H31 - Help with running new wires, please?

[cdz12250]

Does anyone know if there's a raceway or conduit, or a space between the hull and innerliner, that I can use to run some wires athwartships from the starboard lazarette (where the batteries are on my '84 H31) to the nav station? I have gotten my fish tape stuck several times in several places -- no luck. Is there an arcane secret known only to true Hunter cognoscenti (who, of course, were physically present at the factory on the day when their innerliners were lowered into their hulls), into which I could be initiated? Seriously, now. Any help would be appreciated -- thanks.

 

[Rubicon 1983-31]

Inspection port

On my Hunter there's an inspection port on the port side of the engine compartment, near the floor. This port opens up to the space between the hull and the liner.This access works well in conjunction with the large wooden panel opening on the starboard side of the water tank. With these two access you can easily fish a wire over to the nav station side.However, getting your wiring to travel from there to the nav station might be a trick, as you'll likely need to cut an exit point for the wires to pass through the liner to the nav station.I wouldn't have a problem drilling such as hole as it'd likely be well above where any water in this void might rest. HOWEVER, in some places the space between the liner and the hull is very close. Thus you must take care not to drill through the hull as well.Looking under the nav station, there's a small shelf built into the liner. (I have my flare caniseter mounted there) This might be a good spot to have the wires come through. It appears to be several inches away from the hull and you ought to be able to run you wire snake through such a hole and down into the area where you can access via the other two access points I mentioned.

 

[Marybeth and Rip]

Use existing wire for snake

On my 1987, I used an existing wire going to the pedestal to pull a couple of wires for a fuel tank gauge and a cigerette lighter plug.I also pulled a fish wire so I could get the pedestal wire back. As far as I can tell, there is no wire run, just wires running between the the hull and the liner.I have cut several inspection ports at various places in the liner to help clean under it and pull wires and water hoses. I also cut a large inspection port in the floor of the rear lazerete to get at the top of the fuel tank.

 

[Rubicon 1983-31]

Installed inspection port

"I also cut a large inspection port in the floor of the rear lazerete to get at the top of the fuel tank."Gosh, wish I'd thought of that when I replaced the fuel gauge sending unit. Working on it such as it is was a major pain, and would have been so much easier with such a port.

 

[Marybeth and Rip]

Just have to know what is load bearing

We cut inspections ports in both halves of the top of our water tanks. That makes it easier to clean and check out the tank. We took the top off once and we don't want to have to do that again.We cut inspections ports in the vertical bulkhead between the large lazerette and the rear berth. That allows us to do a lot of tasks in the large lazerette without going down into it. We particularly like to access the fuel filter. We replaced the old one with a Yanmar that takes Racor elements with the clear plastic bowl. That makes it easy to check for water and easily drain it. The filter fixture also has a small pump which allows us to easily bleed the fuel line up to the primary filter mounted on the engine. I found the thumb pump on the engine too inconvenient to use.We installed numerous small inspection ports in the hull liner to check and clean out. We don't like hidden spots in out boat. So far it has not had a detrimental effect on our racing.We used a Black & Decker Wizard with a hole adapter to cut most of our raw holes. You can set the cutting depth and radius.