Here’s a zoom on that hole.

It’s not a misalignment, which is what I thought first. But it’s actually a hole missing in the Main Spar. Not sure if it was missing or some asymmetric design, I contacted another NVAV member (Joop), who’s also building an RV-7. Turns out his Main Spar does have this hole. Conclusion something went wrong in the Van’s factory when drilling the main spar. Oh well, with over 500 holes to match drill, I might as well drill this one too.

Nice with the Skins on there and all the Cleco’s inserted. It’s a real tight fit.

Match drilling from the mid-top down and out.

Bottom side of the Wing same thing. Here I’m fitting the access plates at the bottom of the Right Wing. They will need a little trimming, but only a very tiny bit.

Again the outer skin overlaps the inboard one.

Another 500 holes to drill.

And after 4 hours it looks like nothing happend. I guess in the end, you probably assembled and disassembled the plane four times.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0

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I’m inspecting all drawings and together with the manual try to figure out what to do.
Just after the Fuel Tank attach platenuts at the bottom of the wing are several Access plates platenuts. These provide access to the Aileron push rods if you need to do some maintenance. Since these Access plates use a #6 screw in the Main Spar, the holes are just a bit smaller than the #8 Tank attach holes.

The Tie down rig (in my hand) needs a wire thread to enable screwing in the eyebolt. Of course these where inch measures again, so I bought a great set of thread taps.

I created threads at both sides, because maybe I can use the top side as a camera mount (if not, it shaves of a few grams).
When I read the manual in advance I found that I had to “Spot Prime” the Main Spar holes I drilled. I wasn’t familiar with that expression, but it kind of speaks for itself.

I’m probably repeating myself, but the best piece of equipment is the pneumatic squeezer. Both dimpling and riveting is a breeze and the quality is great.

Here I rivet the Access plate platenuts. At the inboard side of the Wing there are two platenuts that I had to attach. I’m not certain what they are there fore, but on some drawings it looks like they are use for attaching the Wings to the Bulkhead.

In the evening I finished the Right Tie Down fabrication by drilling the rivet holes for the platenuts. I can’t rivet those, as they all need to be primed first.

Next time I’ll repeat those steps for the Left Wing.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 28/0

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 88/0

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