminum spacer is made per the plans. The hardware pictured consists of 8 each K 1000-8 nut-plates, nylon washer 5610-18-31 and AN526C832R8 stainless screws. These are all available from Van's Aircraft.