Found a crazy stat about old wiring while digging through a Cessna 172 manual

I was looking up the weight and balance for a 1978 Cessna 172R I'm working on, flipping through the maintenance manual. Buried in the electrical section, it said the original wiring harness had over 900 individual connections. That's just nuts to think about for a simple single-engine plane. It really makes you respect the guys who did this stuff before modern connectors. Has anyone else found a detail like that in an old manual that made you stop and think?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliver52317d ago

Check every one of those connections for corrosion.

the_piper17d ago

Corrosion check, got it. Might as well tell me to count every grain of sand on the beach while I'm at it, @oliver523. I'll start with the green crusty one that looks like it's been underwater since the 90s.

the_skyler4h agoMost Upvoted

My buddy had a Cherokee Six with a gremlin that would kill the nav lights. He spent weeks on it, finally found one tiny wire in the bundle behind the panel had its insulation rubbed through. The manual had a diagram for that whole run, just a single page of spaghetti lines. Took him tracing every inch by hand with a meter to find it. Makes you realize they built these things with a soldering iron and a whole lot of patience.