Tail Cone Odds and Ends

Bekah and I are about ready to rivet on the rear top skin so am taking care of everything I can in the tail cone to minimize the amount of times I have to crawl around in there.  You'll see, I actually will have to crawl in several times in the future.  This past weekend I was able to run the wire for the tail position and strobe lights.   I am planning on LED lights, so am using a shielded 18 gauge wire with 2 conductors (one for the position and one for the strobe).  The ground is in the shield which works out well and I also ground it to the airframe per the wiring diagram on Aero LEDs.   (My tail strobe will not flash in sync with the wing strobes).  After running the wire I took a crack at lacing the wires together.  This keeps them tight and looks good to boot..  It was my first attempt, but I think I did pretty well.  Also, to keep the CG forward, I am minimizing what goes out to the back of the plane.  The only items I will have out back are the trim servo, lights, and potentially the ELT antenna.  I am going to wait on the ELT though because it will get a separate run which I already have planned out.

I also added some nutplates to the rear bulkhead which will be the attach point for the empennage fairing.  Looking forward, I went ahead and installed these now, lets hope I got them in the most appropriate spot.  I also installed the mounts for the seat belt anchors..  These aren’t torqued because they will need to be adjusted as I rivet the skin, but at least they are in place and I will be able to rivet and torque them all at once when I am laying in the tailcone.   I also drilled out and tapped all the holes for the lower emp fairing..  I was planning on prosealing this one, but I figure might as well follow the plans since it was an easy step to drill out those rivets and tap the holes..

 

Finally, I installed the rudder cable exit Fairings.  These guys look good and since I riveted and prosealed them, they are on for good.   I had wanted to just proseal them, but adding the rivets helped ensure they were compressed tight to the skin.

Basically other than mounting the ELT antenna to the aft deck, working the emp fairing, and rigging everything up, I am complete with the back of the plane..  At least I think so..