Pokin' Holes!!!
Pokin' holes in the roof!!!!! It's more fun than it sounds guys!
We all know how much of a pain it is to run wires up to the roof and make it look good, stay waterproof, not chafe the wires from opening and closing the hatch, etc. I have had the wires ran to the Gobi rack up through the back of the truck and between the hatch lid and body, and into the drip rail channel for about 2 years now and have never been happy with it. The wires rub on the hatch, don't look the best even though I did a clean enough job, and I am kinda crazy about this stuff. In my final stages of this build, I have been tidying things up and making things as bullet proof as possible. Soooo.
I did a bit of research on cable pass through's for marine applications, basically waterproof grommets to pass cables through panels. I ended up with a product from Scanstrut - very well made, stainless steel construction, easy and fail proof mounting, comes with different grommets for different cable diameters, etc.
Here is the product.
I pulled the rear headliner down so I could access the roof sheet metal from the inside and located a good place to run the wires up and started to drill!
I used the gaskets that the seals came with as well as good old black silicone to "seal the deal." All stainless hardware, all good quality stuff!
Here is the flange you mount to bolt the grommet and cover to:
Then came running the wires up through the holes which was easy because the wires were already back there. The grommets have a slit on one side so you don't have to remove any plugs you have attached. This came in handy on the one I did on the passenger side for the CB cable.
Here is the finished product.
As you can see the little R2D2 lookin dome has a taper inside and the rubber grommet has the taper to match so when you tighten down the dome, it seals really really tight around the cable in the middle. I use that abrasion resistant wire covering as you can see in the pic, and for the seal through the grommet, I filled a piece of heat shrink tubing with RTV silicone and shrank it around the wire bundle then sealed the grommet around this.
This was a handy dandy tool set I got off Amazon for $20 for removing automotive interior panels, came in really handy for removing the headliner clips.
All the connections got waterproof Deutsch connectors:
Here is the passenger side pass though with the CB cable, unnoticeable with the tool box covering it from the top, and the GOBI mount covering the side:
Cheers All!!!!!
arty:
