Auxiliary Power Cordq

[garyerrol]

I need to run a couple power cables from the battery through the firewall and into the passenger compartment. I have an automatic and I know about the plate on the firewall that plugs where the master cylinder for a clutch would go if I had a manual transmission.

My question is, do I access the two nuts that fasten the plate to the firewall from the engine compartment or from under the dash? Also, can someone tell me what size socket I'll need?

[CREWZIN]

Follow the cable that opens the hood. There's a rubber grommet that has enough space for a couple of cables and there's no bolts or nuts to undo. Just push the cable through from the inside to the outside.

I used that space for wires for my Aooga Horn, under car LED lights and under seat amplifier.

[garyerrol]

I see a gourmet in the upper right corner of the engine compartment (drivers side) where it appears several cables come through the firewall where it looks like their would be room to poke a hole beside the bundle and push a couple wires through there. Does anyone know what is on the passenger side of that gourmet?

Crewzin, I've not looked for your gourmet yet as I didn't feel like crawling down under the dash this afternoon..

[CREWZIN]

Originally Posted by garyerrol

Crewzin, I've not looked for your grommet yet as I didn't feel like crawling down under the dash this afternoon..

...and crawl down underneath the dash is what you'll have to do to get access to the grommet where the hood release cable is. That might be the same thing you were looking at from the engine compartment.

[garyerrol]

I have an awl, I'll poke a hole in the one I found and do a little exploring with a small solid rod. If I can't use that gourmet I can seal it up with a little silicone. Then I need to figure out what gauge wire and how many I need to pull.

[Hooligan]

If you use a thin rod, leave it in and then tape the wires to it when you pull it back thru.

[garyerrol]

Yes, if the small rod finds its way and I can find it under the dash once it goes through the gourmet, yes I'll tape all of my wires to it and pull them through. Right now I'm trying to figure out how many wires I actually need. Probably four, two 8 or 10 gauge for the main power and ground wires plus a couple smaller for the 100 watt PA speaker I may try to mount behind the grill plus one for a couple LED lights I want to put in the grill one of these days.

[garyerrol]

Okay, let's say I got the two power cables routed through the firewall. Now I'm trying to figure out where to attach the positive and negative cables under the hood. Most likely I'm going to be using 8 gauge wire since I have radios to power besides my LED lights. I see a nice ground connector on the drivers side inner fenderwell that I should be able to attach my ground to. I notice I have a post (positive) behind the air cleaner that says to use it for jump starting. Since it is threaded, could I get the correct threaded nut with a couple washers and attach my positive lead here instead of too the battery clamp connector?

[CREWZIN]

NO. Run the negative anywhere you want but run the positive to one of the 4 spare fuses in the fuse box in the engine compartment. The diagram below is the fuse box from the 2001 PT. The colored squares are all spare fuses you can use for accessories.

[garyerrol]

Crewzin, why to the fuse box? I'm going to fuse the positive wire with a 50 amp resettable circuit breaker. I thought that jump start stud would be a good place to get full amps to the 8 gauge wire.