Last night and again tonight I worked on trimming the landing light bracket W-00017, so I can install the downward facing taxi-light from the Combo light set from FlyLEDs.
I guess I didn’t take pictures of it, but last week I spray painted the landing light cove on the left wing, making it a flat black color. Two days ago I primed the landing light brackets I ordered from Vans as part of their landing light kit. I ordered everything from the landing light kit except the LEDs.
It would have been much easier to trim W-00017 before installing it in the wing, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead at the time. I couldn’t fit a nibbler inside the cove, so I had to drill holes and then enlarge using a step drill. Then some careful filing to get the right shape, without damaging the wing skin.
I wanted to get the maximum down angle on the taxi light, so I estimated the angle that the wing will sit relative to the ground (12.5 degrees), then added 10 degrees for the down angle to get 22.5 degrees. I set the taxi light at 23 degrees down and tested the fit. I needed several attempts before I was happy with the fit.
Eventually I had about 1/8 clearance between the taxi light heat sink and the W-00017 bracket.
Hard to see, but the red circle highlights the clearance between heat sink and bracket