Rat's nest

I've got a rat's nest in my avionics bay. Figuratively of course.

I'm thinking that I will trace the critical lines coming from the wings and cut out all of the old EIS wires and leave all wires going to switches and breakers/fuses or possibly even start over with them. I have all new digital instruments and a new 6000 EIS for my Corvair engine, with the ancient TERRA transponder being the only thing I left from the previous build. 

I plan to gut the FWF electrical in the engine bay and start anew also. My goal is to clean this up and tidy up the avionics bay. I have all-new harnesses for every instrument I purchased to make it much less complex, but snipping old wires can be a challenge at first. One thing I learned working on my 1930 Model A Ford, is that ANYTHING you mess up can be fixed.

Any ideas if you've tried to start fresh with re-wiring? 

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Permalink Reply by Jim and Amelia Isaacs on October 20, 2022 at 5:52pm

Wow what a mess.  Yes it needs serious cleanup.  In case you don’t have it http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles.html 

Permalink Reply by Bob Simmons on October 20, 2022 at 9:13pm

Buy the book. It's easier to hold when you're in the middle of a rat's nest.

Permalink Reply by Stephen M. Eastham on October 21, 2022 at 10:25am

Emoji

Permalink Reply by Stephen M. Eastham on October 21, 2022 at 10:24am

Thanks for the link. I'm at the point where I may just pull everything and start anew. Steve

Permalink Reply by Darrell Doerhoff on October 21, 2022 at 3:44pm

One thing I highly recommend is to label every wire at both ends. In your photo of the rats nest, I don’t see a single label. A couple of summers back, I had a short to ground, and since every wire was white, and without a label, it was a hard problem to locate. 

Permalink Reply by Stephen M. Eastham on October 21, 2022 at 4:19pm

Darrell, thanks. Great idea. I'm pulling everything and rewiring and have a label maker for wires. I'm down to just the critical wires to the wings, etc. The rest I will rewire it with new harnesses and newer connectors. Steve

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