PUMA - Permanently wiring accessories

[Graekynn]

Happy Australia Day! Im in the process of permanently wiring up several accessories and looking at the factory fuse box there are 8 empty blade fuse ports. I cant see any terminals inside so they are likely not connected to power at all and would need terminals added to the box. My question is whether its possible and practical to wire up these blank ports to the fuse box power rail for a 'factory' job, or just stick with a separate fuse box?

Supplementary question, whats the best way to run wiring from either seat box into the rear cabin? If I have to make a new hole I want to know where the safe spots are i.e, avoiding areas the would allow water ingress or damage to wiring like wheel arches etc.

Cheers!

[Toxic_Avenger]

Could be done.
But P.I.T.A. factor vs just buying a fuse block would probably help your decision.

[jon3950]

I’m a big fan of the Ex-box style solution. Run a single feed to an Ex-box (or equivalent) and put all your extra circuitry in there. Keep all your additional wiring separated from the standard stuff. This reduces the chances of doing any damage and should make it simpler to trace faults.

There are plenty of good examples on here of different solutions. Here’s mine:
Alasdair, the MY16 Keswick 110

Cheers,
Jon

[manic]

Supplementary question, whats the best way to run wiring from either seat box into the rear cabin?

Exit the seatbox out of rear/inside facing grommet, along top of chassis rail and up through grommet at back of tub (rear lights).

[DiscoMick]

In our case it goes out the hole in the passenger seat box, along the underside of the floor, tied to various points, and then up through a new hole to the second battery, which is hidden under the back of the drawer, behind the second row of seats. Done by an auto electrician, with thick cable and fuses each end. Works fine.

[Graekynn]

In our case it goes out the hole in the passenger seat box, along the underside of the floor, tied to various points, and then up through a new hole to the second battery, which is hidden under the back of the drawer, behind the second row of seats. Done by an auto electrician, with thick cable and fuses each end. Works fine.

I want to run some heavy gauge cable to the back as well. Is the new hole located in the centre of the car? Was it drilled through the floor plate in the cargo area?

[Toxic_Avenger]

The passenger side battery box on a puma (mine is a 90) has a few holes on the centre-most wall of the compartment.
What I did was get a length of suitably sized cable (IIRC, 16mm2 csa single core) and a cable gland of a suitable size (these are a dollar or two from an electrical supply store). Drill a hole in the rear face of the battery compartment, and you can easily shoot the cable out the hole, then along the chassis rail to the rear left corner of the car. From there you can drill up into the area behind the rear speakers, or if you are feeling adventurous, cram another cable thru the sharp little hole that the factory light wiring comes up thru.

With a bit of wang-jangling, you can fit a nice size fuse block behind the rear trim...


New wiring alongside factory:


Factory wiring point of entry:


12 circuit fuse block:


You'd never know it's there...

[Dorian]

Happy Australia Day! Im in the process of permanently wiring up several accessories and looking at the factory fuse box there are 8 empty blade fuse ports. I cant see any terminals inside so they are likely not connected to power at all and would need terminals added to the box. My question is whether its possible and practical to wire up these blank ports to the fuse box power rail for a 'factory' job, or just stick with a separate fuse box?

Supplementary question, whats the best way to run wiring from either seat box into the rear cabin? If I have to make a new hole I want to know where the safe spots are i.e, avoiding areas the would allow water ingress or damage to wiring like wheel arches etc.

Cheers!

I too thought it would be a really neat solution and ended up being able to get the part numbers
Unfortunately I have deleted all my emails relating to my search for these terminals, but they were a TE part number.
No body stocked them for individual sale and min order quantity was around the 4000 units.
Again from memory it came to about $600 plus

Cheers Glen

[DiscoMick]

I want to run some heavy gauge cable to the back as well. Is the new hole located in the centre of the car? Was it drilled through the floor plate in the cargo area?

Yes it is.

Another option is to run it up the door panel, along the top of the trim in the channel above the windows and then down again.