Brief Description: Roll Bar - Locate roll bar for/aft.
Time to locate the roll bar for/aft. I used my good friend Bruce Swayze’s approach. Just Google ‘Bruce Swayze RV7A’ and you’ll find it. You clamp the 631C/D to the roll bar channels. Locate the roll bar for/aft position by aligning the roll bar face and side skin edge to the angle stock. Then mark the 632C/D location on masking tape that you had laid down on the fuselage.
Now here is a subject I have been avoiding talking about. It’s a problem and I was just hopping it would just go away. Well, I’m now forced to deal with it. MY ROLL BAR IS NOT WIDE ENOUGH. There I said it. My roll bar width does not match the width of my fuselage. Image 3 shows the total distance it’s narrow. Basically narrow by a total of 2 side skin thicknesses, or a skin thickness on each side.
I tired to spread it out but no joy. I came up with a stretch jig and actually stretched out ¾” or so and it just sprang back to the same small width. I’ve decided to just use the roll bar mounting bolts to pull it out to the full width. I figure as long as I don’t have to over torque the bolts its OK to do this. So, I will mount the 631C/D’s on the fuselage at the full width and stretch out the roll bar with mounting bolts.
