Hi everyone. Thanks for all your great suggestions. (Jerry, I'd love to see photos of your installation. My email is buckwynd [at] aol [dot] com.)
I've received several detailed emails and photos from various people. As usual, the VAF forum has been invaluable for picking brains that are smarter and/or more experienced than mine.
After thinking about it for while and talking to several of you, I think this is what I'm going to do (Thanks to Steve F. for the bulk of the idea):
I'm going to install a nice, big heavy-duty PTT pushbutton in the grip.
The wire (20 or 22 AWG, shielded) will be routed through a hole drilled in the throttle lever's mounting bolt, then down the "back side" of the throttle lever. It will be held against the arm via a tie-wrap (or two) inserted through small holes drilled in the arm. Up at the top of the arm (at the grip attach bolt), a non-crimped wire terminal (ring-type) will also provide some support for the wire as it comes out of the hole in the bolt and makes the 90-degree downward turn. The terminal, and the wire itself, will be covered with heat-shrink tubing for abrasion protection. Near the bottom of the throttle arm, about an inch above the slot in the quadrant, I plan to route the wire outboard to a grommeted hole in the airplane's side panel.
My initial concerns about the reliability of a wire that will bend and flex repeatedly as the throttle moves have mostly been eased by the number of people who have told me they've had no problems with similar setups, even after many hundreds of hours of operation.
Thanks again to everyone! I'll post pics as soon as the project's done.
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Buck Wyndham
Northern Illinois
RV-8 N18XL
Last edited by BuckWynd : 04-21-2009 at 06:51 PM.
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