Removable floors / baggage sides

[RV7ator]

That's a whole lot of work for what purpose?

The 7 (I've built five) and 9 share the fuselage. I put the ELT under the baggage floor to shift c.g. forward (7's need that) and for the stiff structure of a floor rib for mounting. One instance, I made one complete rear pan removable for access. Lots of extra work. I've settled on making a screw-on hatch over the bay holding the ELT; everything else is riveted. Comes off once a year. Anything beyond that is good for smuggling, but then there are dogs.

A really good thing to do is change the floor and side rivets to flat head. That's little more work, but you get a smooth floor and won't be bearing hard on a few proud heads with flat, clunky, heavy loads, nor gouging then up.

John Siebold
Boise, ID

[DaleB]

I built my baggage floors with dimpled nut plates for flat head #8 screws, so I'll have smooth and easily removable floor panels. Given the amount of work involved -- no way I'm doing it to the side panels. If I were doing it over, I don't know that I would bother. Once I was about halfway through the seemingly endless drilling and dimpling and squeezing I kept thinking that drilling out blind rivets once in a while couldn't be that much hassle.

I'm sure that at some point down the road I'll be thinking it sure is nice to be able to get those floors out so easily, but it cost a lot of build time.

[sbalmos]

Okay okay I'm reconsidering. By the frequency of it being talked about in the archives and other build logs,it seemed a lot more common than it apparently is. I'm just staring at the blueprints now, especially DWG 25, trying to think through wiring runs or anything that might possibly end up outside the center tunnel. My ELT is going on one of the ELT mounts on the side of the tailcone right behind the bulkhead. I'm most concerned at this point at antenna placement and possibly any remote-mount transceivers. Those I might put under the baggage floors.

I guess I'll probably just leave off the floors for as absolutely long as possible, like most everything at this point in the build it seems.

[wirejock]

How about half pop rivets and half screws?

[wjb]

Originally Posted by wirejock

How about half pop rivets and half screws?

Every other one? ;-)

Good thread ... I'm at this point, too, and considered adding nut plates for the seat and baggage floors. I'm leaning to pop rivets, but I will be sure I've put in a provisional conduit run to service any future wires going fore/aft.

[wirejock]

Yes. It seemed like a good compromise. Less labor up front, less drilling at removing.

[Capflyer]

Don't waste your time by adding complexity and weight. You'll rarely if never have to pull the riveted floor panels up and as others mentioned it is dirt simple should you need to pull them up to drill out the pulled rivets then re-rivet for intallation. Removable floors was something a good idea fairy came up on with on VAF many years ago and serves no purpose.

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by sbalmos

...I guess I'll probably just leave off the floors for as absolutely long as possible, like most everything at this point in the build it seems.

Now you are talking!

I didn't pop mine down until just before I moved to the airport.

My ELT is mounted under the baggage compartment, with a door and four thumb screws. That way, should I get in an accident, I can remove it and take it with me, if needed.

The ELT antenna is captured in an Adel clap on the right side flap cover.


(Click to enlarge)

The ELT tray is bolted to the side of one of the baggage compartment ribs and is under this door. I thought those thumb screws sticking up would be a major problem with baggage but they haven't been and I like that I can get to the ELT without using tools, should I need to.

(Click to enlarge)

I have a tip-up and the antenna is mounted on the right side, just behind the rollbar, and the antenna spring is clamped in place with an adel clamp to keep it from moving around inside the plane.

[RV7Guy]

Really no need to build removable floors. Of the 2 or 3 I know that did that, none have opened them up and wished they would have not wasted the time, money and weight to do this.

Regarding the wire runs. There is plenty of room in the center tunnel for the wires. All you are looking at is the autopilot servo, tail lighting and elevator trim servo wires. Possibly and antenna coax. Some wires can be run under the upper longeron deck. I ran two bundles, one on each side in the tunnel. Not a big deal.

Trust me, the seat pans are enough of a pita each condition inspection to R & R. I definitely wouldn't want to have to remove more screws from other panels. Unless you are jockey sized, this is not fun

[spark68]

I'm going to rivet my baggage area floor pans. Last step when wiring and plumbing is complete.

On a related note: One idea is to run a tap through the nut plates for the floor pans so that the screws go in and come out without stripping the heads. I know, that defeats the self-locking feature, but I believe the screws will stay snug, and if I lose one I don't believe it is a serious issue.