After I got as far as I could on implementing Van's fuel tank service bulletin, I decided that I was going to work on finishing the installation of the HID lamps.

As I did with the right wing, I placed the ballast on the outboard rib for the leading edge.  I centered, and tilted the ballast slightly to accommodate the Yazaki (Harlbera) connector (the connector that plugs into the ballast and connects the ballast to the HID igniter on the lamp).

To hold the ballast in place while I drill the holes for the nutplates, I broke out the vice grip clamps and locked it down when I was happy with my placement.

A set of transfer punches would have been nice to get the exact center of the hole, but what I did to improve the accuracy of my hole placement is found the drill bit # that just fit in the mounting hole.  I just twisted the drill bit a few times by hand and the center point of the drill bit removed enough material to more or less mark the center of the hole.

Where the center of the drill bit removed the primer, I used a spring loaded center punch to punch the location so that my drill bit wouldn't wander when I went to drill the holes for the plate nuts.

The holes are now marked and centered. 

With the nutplate holes drilled and riveted, I mounted the ballast and everything lined up great.

Routing of the wires to the HID lamp made me scratch my head a little in that I want everything to be nicely routed and look professional.  On the lower left side of the ballast, I drilled a hole and placed a bushing in it where I will pass the wires through the outboard rib.

The one problem I have with this installation is that Duckworks fabricates the wiring harnesses for you.  Well, if the ballast is in close proximity to the lamp, you have an excessive amount of wire harness to figure out what to do with.  As I did on my right wing, I shortened the harness by cutting out a center section and then re-splicing it together.  This is not my first choice of how to handle this, but I looked long and hard for the connectors for this lighting harness and couldn't find them.  I could have probably called Duckworks and bought the connectors if he makes them himself.

Anyway, I measured the length of wire I needed from the ballast to the lamp, cut the wires (offsetting each splice) and reconnected them with butt splices.  I covered the butt splices with a heavy wall shrink tube that has adhesive on the inside.  The adhesive flows while shrinking the tubing and makes a great environmental seal.  After I got the individual splices done, I ran another length of shrink tubing over the entire spliced connections.  This should be at least as good as the original jacketing of the wires.

Point to note here is that I had to run the wiring through the hole in the rib and then splice it together.  I am sure that I will be cussing when I have to replace this wiring.  Probably won't be necessary to replace while I own the airplane.

This is what the routing looks like on the inside of the rib.  I used a nutplate and a cushion clamp to immobilize the wiring slightly and keep it from rubbing / chaffing on the inside of the wing.

A power up check of the newly installed light was SAT.  I can't wait to see how much light these offer during a night flight.  The HID's appear to be extremely bright when running them and shining up the neighbors property.

Today's goal was to finish up what I could on the landing light for the left wing.  Basically, I had to finish the following:

• Drill the plexiglas to the wing skin holes.
• Dimple the wing skin and countersink the plexiglas mounting holes.
• Mount nutplates to the reinforcement plates used to attach the plexiglas to the wing.
• Mount the XenDrive HID Ballast.
• INSTALL IT ALL IN THE LEADING EDGE.

The Duck states to use some fiberglass reinforcement strapping tape to pull the plexiglas tight up against the leading edge skin.  I made two tape handles for Tami to pull on to tighten the plexiglas up against the skin.  I applied a hair dryer up to the plexiglas to warm it up above 70 degrees.  I just wanted that extra margin to prevent, if I could, cracking the plexiglas.  I am beginning to "see the light at the end of the tunnel" and I don't want anymore fabrication set backs....

The Duck's instructions state that you can dimple the skins plexiglas attach holes this to a #30.  Well, I didn't like the fit!!!!  So I had a test hole on some scrap aluminum that I dimpled with a #6 dimple die and the fit of the screw head was MUCH BETTER.  After drilling the holes for the plexiglas, I drilled out the wing skin attach holes to #26 so that I could fit the #6 screw dimple die into the hole.  A quick test fit with the attach screws proved I had a nice fit.

I didn't take any pictures of countersinking the plexiglas lens.  Two points of advice include:

• Leave as much tape around the hole as possible so that the countersink cage doesn't scratch the plexiglas lens.
• Take it slow.  The lens is curved so it makes it a slight challenge to get a nice even countersink.

Now that the plexiglas lens is ready for the leading edge, I moved on to the light bracket.  One thing that I didn't totally solve on the right wing is how to route the wiring from XenDrive igniter to the lamp.  In the picture below to the right of the lamp, I mounted a nutplate to which I could attach a cushion clamp on the back of the lighting bracket.

