Auxiliary Fusebox & Twin 12v Outlets/FJ Cruiser

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Auxiliary Fusebox & Twin 12v Outlets/FJ Cruiser, written by Corey 04-29-2007

I need full time 12v power to power up my new ARB fridge as seen on the forums in my FJ Cruiser mods thread in the FJ Cruiser tech forum, and also also in the Wiki here under the Reviews section. YotaTech Member KD7NAC_07FJ offered his expertise to help me with the installation of the Blue Sea fusebox and ti wire up twin 12v outlets in the back right above the stock 110v power outlet.

Wayne is really good at anything electrical if you go browse his FJ Cruiser buildup in his mods thread also in the FJ Cruiser section at YotaTech. All connections are soldered and have shrink tubing added to them. Wayne used a small butane torch to solder the connections with. A lot of perfection went into this. I would have crimped the ends and called it a day, but Wayne is very experienced at this and went all the way with the solder and shrink tubing, very professional.

The first 2 pictures show a few things torn apart. You have to remove the floors threshold by grasping it and pulling straight up. Once removed you can easily take off the passenger side kick panel with a plastic thumbscrew which is all the way forward.

Wayne ended up taking the battery out to gain better access to the wires presently on the battery. We moved the CB power wire off of the battery and it is wired inside the cabin now with the new fusebox. You can see in picture 4 a slit inside the red circle which was already there from running the CB wire to the battery.

Pictures 5 and 6 show the panel you remove by inserting a small flat tipped screw driver and prying it outwards. Picture 5 still has the yellow sticker on it with info on the 10v converter outlet. You remove the yellow tape and use a hole saw sized at 1 3/32" and drill 2 holes. You can also use a knife and make a small incision since the 12v plug has a "key" on it to hold it tight so it will not spin on you.

Picture 6 shows the twin 12v outlets in place.

Picture 7 shows the new Blue Sea box mounted in place with white zipties (no need to screw this unit down) and the 18-Gauge Red & Black 2-Conductor wire attached to it. This fusebox also utilizes a ground, so you can attach the black ground wire to one of the three screws on top, and attach the red power wire to one of the three screws below. This box is much nicer than the cheap one I used on the 4Runner long ago. It did not have a grounding circuit.

Picture 8 shows the 6 gauge wire inside of the black wire loom going down to the slit in the firewall. It is all tired in with zipties to the factory harnesses running along the firewall.

And finally picture 9 shows the twin 12v outlets in place.

After the battery was put back in place and all the wires were reattached, I carried out the ARB fridge and set it on the ground and plugged it into one of the 12v outlets.

I reached down and rotated the switch and the green light came on the fridge and the sweet sound of a fridge coming to life was like music to my ears.

From what I have read, the fridge only draws a maximum of 2.7 amps when set to the highest setting to freeze. When set to just keep food at the safe temperature to prevent spoilage, it draws much less and can go for 3 days without wearing your battery down.

This project turned out great. I am pretty decent at wiring projects, and Wayne is much more experienced at what we tackled today.

It turned out really good. I think I will have to hit him up again when it comes time to do the dual battery setup. He has that setup and it looks fantastic.

Frozen ice cream bars will be on the menu for this summers runs! I look forward to getting lots of use from the new ARB fridge and the newly added fusebox and twin 12v outlets back there.

Parts used

Blue Sea 5025 ST Blade Fuse BL6 Circuit W/Neg Bus http://www.northeastmarineelectronics.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2750

2 x 12VDC Car Power Accessory Outlet Radio Shack part # 270-1556 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062272&cp

1 x 25-Ft. 18-Gauge Red & Black 2-Conductor Megacable Radio Shack part # 278-567 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062648&cp

6 gauge red and black (power, ground) wire for the Blue Sea Box

Various fuses of different amperage