Run amplifier powercable engine to boot

[Merkel]

Hello fellow Skoda lovers!

 

I am a young man, at 21 years old. My Skoda Octavia is my first car, so of course I need to pimp it up a little.

 

I had a look at the engine compartment, and usually the cabin has multiple rubber grommets to feed wires through.

 

I however was unable to find said grommets, so I come here for help on the matter.

 

Hopefully some of you have done this in the past, and can lead me in the right direction!

[Paulbrown]

I have no idea :-/

There must be a way and I would have thought removing the glove box would be a start and see what's behind there

[VeedubyaGTi]

As Paul said, remove the glovebox, and it`s about level with the top of where the glovebox would of been. I`ve recently done this myself. Don`t forget to run your power cables one side, phono in the middle, and speaker cables on the other side for less interferance.

[Tranberg]

Follow the top of the nearside frame rail under the battery tray to where it meets the bulkhead, that's where the grommets are. They have ample size for a power cable.

Edited 31 October, 2015 by Tranberg

[Paulbrown]

You will also need another head unit as the skoda ones don't have rca outputs :-/

[Tranberg]

I'd just run the cable under the car along the brake lines and route it back into the boot through a grommet behind the bumper.

Ideally, put an additional layer around the power cable itself.

I plan to do that for power to my caravan and an outlet for my 12V DC to 230 V AC converter

Edited 31 October, 2015 by Tranberg

[meta55b]

You will also need another head unit as the skoda ones don't have rca outputs :-/

You can use the high output audio cable to the rear speakers as the audio source.

[ryan-re]

I'd just run the cable under the car along the brake lines and route it back into the boot through a grommet behind the bumper.

Ideally, put an additional layer around the power cable itself.

I plan to do that for power to my caravan and an outlet for my 12V DC to 230 V AC converter

What ever you do. IGNORE this post.

 

Remove the battery and behind it you will find a huge gromit. I have 4 50mm2 cables running through it.

 

The trim has ample room to run cable under too.

 

When you get to the rear seats you will find that to get it into the boot you will need to run the cable through a little gap by the seat belt clips which goes into the raised metal area at the seat base then out one of the holes into the boot

[Tranberg]

Whetever. It worked flawlessly for 10 years in the Fabia, and if he puts the sub and amplifier in the spare wheel well, the power cable ends up right where it's needed.

[VeedubyaGTi]

I'd just run the cable under the car along the brake lines and route it back into the boot through a grommet behind the bumper.

Ideally, put an additional layer around the power cable itself.

I plan to do that for power to my caravan and an outlet for my 12V DC to 230 V AC converter

Surely this is a joke? Crazy idea, don`t think cables like that are designed to be run UNDER a car!!I Would never do such a thing.

[Paulbrown]

water salt muck dirt ANY thing could damage the cables causing them to short :-/

 

DO NOT run ANY power cables under car

[Tranberg]

Have you ever actually seen the underside of a modern Skoda?

Everything is covered by plastic shields and it's bone dry underneath.

I drove the Fabia 9 winters on Danish roads, which get more snow and salt than British roads, but the cable probably didn't know that it was supposed to make trouble, so it didn't.

With the leaking Fabia doors, it was probably dryer underneath the car than under the plastic sill covers. LOL

[Paulbrown]

Have you ever actually seen the underside of a modern Skoda?

Everything is covered by plastic shields and it's bone dry underneath.

I drove the Fabia 9 winters on Danish roads, which get more snow and salt than British roads, but the cable probably didn't know that it was supposed to make trouble, so it didn't.

With the leaking Fabia doors, it was probably dryer underneath the car than under the plastic sill covers. LOL

yes i have seen the under side of a skoda and in fact quite a few cars been in the job i do.

If it was the norm to run elec cables along the underside of cars dont you think EVERY car maker would do it?

But they do not simple because its DANGEROUS

worst case

The thick 0Gauge cable rubs shorts begains to spark near a fuel line .....

Or following a RTC car spills its fuel ALL OVER the under side which they do and elec cable is just laying there after getting battered and shorted and its a perm live....

[Merkel]

Thank you all for your replies!

 

I will remove the battery tomorrow after work, and have a look!

 

Hopefully we can sort this easily!

[Tranberg]

[langers2k]

As long as the cable is designed for exposure to the elements and reasonable precautions are taken in it's routing and fixing then it should be fine. I would however suggest it's at least fused at the battery end.

 

My old mini had a factory unfused cable along the underside (battery in the boot to the starter) which hadn't degraded in 25 years of use.

[ryan-re]

It would have to be fused within 12" of the battery anyway.

 

A fuse is not a magic wand. Audio cables are not designed to be run under the car.

 

Its simply irresponsible to be suggesting to run live cable under your car when its a simple job to run it inside the car.

 

Merkel, it sounds like you are but please ignore the advice given about running the cable outside of the car

[Merkel]

It would have to be fused within 12" of the battery anyway.

 

A fuse is not a magic wand. Audio cables are not designed to be run under the car.

 

Its simply irresponsible to be suggesting to run live cable under your car when its a simple job to run it inside the car.

 

Merkel, it sounds like you are but please ignore the advice given about running the cable outside of the car

Yeah no, not gonna do that. 

 

It could probably be done using some plastic housing for the cable, but why would I drill into the boot..

[Merkel]

I cannot find any way to edit the main topic, so here is a few pictures of how I got the wire from the engine into the cabin.

 

After running the powerwire, you just take of the plastic panels that are held in by small iron splits. It does take quite a good amount of force, but force the panel towards the seat belt holder for the front seats.

 

Once they are off, there is a groove underneath the panels, and these can hold the wires perfectly!

 

To get to this existing rubber grommet, you MUST remove the battery and the plastic housing.

After getting to it from the inside, have a iron wire of some sort fed through by a screwdriver so you can wrap the actual powercable around the wire, and pull it through.

This leaves a perfectly sealed hole in the firewall, no drilling required!

 

 

[ryan-re]

Nice one mate. Thats exactly the one I was talking about

 

Im sure Skoda designed it with power cables in mind lol