Brief Description: Pilot Head Rest & Rear LCD Reduex - Part 1
After some discussions with Luke from Classic Aero Designs, the company that is doing the all-leather upholstery for the RV-8, we decided that it would be a good idea to redo the passenger LCD mounting in the headrest. Reason being, that they were having new plastic head rest shells made that were out of much more durable material. The new shells arrived last week and this weekend I took to retrofitting the 7" Kenwood LCD screen and 1" Cam into them. The first thing I noticed about the new shells was how much stronger they seemed! Much better quality (and type) of plastic. Not that it matters since they will be covered with leather, but the black plastic looks a lot cooler too! But the really sweet revelation upon closer inspection was that the new shells are about 5% larger than the old ones. That's great news because the LCD screen didn't quite all fit on the "flat" area of the old shells. With the new shells, the LCD fits *perfectly*.
I was mentioning to Luke a couple of weeks ago that I was worried that the little self-tapping screws holding the front and back LCD cases together were going into plastic and I wasn't to sure that it was going to hold up long term. He mentioned that I should look for some metal nut-inserts that you can put into plastic using a special tip on a soldering iron. I found them in the McMaster-Carr catalog and ordered some. They went in pretty well actually, although the plastic posts were a little narrow for the 2/56 inserts. Nevertheless, they did go in and seem to be locked into place very nicely. Using the little 2/56 x .5" machine screws to screw the front and back LCD cases together works well and should hold up much better over time.
