Routing tower wires.

[mwe-maxxowner]

Boat and tower shown above. Looking for tips on how to most easily run wires through the tower. I tried to dig up some photos that will show you how the tower is constructed. It's a pretty generic universal tower.

My buddy and I ran some wires through a tower on his boat, and I think there has got to be a better way to do it! Maybe some of you fellas who have done it several times have developed a few nifty tricks I can apply to make it go better and look cleaner.

Thanks for any tips!

 

[Grub54891]

Re: Routing tower wires.

The best way is through the tube. Yeah you have to get back out at the top,can be a challange. I like to determine where the equipment is going to be,then decide how big a hole to drill. You can run a fish tape from the top down,preferably right through the bottom of a base whch may require you to remove base/tower to drill a decent hole in). I run the fish tape in,with a good string tagline attached,till it comes out the base. Then detach the two,remove the hard tape. Now ya can pull your wires with the string,and I'll attach another string to run with the wire,for future use if needed. Re-bed everything you may have undone,have fun!
Grub

 

[Bondo]

Re: Routing tower wires.

Ayuh,... It ain't really rocket science,...

I've fished mechanic's wire down through drilled holes, 'n pulled 'em through the same way as grub,...

ain't got a fish-tape, but mechanic's wire/ balin' wire/ mason's tie-wire with the last 1/4" bent over 180? works pretty good,...

Sometimes ya gotta catch yer fish wire with another bent over wire at yer destination hole,...

Once yer 1st string/ wire is in, yer golden,...

 

[Splat]

Re: Routing tower wires.

Fish tape works good, as well as some high test fishing line with a shop vac succking air through the tube.

 

[mwe-maxxowner]

Re: Routing tower wires.

Never thought of a shop vac! We had a heck of a time getting the wire out of my buddy's tower at the exit hole. I'm hoping to get mine a little easier. I want to figure out how to take mine through the foot of the tower if it won't hurt the integrity of it.

 

[dizzy1]

Re: Routing tower wires.

How did you wire routing go? I just happened to be doing my wiring in the tower this weekend, tower is very similar to yours. I tried the shopvac/string trick. After hour of trying, seems string was getting caught up and never worked. Then used metal fish line from depot, worked great until trying to pull back down. The end is hooked and it hooked on the metal edge in the tower and got stuck. Had to take 1 leg off the tower to get it unstuck. Final struggle was getting wire thru. I bought the Aerial wire harness and its 1/2 thick! So of course it would catch and edge and get stuck. Spent my whole Sunday but finally got it thru, wired and thru the hull using the Aerial thru-hull fitting.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Routing tower wires.

Fish tape works good, as well as some high test fishing line with a shop Vac sucking air through the tube.

This works great. ^^^
A piece of string attached to a Plastic Grocery Bag gets sucked through the tube faster than you can imagine.
I have used this method to pull a line through over 200 feet of buried conduit in under 30 seconds.
Your 10 feet will be through in a heartbeat!