Installing PIAA 525s. How to get thru firewall???

Hello all,

Been at it an hour or two trying to figure out where to bring the wiring thru for a pair of PIAA 525s that I intend to mount on my 2002 XLT. This will be mounted on a bull bar I've already installed.

The wiring will consist of the normal wiring for the lamps as well as an additional relay/switch wiring for the 194 marker bulb/city light in the 525 housing.

I'm adding this as PIAA merely advises to splice this bulb in with the wedge bulbs, but I'd prefer to be able to switch it on and off.

Yes, I did search the forums and did find some info that seemed good, but I am not certain how applicable the info may be to my vehicle.

Drilling might be one option, but it doesn't seem like there's much room to get a drill in anywhere.

I also did find an oval blank grommet, about two inches in length on the driver's side next to the large rubber wiring hood. I removed the grommet and fished around in there with a coathanger, but I can't seem to get thru to the other side. It's also not very easy to get one's hand in that area either.

Surely, someone here has wired thru the firewall on a 2002 XLT and would know the best way of going about this.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Paraphoe]

I would tap into something that's always powered...I used my windshield wiper power wire. There should be a rubber grommet in the firewall that you can make an incision in and run the switch into the cab and then re-seal with some silicon.

 

[outlier]

Can you tell me exactly where this particular grommet is? I don't want to just go slashing open grommets and find out it's not the right one.

 

[jimbo74]

any grommet will do there are a lot of them, jsut pick one... or drill a hole and run a grommet in a new spot....

 

[outlier]

OK, well I did pick a grommet as mentioned above and couldn't fish anything thru it. So it doesn't seem to be a simple matter of just picking any grommet in the case of my vehicle.

That's why I am respectfully asking if someone who has done this to this particular Explorer might be able to tell me specifically the best place to bring wiring thru.

And if I should drill, where? It seems there's almost nowhere I'd be able to fit my drill in easily.

I have done this sort of thing before, previously on my old Nissan Pathfinder and the Pathfinder I own now. It was far easier. This . . . has me baffled a bit.

 

[jimbo74]

drill from the engine side in.... it really isnt hard.....

 

[outlier]

Where exactly?

I'm really not trying to be difficult, but in the words of another poster on a similar topic, I'm all about clean installs. Someone has to have done this before and would be able to offer specific advice. You know, "drill here" or "use this grommet." That's what I'm looking for. I don't intend to go about drilling willy-nilly, find out, "OK, probably shouldn't have drilled there" and/or possibly hit something that could be damaged.

 

[trucku]

I ran my wires for my fog light through the weather seal around the steering column. I poked a hole through it with a knife horizontally and then in the same spot vertically. I was able to pass the wire from the inside to the outside then grab it. IF you want to drill a hole the firewall is very thin. Just don't start with a big bit. IMO start from a small bit and go larger till your happy with the hole. Be careful not to hit something on the other side. I drilled a hole for my pressure sender line on the passenger side. I did it just below vacuum line that that goes to the Valve for the coolant to the heating core. I needed a 3/8 hole so started few sizes smaller just to be safe so if I didn't like it I can seal it easily. Again it was very easy to drill the hole. The sheet metal is thin.

 

[outlier]

OK, this is good. This is what I am looking for.

Earlier today, I did find a small grommet carrying two wire in on the passenger side and considered that. But fishing around in the cab, it seemed like I couldn't find a way to bring wires behind the dash over to the driver side. Anywhere I fished the coathanger from the passenger side, I was hitting something blocking. And of course, I don't want to push too hard and snag and break something either.

Of course, I'm sure I'd be able to bring the wires thru from the passenger side over to the driver side if I partially disassembled the dash, but I'd prefer not to go to such trouble, obviously.

Putting the 194 bulb city light on a switch would be useful as sometimes I have to drive to PA and they're pretty big on cracking down on "ornamental lighting," ya know, getting the scum off the streets... We all know what a slippery slope it is from ornamental lighting to a life of crime...

Been pulled over a few times up there for that. So the switch would be useful and practical.

Speaking of the 194 bulb, the 525 comes with a white LED bulb, which with the blue lamp reflector and lens casts a fairly bluish glow, which can also be problematic in a lot of states.

 

[trucku]

You don't have to dissemble anything. My fog light switch is on the lower panel below my steering column. I believe 2 screws and it comes right out. So my switch is out of the way and doesn't bother me when its on (lights up red). Its on the left side of the panes about 2 inches down. Its a good spot for switches you don't use often or want to see. You can run wires behind your dash along the foot well. The center console has room behind it against it and ends just before the firewall. I ran my oil pressure line behind and then through the center console easily (3/8th line).

 

[outlier]

I have the PIAA dual momentary switch with the dual color LEDs and some sort of A-1C (or whatever it's called) switch/relay for the 194 bulb.

