Rear Battery Access thoughts

I hate removing the rear bulkhead and baggage compartment floor over the battery in my RV8. It?s truly a pain to get in there and remove all those screws as I am sure all 8 owners are aware. I have been pondering a solution and a thought occurred to me but I would like so feedback from the forum before I proceed. My plan is as follows:

My assumption is that these are non-structural components therefore I plan to remove the bulk head and stepped floor panel. Attach the bottom of the rear bulkhead to the floor panel with a hinge as used in the other locations on the aircraft. Replace the two top screws for the rear bulkhead with quarter turn fittings. Install 6 (estimated) flush latches, three per side (two on the each side of the upper deck and one on each side of the vertical part of the floor panel.

This should make the assembly removable simply by releasing the quarter turn fittings, folding the bulk head forward, and releasing the flush latches on each side of the floor and removing.

Does anyone see a fatal flaw in this?

Many of us have installed a battery-sized hatch in the "hat shelf" - piano hinge, a couple of your favorite latches, and a doubler around the edge make it as strong as the original. There are pictures around here somewhere....

I'm not certain I visualize properly the latches you mention, but that seems like it would work, although somewhat complicated.

I cut out a section of the top raised bulkhead and hinged it right at the bend. Reinforcing angles run along the sides and rear with a flush latch at the rear. This affords easy access to the battery compartment.

If I were to do it again I think I would also hinge it at the bottom so it would fold forward and down, completely out of the way. That method would require a different latching mechanism, or a couple more flush latches.

Everything different adds complexity and weight. After weighing (pun intended) the cost/benefits, go forth and experiment. I believe that any method that makes it easy to get to the battery and flight control linkages means you'll look at them more often and that cannot be a bad thing.

Don

While I don't have a battery back there, here's the hatch I made to access my ELT. Might give you some ideas.

Peep-a-boo by akarmy, on Flickr

Peep-a-boo by akarmy, on Flickr

Design

My thoughts are rather than put a small hatch in a removable part why not make the part easier to remove? Its aready hard enough to actually work back there let alone through a small opening...pardon the drawing but I think it gets the idea across...number of latches and placement of course is subject to change.
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Berchmans said:

My thoughts are rather than put a small hatch in a removable part why not make the part easier to remove?

Click to expand...

This might be a good way to do it, but I am not sure if the baggage wall and hat shelf are structural or not - the baggage bulkhead on a side-by-side IS structural, and you shouldn't fly without it. Using a hatch with doublers to carry the loads can fix that.

I'd check with Van's and see if they consider it structural or not - and please report back!

Ironflight said:

Many of us have installed a battery-sized hatch in the "hat shelf" - piano hinge, a couple of your favorite latches, and a doubler around the edge make it as strong as the original. There are pictures around here somewhere....

Click to expand...

It's one of the Jay Mods on Jay Pratt's web site. I did it, and it really makes things easier. Three screws and you're at the battery.

-John

How I did it.

Here are a few pictures of how I built my rear shelf hatch. It is large enough to change or inspect the battery, service the battery bus fuses, and generally inspect the electrical and control linkage items installed here. It is so easy to access that I do not hesitate to do an "expanded" preflight to visualize the elevator bell crank and servo integrity etc. Highly recommended.









Always glad to answer questions or provide additional info.

Chuck

Cool info

Thanks for the input, haven't had a chance yet to take on this project as I am currently installing inverted oil...and leave for a couple weeks sailing in the BVI's...I will get to it and post the outcome...

It might be worth asking "why" / "when" you need access back there?

Once in service, I doubt you need access more than at an annual inspection. At worse a battery recharge, but we rsn charging wires through an access hole in the baggage area.

At the annual, you not only likely want to inspect the battery, but also the entire rear fuselage, and under the baggage floor itself - which likely need the assembly removed anyway?

We made the unit as one i.e. the small panel over the "hat shelf" is riveted to the hat shelf. To be honest, once you resolve to get in there and remove it, the resolve takes 10 minutes and the removal 5!