Battery Cutoff - but keeping Radio Presets and Clock etc

[Maritime-elf]

Hi Everyone I need some help. I am trying to install a Painless brand battery disconnect switch. It will allow me to shutoff the battery via pushbutton. My question is, the solenoid has a wire for constant hot (12 Volt) for things like clock or radio presents. I have no idea where to splice that wire, or where to locate where to splice that wire. Any help or guidance would be helpful. I attached a PDF with the solenoid directions. Any help is really appreciated. 30206.pdf30206.pdf

Side note: I am not so much worried about parasitic drain, because when I am not driving the car I keep a trickle charger on it.

[David T]

Pull the fuse to the radio and feed that circuit from that solenoid with an in-line fuse. Or you can just skip the solenoid and tap directly from the battery to the fuse-block. Whatever you do that circuit MUST be fused. Figure out which side of the fuse is the feed and which side is the load and feed the load side with the in-line fuse. That will keep your presets and time.

[DMC5180]

Fuse 17 provides the unswitched constant power to the clock, radio, key buzzer (if connected) and Cig lighter.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BABIS]

Fuse 17 provides the unswitched constant power to the clock, radio, key buzzer (if connected) and Cig lighter.

+1
replace fuse 17 brown wire with the new one coming from the battery cutoff

[Maritime-elf]

+1
replace fuse 17 brown wire with the new one coming from the battery cutoff

Replace? Or splice into?

I was thinking about just adding a fuse tap into fuse 17. I figured that might be easiest?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[DMC5180]

You would need to replace the brown feed wire or cut and splice too the portion going into the fuse box only.

Doing the add a fuse only works, if you cut the brown wire or delete the terminal from the box. Otherwise you would just be back feeding all the other Brown wires in the car which defeats the purpose.

What is the condition of your Fusebox in general, how many melted fuse spots do you have (if any)? If you have have any melted locations like 7 or 15 I would highly recommend replacement. The new terminals supplied are far superior to the originals. Then you could easily run your cut-off keep alive wire to the 17 location.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[David T]

You don't cut anything. Remove the # 17 fuse and feed the load side of it with power directly from the battery with an in-line fuse.

[DMC5180]

You don't cut anything. Remove the # 17 fuse and feed the load side of it with power directly from the battery with an in-line fuse.

I was looking at it from a stealth/clean install as opposed to an extra wire sticking out of the top of the fuse box, thats all.

Your method is a perfectly fine quick and dirty functional way to do it though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Maritime-elf]

Thank you for your advice. What I am gathering by your responses is the way to do this is put the the kill switch wire with the inline fuse into the load side of #17 (which is where the brown wire connects from the bottom) the long term solution is probably replace the fuse box. I don't have to many melted terminals only number 10. At which time if everything is happy with the kill switch I will directly wire it into the fuse box #17 in place of the brown wire.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[David T]

I prefer to make any modifications reversible. Connecting to where fuse #17 was and not cutting up the wiring was a neat way to do it. Also not knowing how skilled the OP is, I offered the easiest way to do it. Of course chopping up the wiring is an option but not everyone is comfortable dissecting wiring. Many of us have seen cars where it looked like Jack the Ripper was the last one to work on the car. Dave Swingle once posted a picture of all of the cr-p he pulled out of a Delorean in a big pile of boxes and wires that used to be the burglar alarm. It was impressive! Cutting up the wiring and removing fuse # 17 can be problematic. Some day a new owner will see an empty fuse spot and try to stick a fuse in it. If it was not done properly that is when the fun and the smoke happens.