hi, I have a 2003 Santa Fe 2.4 and am trying to wire in a permanent supply for a relay to operate a fridge when towing a caravan. Does anyone have any suggestions as the best place to route the wiring from as I can see no easy access from the inside of the car to the engine bay? Any help would be appreciated

thanks :)

This post has been edited by khadley: Mar 8 2008, 01:47 PM

l am slightly confused, do you want the fridge to work in the caravan or the vehicle, if you want it in the vehicle l think you will find that you need a large 'air gap' around the fridge to stop it overheating,please elaborate

Hi Montego, thanks for the reply.the fridge is in the caravan, I have fitted the towbar and 12 N lighting electrics to the car for towing the trailer\caravan but the 7 Pin 12S electrics requires a 12v line, always live to be routed from the battery to a relay.

I thought I could feed from the 12v socket in the rear of the car but its a switched 12v line so goes off when the ignition is switched off which is no good for the fridge in the caravan.

I thought I could route a cable direct from the battery, I have routed a cable from the rear to the front of the car but I cannot figure out how to get the cable from inside the car to the engine bay, I could drill a hole but I am reluctant to do this as I am sure there must a either a live feed I can splice off or alternatively somewhere to feed into the engine bay with out resorting to the drill. Any ideas?

the ignition switch would have a constant live feed to it, use a test light or meter to determine which wire is live and then splice into it with an in line fuse, this will save you going through the bulkhead

Hi khadley
Saw your request and am a bit baffled -surely your caravan has a 12 volt battery of its own to power lighting etc? if so take a live feed after fitting a fuse from this battery as your vehicle will be feeding this as you drive along via the car/caravan connector.

At least this way it will not drain your vehicle battery should anything go wrong-better to have warm beer than a vehicle that will not start because of battery drain.

Cheers
Itza

thanks for your help, I found the live at the ignition and spliced into this. :thumbsup:

In answer to the other question by creating the live feed to the switched relay it allows the caravan to charge its battery when connected to the car even if ignition is off, which can be handy, also the fridge can be switched over automatically to the vehicle 12v supply whilst the altenator is running, this keeps the beers cold, and the battery charged for arrival at our destination.

The best way to do it is run a wire off the battery with a inline circuit breaker mounted to the firewall. When they did the trailer hookup on my 05 they ran the special trailer gray cable under the truck and zapstrapped it to points on the subframe. You could fish it through the subframe if you tried hard enough but these guys were lazy. They then put it through a rubber plug down by the spare tire in the frame and drilled a hole up and into the cargo area. I have my seven way inside the drivers side small cargo space under the mat and just pull enough out and close the hatch when I want to use it.
:)