The idea here was to route and immobilize the wiring between the lamp and the XenDrive ballast.

This is what my wire routing looks like so far.  I still have to figure out how I want to get the wire permanently routed out to the igniter so that it doesn't chafe the wire as it passes through the outboard rib.  I have an idea or two, but that is going to be a log entry for another day.....

Okay, I have the plexiglas countersunk, the weather stripping installed, and the aluminum reinforcement mounting plates stuck to the back with double sided tape.  Now how to get it in that hole in the wing without scratching it.

A few tense moments sliding it through the hole and viola...  the lens is attached to the wing skin.

My gap(s) between the lens and the skin are consistent with the results I got on the right wing.  There is a ever so slight gap between the two, but I also have to remember / keep in mind that there is weather stripping installed between the two surfaces.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the form fit and function of the landing light.  All I have to do is solve my permanent wire routing to the igniter and mount the igniter to the outboard leading edge like I did for the right wing.

I am still wrapping up a lot of little wings tasks at this point.  I am getting more and more anxious to get started on that Fuselage.

I was able to put in some "quality" time on the airplane today.  I set a goal for myself to finish the wings by the end of the month so that I can move onto the fuselage.  I have also been able to get out and fly the Cherokee the last couple of days so that has "resparked" the desire to get the RV done.

I took all the skins off the wing and countersunk all the spar holes for the leading edge and the wing skins.  Not pictured, but on this wing, I primed the countersunk holes with some rattle can self etching primer.  Mixing up Epoxy primer every time you need to prime a small part or a quick job like this, is not only extremely time consuming, but expensive with the epoxy primer being $120 for a two gallon kit and that doesn't even cover the hazmat shipping expense of the primer.  It isn't as "pretty" as using all epoxy primer, but once the wing is assembled, you will never see it.

I decided that I would get the landing light kit installed on the left wing.  What seems like a long time ago, I decided to put in dual HID landing/taxi lights in the wings.  These things are extremely bright and draw minimal current.  At $450 a piece, they better work great.  There sure isn't much to the kit for that kind of $$$$.

I dug out my template that was provided by the Duck from the light kit I put in the right wing.  Following the Duck's directions, I drew a line on the top of the wing skin that was exactly 18.25" from the trailing edge of top side of the leading edge skin.

Then I lined up the template and drew the outline of the landing light on the skin.  This means I am getting close to cutting A REALLY BIG HOLE in the skin....

And then, the nervousness set in......  I started the hole using a cut off wheel in a die grinder.  This worked really great to get the rough opening of the hole made out.  I stayed at least 1/2 inch inside the lines I drew for the final hole cutout dimension.

This picture jumps forward quit a bit.  After roughing out the hole with the die grinder, I used some rotary burr bits to get the landing line dimension within approximately 1/8 inch of my final dimension.  Then to really straighten out the lines of the cutout, it was time to manually file the high points and "straighten up" the lines.  When i was pretty happy with how square everything was, I used 1" scotchbrite wheels in the die grinder to remove the last 1/16 inch or so.  Last, but not least, I sanded all the edges with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper.  It was a lot of steps that were taken slowly.  The rotary burr bits are really aggressive and not maintaining 100% control of the die grinder would have quickly ruined the leading edge assembly.

Last but not least, I re-attached the template to the cutout hole to line up the plexiglas reinforcement brackets.  At this point, I am drilling the holes that will attach the plexiglas window to the inside of the leading edge skin.

This probably took me 2+ hours to get the landing light cutout to look like this.  I am really happy with how the light cutout turned out.

After finishing the cutout, I took the leading edge off the wing spar.  This is what the rotary burr bits leave behind.  That aluminum didn't stand a chance.....

I was brushing aluminum out of my clothes and my hair all day long.

After success on the light cutout, I moved onto cutting the plexiglas lens to its final dimensions.  I fit the plexiglas to the outside of the wing to roughly determine how much material I needed to trim off the plexiglas to obtain dimension that was 1" on each side larger than the hole in the wing.

To prevent scratching of the plexiglas, "encapsulated" it in painters tape.  I was able to cut the plexiglas to a rough dimension using the band saw.  I cut to within around 1/8" of my desired final dimension.  That left me with room to smooth everything out and straighten (if necessary) using the belt sander.