Both are surface mount, which is what I wanted as I didn't want to go about cutting holes in the dash to mount rocker switches. On the Pathfinders, there are pop-out blanks for extra switches (I'll assume for things like rear fog lights on vehicles built for European and Asian markets, etc.) That made it very easy to mount extra switches. On the Pathfinder, I have a pair of PIAA P-4000 lamps, which have a blue and "Ion Gold" 194 marker. Naturally, PIAA tells you to just splice them into wedge bulbs, turn signals, etc.

I purchased the rocker switches from Mouser Electronics. FWIW, I'll mention that the rockers with the small yellowish green LED in it are very hard to see during the daytime. The red LED can be seen easily. It's also possible to carefully disassemble the rocker switch and insert a different 3mm T-1 LED, if desired. Might be something I'll do at some point.

For the A-1C switch, I did disassemble it and replaced the dim amber and green LEDs with blue and red LEDs.

 

[Bill Kemp]

Not sure on an 02 buy I have had luck following the hood release cable to where it goes through the firewall. Sometimes there is room to fish the wires thru (coat hanger) around/next to the cable & other times I drilled a hole thru the rubber grommet pushed the coat hanger into the engine compartment taped the wires to the hanger and pulled them into the interior.

 

[outlier]

OK, started working on it today. I followed the hood release cable and found that the grommet with the cable already in it might be a bit too small for my application.

So what I did was drill a ½ inch hole approximately one inch to the left of the brake cable, when viewed from inside the front seat.

To accomplish this, I cut a small square from the foam insulation to expose the metal. I then drilled a small pilot hole with a ⅛ inch bit. Problem is that with the smaller bits, I couldn't manipulate the drill into position. They just don't reach far enough. So I chucked the bit into my Dremel tool in order to be able to maneuver into that tight area.

The larger bits, being longer, presented less of a problem and I was able to open the hole up to ½ inch with progressively larger bits.

I purchased a rubber grommet at Lowe's, inserted it and had just enough clearance to shove the PIAA connectors into the cab.

I'm powering the switches from the lighter outlet. At first, I wasn't sure how to gain access to the outlet. It appeared rather mystifying as to how I'd disassemble the center console. Looking at the outlet, it looked like it pops out, so I gently pried it up until it relased. Then I took a hanger and some wire and fished it thru the hole where the outlet was toward the driver's side. I attached the switch wire and pulled it back thru, connecting the switch wire to the hot wire (color pink) of the outlet. I spliced the wire with a crimping connector.

I still have to arrange and secure the harness, so I'm going to head back to the garage to work on this in a few minutes.

I also replaced the supplied PIAA white LED 194 bulbs with PIAA "Ion Gold" yellow bulbs. They're bright and look good.

The bull bar is a stainless steel bar from Hunter. They sell on eBay and their prices are fantastic (no I am NOT affiliated in any way with Hunter). My first experience with them was a stainless steel grill guard for my Pathfinder. It's extremely well made and putting it on was easy.

The bull bar was not so easy. One has to insert a pair of bolts welded together with a small bar on top into the frame thru a slot. It was a little tricky lying on my back under the Explorer, balancing this pair of bolts on one finger thru the slot to line up the bolts with the appropriate holes. This could take a few minutes. Several times, the bolts fell to the side in the frame and I'd have to fish for them with a finger, line it back up and try again.

I purchased the bull bar about ten months ago, and from what I understand, there is a new bull bar from Hunter that's configured a little differently. Mine came with long brackets that lowered the bar so that it was eight inches from the ground. I didn't think this was very effective and didn't look too cool either. And for that matter, it would sometimes scrape on a concrete sidewalk when pulling into a parking space at a restaurant, for instance.

It seemed to me that they'd designed the bull bar to fit underneath the plastic dark grey apron or flap that's secured to the bottom of the bumper.

I called them about this. I told them that I thought it would be more effective to remove this plastic apron to attach a bull bar flush with the bumper, which would bring the bar up to the correct level. Turns out they had redesigned brackets, which they sold me for $25.00 including shipping and came in two days. Put 'em on, looks much better and the lamps will be at a level where they'd be more effective than eight inches from the road surface.

Getting back to the install, if I don't finish tonight, I'll definitely be able to by tomorrow. I'll post a link to a jpeg or two when I do.

 

[outlier]

OK, there's a complication (isn't that always the case?)

Finished up wiring, everything works fine. Then I realize that the outlet I took power from for the switches is ALWAYS powered, even with the ignition off.

On my Pathfinder, the outlet goes out with the ignition. Not so with the Explorer.

So where's this windshield wiper wire? Or is there another wire I can use to power the switches from?

Thanks in advance.