Tail Done, Now To Finish Cowling
After researching, it turns out that on taildraggers the lower rudder fairing cannot be fully removed or installed with the rudder mounted. That would've been nice to know but that little gem is not addressed anywhere in the plans. Sigh. So back off came the rudder, carefully due to the attached wiring harness. I loosely mounted the fairing, got the rudder re-mounted and everything torqued down. I used my Perma Grit bits to slightly enlarge the countersinks for the screw heads and then used Tinnerman washers under the screws to better distribute loads on the fiberglass and prevent cracks. I imagine there's a fair amount of vibration there. If the strobe ever needs servicing, I can still remove the fairing with the rudder on and have enough room to fix most issues.
This post is from Scott's RV-14 Build