Running wire through the firewall

Any ideas how to run wires from the engine bay into the cabin without drilling a hole in the firewall?

I see that part of the loom goes through the firewall but the wires are set in some sort of sticky gelatinous stuff & then there is the bonnet cable. If I go though either of these it will be a mess & the only other option seems to drilling a hole & using a grommet.

Is that about the limit of my choices?

Mind you I am not sure why I am being so anal about it. In a few weeks half the bumper will be chopped off for the bullbar & holes drilled for the canopy.

There is another loom going through the firewall on the passengers side as well. Well there is on my 07 ST-X anyway

There is a really easy gromit to get through just above the accelorator pedal.
It's not big so it does fill up fast if you running heavier gauge wires through it.
No removing dash or anything. Hope that helps.

The hole Aussie refers to was in the 09 as well, depends on where you're taking your cables under the bonnet but the passenger side one is a breeze to get to and if your ever installing a reversing camera is almost immediately below the pin you need to hook to on the reversing relay for a power feed to a screen that only comes on when reverse is selected.

hi,
If you use the one just above the accelator pedal that is easy to penetrate and also very easy to keep sealed for water. I have put UHF, Spot Lights, Amber Lights and also amp cables through this and never had any problems with water crossings. Just use a metal coat hanger to get your wires through and dont cut the seal/gromet

I ended up passing the wires through an opening behind the kick panel, through a blanking grommet in the front door pillar, into the front guard & up into the engine bay. All wires heading towards the battery.

Unfortunately there was no grommet above the accelerator however there is another loom going through the firewall on the passenger side, again with that sticky gelatenous stuff holding the wires.

The variation between all the differnt Navara's is astonishing.

I must say a reverse camera would be handy. I am still trying to become accustomed to the rearward vision & this is only going to become more challenging when the capopy goes on.

Why is it that one thing often leads to another? I am only getting the canopy so I can fit the Engel & now thinking about a dual battery in the back for the Engel & then maybe a DC to DC charger for the second battery but still have to charge the battery in the caravan when on the move................etc, etc, etc, etc

Gawd help me!

Thanks.

I ran my reversing camera cables thru the cabin vent in the back of the cab behind the passenger rear seat .

Hi Joe,
when you get the cables through the fire wall run it down the drivers side of the car to the back seat, then if you pull the vertical seat forward remove the plastics there is another grommet there that will put the cables just out the rear of the cab. I will tell you now, I just fitted my canopy 2 days ago and the vision out of the back window with 3 dark tinted windows is nearly nothing at day light let alone at night.
Cheers

If you use the cabin vent to exit the cabin with wires are Aussie suggested you don't need to seal the vent because you're pushing the wire through an existing flap we all trust not to let much water in to begin with. The advantage of this hole is also that it's about 2 inches from the grommet in the tub so you can easily get the wires into the tub.

Anyone who's driven a pantech or similar will realise that not seeing out the canopy is not a huge issue if you learn to drive with and trust your mirrors. It does sound like a bit of a smart arse comment but the more you think about that canopy being a vision blocker the harder it will be to trust what you see in the mirrors however once you trust your mirrors reversing becomes so much easier. Putting all your trust in reversing cameras is also not the best option either because if you can only reverse with the camera turned on and for some reason it doesn't come on you'll find yourself screwed.

I ran my UHF aerial cable through the passenger gromet. The sticky stuff was melted electrical tape so I did the following

1 - remove old electrical take/sticky stuff
2 - pop out the grommet- makes feeding cable through easier
3 - poke all the cable through firewall (comes out in passenger foot well)- use wire if you have to but you shouldn't have to
4 - replace grommet - easier than you think
5 - replace electrical tape

I found it extremely easy, I was reluctant at first to take the grommet out, but trust me it is very easy to get back in and seals well. It also makes feeding the cable through easy.

I used the passenger grommet as I thought it was easier to get to but it depends on where you are running wires to/from. I had to cross the car somewhere (passenger to drivers side), so I decided in the car was easiest. If I was running something along the drivers side to the driver side I would have used a drivers side grommet (hope I am not being to obvious)

Tiburn said:

I used the passenger grommet as I thought it was easier to get to but it depends on where you are running wires to/from.

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That's dead right. My CB stick is on the passenger side and my isolator was originally on the passenger side (now replaced with a self resetting fuse) so for me it was natural to want to use the passenger side firewall. I did originally choose the passenger foot well because I figured a fat bastard like me has enough trouble laying in the foot well and working upside down and having pedals in the way was not going to help me. In the end it worked out fine, but had I not be able to install everything on the passenger side I'd have just attacked the drivers side like others have.

As I have said earlier, my loom is set in some sort of clearish rubberised material within the grommet that goes through the firewall. Is this what you are pushing the wires through or perhaps mine is different?

Regarding rear vision, I am having the side windows tinted this weekend & the bloke doing it suggested that I not have the rear windw tinted as I am having a canopy fitted. He advised there would be too much reflection trying to look through 3 windows if the back window of the cab was tinted.

There is no reason why he would BS me as he is just doing himself out of $$. Is there any disadvantage not having the back window tinted?

As far as the back window goes I wouldn't bother tinting it if you're getting a canopy, whether you can use the mirror to look out the rear window or not is besides the point, with a canopy on there is little to no sun reflection and little to no heat coming through the back window. Since most canopy's have tinted windows these days you will also be doubling up what you want to look through if you tint the back window, however you'll quickly find that having three pains of glass all with a different degree of dirtiness between you and the outside world is far more frustrating than any tinting job. I just see it as wasted money tinting something you don't need to.

As far as the grommets go, any grommet I've used is just the standard black rubber grommet that has been part of car manufacturing for years. but like I said all mine go through the passenger side and I never looked too closely at what is on the drivers side.