CB wiring help required

UKTJ

UKTJ

TJ Addict
Joined
Dec 30, 2020
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Location
Hampshire, UK
Santa brought me a CB for Xmas and I have been doing a bit of gentle fitting today. The CB unit (a President Bill) comes with a power lead with a cigarette lighter attachment on the end, however, the instructions suggest wiring it directly to the battery. The internet confirms getting power from the battery to be the best option, but I have a couple of questions.

In order to get the wire through the firewall I have located what I think is an unused rubber gromet, it is in the footwell of the passenger side of my RHD TJ. I have read online mention of a grommet in the driver side footwell, but that will be for LHD and I can't see Jeep having had a different firewall for RHD vehicles so I am guessing htis is it. I snapped a pictures, can I poke a hole in this and run the wires through it?
?hash=2770b5ef802b070df4a8592986582170.jpg



As the battery on a RHD is on the passenger side (what would be the driver side for a LHD TJ), if I can use that grommet, it makes the routing easy as it comes out just below the battery. On another forum I found an old thread on CB wiring from 2015 where a certain @Jerry Bransford said...
"A good location to pick up power directly from the battery is at the rear of the power distribution centre, under a small snap-off plastic cover. Under that cover is a wiring stud with a nut on it where the CB can get its power from..."
In the picture below is this what Jerry meant...

?hash=2770b5ef802b070df4a8592986582170.jpg


If so, what would I do, replace the cigarette attachment with a couple of ring terminals and connect one to the live and the other to the ground? Finally, if that is right which of the two posts is likely to be the live?

Many thanks in advance.
 
Looks like you are on the right track, both of those posts are positive and will work fine. Anyway you can get through the firewall is generally okay as long as you have some sort of rubber bushing or grommet. if you want to keep it simple you can put an extra nut on the battery ground here for the ground wire.

ground.jpg
 
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There is a rubber grommet that passes through the firewall just slightly above the front of the console. That rubber grommet is what the automatic transmission shifter cable passes through. It's useful for passing power cables through if you have a manual transmission after drilling a small hole through.

If you have an automatic transmission there's a small hole passing through near the the top of the firewall the clutch rod passes through. That's what I am using for my radio power wires.
 
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pagrey said:
Looks like you are on the right track, both of those posts are positive and will work fine. Anyway you can get through the firewall is generally okay as long as you have some sort of rubber bushing or grommet. if you want to keep it simple you can put an extra nut on the battery ground here for the ground wire.

View attachment 298936
Click to expand...
OK, thanks. As I would have to go past the battery to get to the PDC I guess it is probably easier just to wire it to the battery itself.
 
Jerry Bransford said:
There is a rubber grommet that passes through the firewall just slightly above the front of the console. That rubber grommet is what the automatic transmission shifter cable passes through. It's useful for passing power cables through if you have a manual transmission after drilling a small hole through.

If you have an automatic transmission there's a small hole passing through near the the top of the firewall the clutch rod passes through. That's what I am using for my radio power wires.
Click to expand...
OK thanks. I'll have a look and see if I can see the one in front of the console, being more central that may mean the wires are neater than with the grommet I found. If not the one I found is very close to the battery, so that sounds like it would work as well.
 
UKTJ said:
Thanks Jerry. I presume you have no concern about going directly to the battery terminals rather than the PDC?
Click to expand...
No concern going directly to the battery but connecting directly to the lug at the battery-end of the Power Distribution Center would be a LOT (!!) easier and make for a far cleaner installation. The cable on the PDC connects directly to the + post on the battery with a large size cable so it's a good source of power for our 2-way radios.

The two red wires below provide power directly to my ham and CB radios.

Power-Distribution-Center-Power-Lug.jpg
 
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I'm late to this thread, but here are my notes from wiring my own CB recently, and here is a thread I started about holes through the firewall of the tub.
 
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