January 9th – January 13th Update
January 9th
With all my accessories piling up and more on the horizon, I am quickly running out of space on the battery. So, I decided to install a Blue Sea fuse block to help organize all my wires and make sure that all of my accessories are properly fused. I ordered a Blue Sea 12 position positive and negative fuse block from OTRATTW. I didn’t order anything else because I wanted to figure exactly what I needed and where to mount it.
January 11th
I got the Blue Sea fuse block in the mail. I am always impressed how quickly OTRATTW ships their stuff!
Background
I found a guy on a different forum who used a sheet of Lexan to mount his fuse block. I really liked the idea so I decided to do something similar. For those of you who don’t know Lexan is a strong, heat resistant, and impact resistant polycarbonate plastic. I was able to find some at my local Home Depot. I bought an 8” X 10” sheet for about $4 and some hardware to mount everything. When I was thinking about how to mount the fuse block to the Lexan and how to mount the Laxan to the factory fuse box cover, one of the main issues that I was concerned about what having access to the factory fuse box. Read more below to see what I ended up doing.
January 12th - January 13th
I got to work mounting the fuse block. First I test fit and cut the Lexan sheet down to size. An added benefit of the Lexan is that even though it’s pretty strong, it is still really easy to cut. I marked off the area that I wanted to cut and used a level and a razor blade to repeatedly score the Lexan. After the Lexan is scored sufficiently the pieces break off with a little force.
Test fitting the trimmed Lexan over the factory fuse box.
I determined where I wanted the fuse block and drilled the mounting holes in the Lexan
I lined up the factory fuse cover and the Lexan and drilled the mounting holes in the factory fuse cover. The two large holes in the middle are where bolts for mounting the Blue Sea to the Lexan will sit.
I used #8 hardware to secure everything. I used nylon lock nuts to secure the Blue Sea to the Lexan. To ensure that I have access to the factory fuse box when I need to, I used wing nuts to secure the Lexan sheet to the factory fuse box cover. That way I can simply remove the four wing nuts and pull the entire Lexan sheet off and move it out of the way.
Then I started wiring up my accessories.
Those of you with a keen eye will notice the random wires looped around the battery…I ran those in anticipation of my next accessory…
Lastly, I used my Microsoft Excel skills to create a label so I can tell which wires go to which accessory.
Can you sport the new accessory?