Socket to me

Had a bit of energy so I thought I'd make a start on wiring in the extra socket in the boot.

I loosely followed the way Land Rover suggest with their kit, but made a small difference as to where the power came from. More on that further down. 

First off I removed all of the passenger side interior panels. A reassuringly simple affair only requiring a torx bit and some gentle persuasion to pull panel clips free.

Once cleared I fed 2 wires, one red for power (2.5mm) and one yellow (1.5mm) for the relay signal from the boot to the passenger footwell. Here I had to swear a little as there is so little space behind the dash to route wires, between the console and the heater / air con there is literally no room to see through to the drivers side glovebox (where the wires will terminate). So out came my stereo which let me feed the wires up from the passenger footwell, across but behind the stereo wiring and down into the drivers footwell. 

I had to do this twice, once to get the length of wire required and then again after I wrapped them in cloth tape...

All wrapped and fed along the sill and into the boot... More wrapping than I do at Christmas!

So now to the meat of the beast, wiring up the relay and fitting. As is my way with these things I rushed ahead and got it wired without taking pictures, but it is simply a 30A relay and it's wired the same as if it was powering spotlights.

The relay is secured to the body by the silver screw near the top of the picture, and the ground cables are secured to the same point as the tail lights (near the bottom).

And finally the power wires are attached to the back of the socket. Yup, more wrapping here too!

All of the trims refitted, one more job for the day which is finding a home for the power and signal wires.

The master plan is to install a secondary fuse box in the cabin, with it's own battery feed. This will make adding additional circuits easier, and keeps my wiring away the cars factory kit.

The little glovebox under the steering wheel is a bit useless for me, and as it's right next to the main cabin fusebox it seems the most logical home for the new one. This will be a job for another day, I need to buy some battery cable and an main fuse holder to protect the feed, then I can finally get it fitted. But for now...