What a pain.

The red/green navigational at the bow is mounted to the stainless steel pulpit. Its wiring runs through the steel tubes, out the port side bottom and through the deck. The wiring is old, cracked and constantly breaking where it exits the tubing.

Pulling the wire through this tubing is no small task, the took the better part of an entire day.

The wires path enters the tubing behind the light, travels upward to the top tube, then turns 90 degrees to the port side of the pulpit, along this top piece of tubing, then down to the deck where it exits.

The major problem is getting the wire to make that 90-degree turn at the top. Not only is the turn hard to make, but apparently its inside edges are very sharp and dig into the wires insulation, making them hard to pull and skinning them bare in places.

First, I tried using the existing wires, hoping to use them to pull the new wires through. No luck. The sharp edges inside the 90o turn jammed the wires, eventually breaking/cutting them.

Heres how I was finally able to run the wires.

First

First, I found it nearly impossible to attempt this which the pulpit was attached to the boat. Only three bolts held the pulpit to the boat, so I was able to remove it rather easily.

Then, I drilled two holes on the underside of the upper tube, near the 90o turn.

I then inserted one end of the new wire down the center tube, from the pulpits now-inverted bottom, toward the 90o turn. This was not an easy task.

Apparently, the tubing isnt completely open inside. At this turn, there seems to be a plug in the center tube, with only a small hole in the plug for the wires to pass through. One has to keep stabbing at this end until the tip of the wire finds this hole and becomes visible in the second newly drilled hole.

Its then a matter of pushing and bending the tip of this wire toward the other newly drilled hole, and pop it out. I then pulled enough wire through this hole to more than finish the final run.

Using a wire snake, I inserted it at the base of the pulpit, where the wires exit. I pushed the snake upto the first new hole. Accessing the tip of the snake through this hole, I looped a string around behind the snakes tip and tied it off. I then pulled the snake back to the wire exit and secured the string. Using this string, I then slowly pulled the wire tip toward the exit point.

This is a very slow and tedious task, performed an inch at a time. I had to jam the wire downward from pulpits inverted bottom to accumulate some slack at the 90o turn. Using a miniature screwdriver, I pulled the slack around the corner, then used the string to pull the wire forward.

second

Eventually, the tip of the wire arrived at the exit point, and pulling became a tad easier as the wire was much stronger than the string.

The final task was to push the small remaining bend in the wire through the newly drilled hole.

third