Help! Wiring from under car to battery

amad1972 · 07-29-2008, 04:46 PM

I'm wanting to add some neon lights under the car. Does anybody know if there is any hole, or access, to get a wire from under the car up into the battery area? It seems that the whole underbody of the car is covered with a plastic covering. Is this easy to get off to get to an access hole (if there is one)? I did find out that the battery itself is not the easiest thing to get access to. Hope I never have to jump it off.

sheureka · 07-29-2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amad1972

I did find out that the battery itself is not the easiest thing to get access to. Hope I never have to jump it off.

All I had to do (when I left the door open a week after I'd gotten the car) to access the battery was take up the carpet on the passenger side.

amad1972 · 07-29-2008, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheureka

All I had to do (when I left the door open a week after I'd gotten the car) to access the battery was take up the carpet on the passenger side.

You didn't have to pull out that whole styrofoam thing that holds the tire repair kit?

SunDiego · 07-29-2008, 08:13 PM

Yes you have to pull that out. It's really not a big deal to do it, nor hard to do. Just pull the carpet back, remove the foam, and there's the battery.

amad1972 · 07-29-2008, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDiego

Yes you have to pull that out. It's really not a big deal to do it, nor hard to do. Just pull the carpet back, remove the foam, and there's the battery.

Yeah, not really too bad, I guess. Just harder than popping the hood and opening it up.

SunDiego · 07-29-2008, 08:22 PM

Takes about a whole 15 seconds to do

amad1972 · 07-29-2008, 09:02 PM

Anybody else know about getting wires from under the car into the battery area?

Westfield 11 · 07-30-2008, 11:44 AM

Just be careful you don't mess up the carpet, mine has never fit the same since the salesman demonstrated the tire pump. Now I am going to have to take the car in for a new carpet under warranty since it now has a pucker and gap where it has warped. This happened on BOTH of our cars, but the one in LA is last for warranty service.

randyzimmer · 07-30-2008, 12:31 PM

Pretty sure there's a battery vent hole in the battery box.
Getting the plastic off the bottom isn't hard if the car is higher up in the air.
Problems are that the jacking points are right at the plastic too and the two main pieces interlock so some height is needed to unhook/hook them and your stands are in the way of removing the plastic.
I cut two holes in the most forward cover to get a jack and a stand under the A-arm pivots. Those are nice and strong and lift the whole front rather than what happens when you jack on the sides.
Having the car supported there gives more room for working on the belly pans.

amad1972 · 07-30-2008, 03:10 PM

Thanks, everyone, for the advice. I drilled the hole that the battery vent tube goes through out just a tad bigger, so some wire will be in there snug with the vent tube. I put an illuminated switch on the driver's side of the cup holders. I was able to push and snake the wire through the battery vent hole until I saw it through some holes in the under plastic. Then I just pulled it through. I now have 4 24" strips of LED lights (blue to match the car) under the car. They make the whole underside of the car glow blue. In my garage, they are very bright. Can't wait to see them at night. I didn't seem to have any problems with the carpet messing up. It did just fine. Hope it's legal (or at least tolerated) here in Tennessee. I've never had any legal issues with LED lights on my motorcycles, and I have one bike with red LEDs and one with blue LEDs.