The belt sander did a great job of taking the plexiglas down to its final dimension.  When I got to final dimensions, I rounded the corners of the plexiglas.  To put the final finish on the edges of the plexiglas, I sanded the edges with the 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper.  That left the edges of the plexiglas looking almost polished.

To make sure I didn't make any boo boo's, I checked the fit on the outside of the wing.  I think that I am in great shape on the top...

and the bottom....

By this time I was ready to call it a night.  Thrilled with my progress so far, I decided to mount the nutplates that hold the light assembly in the wing.  To get the squeezer in here to dimple (and rivet) the nutplates on, I had to disassemble the squeezer and reassemble after I ran the longeron yoke through the lightening hole.

Here the nutplates are riveted to the inboard rib.  One thing to note here is that I have changed the way I do business with nutplates.  Up to this point, I never was to concerned with priming the nutplates.  However, after working on the Cherokee the last year +, the parts that suffered corrosion have been the steel bolts, clipnuts, etc.  The aluminum looks good yet, but the steel components have been subjected to rust....  So from now on, I am making a point to at least put some rattle can self etching primer on them.  It only takes a few minutes with the rattle can stuff.  I guess I am trying to make sure that airframe will last at least as long as the pilot flying it (me). 

The outboard ribs were no problem to attach the nutplates.  Just get them on the right side of the ribs.

The brackets the Duck sent with my light kit had a mis-formed bracket that required the flanges to be bent out slightly to make the bracket longer to span the two ribs in the leading edge.  This was a pretty straight forward affair as I just made two bends by placing the bracket in the bench vise and bending the bracket....  To keep the lamp lined up with the hole I just cut in the wing, one side was bent out slightly more than the other side.

Just a pict of the other side.  My bends turned out pretty well.  After making the bends, I "dry fit" the bracket in the wing to make sure everything lined up.  It looked great, lets move on...

Attaching the nutplates to the light bracket....  Again, rattle can primer on the nutplates.

And finally, the light secured to the bracket.  All I have left is to finish up prepping the plexiglas lens and the light is ready to be installed.   Oohh yeah, I also have to mount the igniter, route and secure the wiring, etc...

My goal today was to get my first landing light behind me.  Today, involved another building first for me as I have never worked with plexiglass before and wasn't sure what to expect.  The first thing I did was make a "square" outline of how I wanted to trim the lens.  It is plenty big when it comes out of the box.  I made the lens 1" bigger than the light hole opening on all sides.

I then taped up one side of the plexiglass lens with masking tape.  I didn't want to put any scratches in the lens while I was doing all of my cutting.

I was able to cut the lens with the bandsaw.  I trimmed the lens to within 1/8" of my markings.  To take the lens to final dimension, I got out the belt sander and used a 160 grit belt.  That made quick work of removing the 1/8" of plexiglass.  During this stage, I wore a 3M respirator as there was a lot of plastic dust being generated.
Once, I had the "square" I wanted in the plexiglass, I just radiused the corners with the belt sander.  I drew the radius I wanted on the lens using the paper template I used to cut out the landing light in the leading edge.
To finish the edges, I used some 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper and then followed that with some 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper.  This darn near left a polished edge on the plexiglass.

The picture below is after I got Tami to hold the "tape handles" to hold the lens up against the inside of the leading edge so I could drill the mounting holes.  You first drill the holes to #40 then remove and clean out the plexiglass shavings.  Then reinstall (use your tape handles to hold again), and drill the holes out to #30.  Remove and debur, but you still are not done drilling plexiglass.

The Duck's instructions then have you drill out the plexiglass holes to 5/32" and then countersink so that the leading edge skin will sit up against the plexiglass.  This sort of worked.  I think on the left wing, I am going to first countersink the hole to depth and then final dril to 5/32".  The reason for this change is that when the hole has been drilled to 5/32", the pilot is not guided by the plexiglass and it results in the countersink cutters chattering.  I thought I was going to crack the plexiglass.

Below, I am ready to install the plexiglass lens in the picture below.  The one thing I needed to do that was not in the Duck's instruction was to put a slight twist (bend) in the ends of the retaining strips.  Since the lens has a curve to it, the retaining strips were hitting the plexiglass lens right on the corners of the retaining strips.  After putting the slight twist in the retaining strips, the retaining strip could be tightened up against the lens without creating a single point of pressure on the plexiglass.

To position the plexiglass and hold it in position while starting the mounting screws, I had use the tape handle again.  The adhesive foam tape used to hold the retainer strips in place doesn't hold real well when trying to get your screws started.  It did work, but I thought the retainer was going to fall off before I got the first screw started.

