Feeding wires from the instrument panel to the aft fuselage is a challenge. There is very little room in the center cockpit tunnel with few places to tie anything. Make a chase to keep the wires safely away from control cables and levers.
A sturdy and inexpensive chase is made from thin wall 1 ¼ inch pvc pipe. Make V cuts in the pipe where you needed to make turns leaving a small PVC “hinge”. The hinge keeps the pipe pieces aligned. The best way to close and bond the joints is to use 2 inch Polyfiber tape and glue it down with Polytack. The bond works almost instantly and it is hard as a baseball bat in about 15 minutes.
The 1 ¼ inch pipe has room for lots of wires and coax with room to spare. The inside is smooth without ridges so wires pass though with ease.
Make oval shaped openings in the pipe where wires need to break out of the bundle.
It's best to run the chase on the left side of the tunnel. You will need to dip down a bit to clear the seat pan and then com back up to just left of the rudder cable sheaves.
John Pitkin
Greenville, Texas
Here's the chase before installation. This one has five joints to snake around frame tubing. The opening int the pipe is for the trim control wiring.
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