2.6 Hours -
Installing the seat belt anchors seems like a simple task. You simply drill a hole in the anchor and put a bolt through it. Well, it’s not quite this simple, and I spent the better part of two hours installing 8 anchors.
The seat belt anchors need to have a hole a bolt hole drilled in them, and some will need to be trimmed if they interfere with any rivets.
The left sides of the anchors were the easy ones. The hole in this side of the anchor is located using dimensions given in the plans and then drilled. Once the hole is drilled, the anchors can be bolted to the F-705 bulkhead. However, the plans also tell you that some of the anchors have to be trimmed so they don’t interfere with any rivets. I found this to be the case on the outer anchors, but not the middle ones.
To trim the anchors, I marked a line (making sure to keep proper edge distance from the bolt hole), and decided to try my Dremel for cutting. The anchors are powder coated steel, so I wasn’t sure if the cutting disc in the Dremel was up to the task. However, the Dremel made quick work of the parts, shooting sparks everywhere in the process.
Surprisingly, my Dremel made quick work of trimming these steel parts.
The left side of all the seat belt anchors are bolted in place.
The right sides of the anchors were a bit more complicated. For these, the anchor is clamped into position on the F-705 assembly with a 3/16″ shim between the right and left anchors. The shim simulates the hardware on the actual seatbelts (I’m planning on using Crow harnesses, if another brand is used, the shim width may need to be modified), but the hard part was finding something exactly 3/16″. After searching the garage for something appropriately sized, I finally found a short length of scrap aluminum bar that was the correct thickness. Once shimmed and clamped, the right anchor can be drilled using the hole in the F-705 assembly as a guide. Easy enough, but it took a long time to set up each anchor. As with the left anchors, the right middle anchors had to be trimmed, while the outer ones did not.
To drill the right side of the seat belt anchors, they need to be clamped in placed with a 3/16" shim.
Two sets of completed seat belt anchors.
With the seat belt anchors installed, I could move on to another area of the F-705 bulkhead. There’s a bunch more fabrication that needs to be done, but, for now, I just started the F-705G angles. These are made from 187 x 2 x 2-1/2 angle stock, and I only cut them to length tonight. Eventually, these angles will be the parts that the tip-up canopy latch to when the canopy is closed.
The F-705G angles have to be fabricated from the plans.
I used the bandsaw to cut the F-705G angles to the proper length.
That’s it for RV-7 construction in 2011. Happy New Year!