One point worth mentioning here is that the instructions state to dimple the skin holes with a size #30, but experiment with a larger dimple die on a piece of scrap in order to get a better fit.  Well, dimpling with a #30 results in the 6-32 screws not sitting flush with the skin.  Dimpling with a #6 screw dimple die (CAT# DIE509-6) resulted in the screw head sitting flush to the skin like it should.  I am not sure why the Duck's instructions stated to dimple with a #30.

Okay, the picture below is where I decided to mount the ballast/igniter (The XenDrive) for the HID lamp.  This is the outside of the outboard leading edge rib.  The Duck's instructions state that you can mount this to the lamp mounting plate and that is where I intended to put it.  However, it will not fit there.  Physical dimension wise, yeah you could mount it there, but you would not be able to plug in the two wiring harnesses to the igniter.  Before I settled on this location, I looked at the fiberglass tips to ensure that there was nothing in there that would interfere with the igniter placement when I installed the wingtips.

I had to mount the igniter at a slight angle so that I could hit flat portions of the rib.  The Duck gives you two plate nuts, but you will need to use all three mounting holes in order to mount it securely (my opinion).  That means you will be short one K1000-3 plate nut and a stainless steel mounting screw (no big deal as Duckworks gives you the wrong length screws anyway).

Here is the next challenge with the igniter installation.  In the kit, you are given 10-32 x 3/8" stainless steel pan head philips screws.  What I don't like about this, is that the screws are not long enough to protrude out the back side of the plate nut.  When installing them, I didn't feel any resistance to the screw like I should while screwing to a plate nut.  This lack of resistance leads me to believe that these are to short to get proper grip in the plate nut.  Additionally, I would like to see at least two threads protruding from the back of the plate nut.
How hard do you think it is to find stainless steel screws???  Don't go to Home Desperate and think you will find them.  Wicks>> NOPE, Aircraft Spruce>>  NOPE, Microfastener.com>> NOPE not to size 10-32...

I actually found stainless steel screws of 10-32 in varying lengths at boltdepot.com.  I would have never guessed that those screws would have been that hard to find.  Their prices are reasonable, but they zing you on shipping if you are only buying a couple of fasteners.  YES, they will sell you one screw if that is all you want.

I put the leading edge back on the wing for the time being.  Here you can see the top side of the landing light and the location of the igniter module.

A picture of the bottom side of the leading edge.  The light installation looks pretty good from here.

I had heard that some builders were not real happy with the fit of these lenses.  I think this is probably what they are referring to.  This is a real closeup picture so it looks like there is a HUGE gap here.  There isn't, I am just really close with the camera...  When Tami and I were drilling for this lens, we really had some force on the lens with our "tape handles" so I know this is as close as you are probably going to get it to your skin.  The kit gives you some foam tape to put in here as a weather seal.  I checked it and I have compression of this foam tape all the way around the lens so hopefully I won't get to much water in here.

Next light, I am thinking of heating the lens plexiglass up so that it is more flexible.  Maybe doing that with the same tape handle technique, we can pull it in tighter.  I doubt it, but I will probably try it anyway.

Overall, the light kit installation isn't to difficult.  I was a nervous cutting into the wing skin and working with the plexiglass.  I think the key here is to work slowly and methodically.  Being in a hurry may end up costing you time in re-work.

Today was my day off and at 8:30 AM, the UPS man was ringing my doorbell making my large delivery of 16 10-32 pan head philips screws I ordered for securing my "XenDrive" igniter for the HID lamp.  If you need a bolt (non aircraft grade), this place will probably have it.  They got my order out and it was delivered very quickly.
When I opened the package, I was surprised to see that they shipped some M&M's for free.  Well not really, they charged me $9 for shipping.  Anyway, this was a unexpected nice gesture.  I would order from this place again if I needed to (not because they sent me free M&M's).

I ate the M&M's and installed the stainless steel screws to mount the HID igniter/ballast.  I ended up using 10-32 stainless steel phillips pan head screw 1/2" in length.  As you can see in the picture below, I have at least two threads past the end of the plate nut.  Just what I wanted.

I torqued the mounting screws to 25 in-Ibs and applied some torque seal.  The torque seal wasn't really necessary, but it won't hurt anything either.  Now all I have left to do is route the wires to the lamp.

I am installing two Duckworks HID landing lights on the plane (one in each wing in case you were wondering).  I tested the HID lamps when I first got them.  MAN ARE THEY BRIGHT.  I have been kind of nervous about this task for some time.  After you get your leading edge riveted together, you CUT A BIG HOLE IN IT!!!  That just isn't right.

