The difference in panel wiring between a Cessna 172 I worked on last week versus one from 10 years ago is wild

I was tearing into a 1978 172 the other day at the shop in Wichita and the whole avionics bay looked like a rat's nest. Wires just going everywhere, no labels, half of them spliced with tape. Compared to the 2014 model I wired up fresh back in 2016, that thing was a dream. Clean looms, breakout diagrams actually matched what was in the plane, every wire had a number. The old one took me almost 8 hours just to trace a bad ground on the audio panel. The newer one I could have fixed the same issue in maybe 45 minutes tops. I guess the difference is just the FAA cracking down on documentation standards over those years, plus shops realizing neat work saves everyone headaches. Has anyone else noticed this big a gap between old and newer birds in their shop?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora_barnes1d ago

Eight hours on a bad ground in a 1978 172? That seems like a stretch to me. I've worked on plenty of old Cessnas and a messy wire bundle is annoying but not that hard to trace if you know what you're doing. That 2014 model you mentioned probably just had better initial installation, not some huge FAA crackdown on standards. The real difference is how many times the old plane has been hacked on by different shops over forty years, not the factory wiring.

johnson.adam1d ago

Man, honestly Nora, that's just like how my old truck's wiring was a nightmare but my new one just works, same exact story.