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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date:  3-25-2017
Number of Hours:  4.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Tail light installation

After fun with safety wire, I turned my attention back to the tail light bracket. I had ordered two 4-40 nut plates from Aircraft Spruce, and I immediately realized that my plan was simply not going to work due to the limited space in the area where the tail light attaches. In order to ensure that the rudder can be removed from the aircraft, there must be a way to detach the tail light, so I’ve designed a method where the wiring runs out the back to a molex connector. Then, by taking out the two screws holding the light in place, I can detach the connectors and the rudder may be removed. The challenge is that the tail fairing is permanently attached to the rudder, and there is absolutely no access to the tiny area inside the fairing where the light attaches. Any hope of simply adding a couple of nut plates was now gone, so I went back to the drawing board and made a new bracket out of aluminum scrap.

After cutting, drilling, filing and fitting, I finally had a bracket that I could use to attach the nut plates, but even these had to be ground down to a fraction of their original size just to fit. I came up with a bit of a Rube Goldberg method for putting the nut plates onto the fairing, and then attaching the bracket with four screws to hold them in place. The hardest part was getting the four nuts holding the #6 screws into position inside the fairing, and the broken wrench was just one attempt to make something work. I finally figured out a system and after about an hour, had everything attached. It may be the most robust tail light attach bracket in the RV community, but it will work.
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Just one of those days...

Just one of those days...

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Tail light bracket is finally installed

Tail light bracket is finally installed

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