First things first, I had to determine the location for the light cutout.  Duckworks gives you a pretty straight forward template that shows the top of the light cutout 18.75" from the top edge of the leading edge skin.  This surface is curved and I found it somewhat difficult to accurately measure this (even with a flexible tape measure).  So I cut a string to 18.75 inches and taped one end of the string at the top edge of the leading edge skin (say that tongue twister 3 times fast).

I ended up measuring this about a half dozen times before I got the paper template properly positioned.  The other mark for template placement is the left edge of the paper should intersect the centerline of the inboard ribs row of rivets.

I always measure at least twice.  As a backup to my "calibrated string", I double checked my placement of the paper template.  The two measurements agreed.

Here is just a picture of the template from the bottom side of the leading edge.  If you can't tell, I decided to do all this fabrication with the leading edge clecoed to the wing spar.  Mainly because this gave it a solid mount while I was cutting this hole out.  It worked great.

For the first step, I used the die grinder with a 3" cut-off wheel and did a rough cut.  I had never used a die grinder and cut-off wheel so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I held it firmly and left plenty of room between the die grinder and the sharpie marker finished edge.  The die grinder was pretty docile.  Turned out my fear of what the cut-off wheel was going to do to my wing skin was unfounded.

Next, I switched over to a rotary burr bit.  WOW are these things aggressive.  It filed away the aluminum like soft butter.  By the time I was done I wearing so many aluminum chips it looked like I had a severe case of aluminum dandruff.

Even as aggressive as the rotary burr bits are they were also very controllable.  I was able to take the opening right up to the edge of the sharpie markings.  I left about 1/16" so that I could use a vixen file to straightened everything up.

Using the fine teeth on the vixen file, I was able to straighten up the lines on the cutout.  When the cut is not a straight line, the rotary burr bit becomes a little harder to accurately control.  I just took it slow as you could make a big boo-boo VERY FAST with the rotary burr bit.

To finish the cutout, I used a 1" deburring wheel in the die grinder to further remove small amounts of material.  When I was happy with that, I switched to a 1" polishing wheel to further finish the edge.  Last but not least, I used a 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to put the finishing touches on the cutout.

It turned out great.  I am really happy with my results.

Once finished with the hole cutout, you put the paper template back on and drill the holes for the retainer strips (3 on each).  Attention to detail is important here so that you don't accidentally drill out the plate nut rivet holes here.  Only drill out the plate nut screw hole.

Then came time to remove the leading edge from the wing so that the rest of the fabrication could be done on the bench.  The picture below is just a small sampling of the aluminum chips resulting from the rotary burr bits.  Like I said, severe case of aluminum dandruff.

Duckworks gives you a rib template that shows you exactly where to put the two holes for mounting the mount plate nuts.  Pretty straightforward here.  I feel like I have already done 1000 plate nuts on this project.  I used the solid rivets supplied with the light kit.  I was able to squeeze these rivets on the outboard holes with no problems.  Squeezing the holes on the inboard rib was another story.  I had to remove the yoke from my pneumatic squeezer, put the yoke through the lightening hole and then reassemble the squeezer.  It only took a couple of minutes to do all that.  Use the 2.5" longeron (flange nose) yoke as it fits in there the best.

Ducksworks sent an addendum page with my instructions as he had changed this light mount plate to be a one piece mount for the RV-7 and 8.  Older lighting kits required you to measure the spacing between the two ribs, drill holes and rivet the two pieces of this mount plate together.  However, he didn't account enough for the bend in the flange and made the brackets to short.  He stated to correct this, set an offset bend in the flange and it would effectively lengthen the mount plate to the correct size (it is approximately 1/4" to short).  Between the bench vice and the seaming pliers I was able to make the appropriate bends.  Didn't turn out to badly...

Here I have the HID lamp mounted to the leading edge and it looks pretty good so far.

This isn't a very good picture, but it shows the light mount screwed the leading edge ribs.  The holes in the light mount are very big so Duckworks uses a washer between the screw and the light mount.  These large holes also give you the "screw slop" necessary to have a little adjustment so that these things can be properly positioned after the plane is together.

I have 6 hours in mounting this landing light.  I haven't touched the plexiglass cover and mounting position of the HID lamp igniter/ballast yet.  This definitely takes more time than the couple of hours the Duck claims on his instruction sheet..