Dear FIAT enthusiasts,

Can someone tell me which hole in the bulkhead I can use to run a power wire through? I need a power cable for an active subwoofer in the boot. I looked at every possible places on the bulkhead and I can only find two small holes: one is very near the brake booster and is used to run the throttle cable. Another small hole is at the wheel arch side of the break booster: a hole for the wire to unlock the bonnet.

To be more clear: It is a Panda 1.2 out of 2004 average-spec model (Dynamic) and steering at the left. Hope some of you have experience with running a power wire through the bulkhead?

Hi, ill help you here seeing as i was looking for the same answer and no one on here could help me, ill pass on the knowledge!

The est way is to remove your wipers and the scuttle panel.....doent take long, make mark where wiper arms originally were!

Then you will see an almost squrae platic cover where all the wires run through the bulkhead. Undo the two 10mm nuts securing this cover onto the car and you will see a large rubber "grommet"

All i did was try to feel just to the side of the rubber away from the wires and by hand use a large drill bit to cut a hole into it large enough to pass the amp wire through which will eventually come down behind the centre console. Reach up behind it with your hand and you will feel the wire coming down.

Once you have pulled the wire through enough then place the plastic cover back over the grommet and just tighten the cover back up to seal the wires all again, which to be honest i dont think it needs.

The only other thing then is making a hole in the metal which has the engine bay seal attached to it to pass the wire through, or you could pass it through it at the edge of the weather strip and then down to your battery.

I will include some pics later to show this if you would like??

Blu - if you have pictures make it into a guide

Im going to make one seeing as there isnt one yet

It'll be up in guides section soon

That tip does make sense!

The funny thing is that I besides looking for an appropriate hole today I also removed the windscreen wiper, the scuttle panel, all to remove rotted leaves that were in the room below the scuttle panel. I even removed the square plastic thing as you said, but at that time I did not think it was an nice hole. But with your suggestion it will be a nice place to run the power wire through, although some damage to the rubber grommet has to made, but not that much I hope. Where does the wire come out exactly? Near the radio?

Are there any other experiences or tips? I saw a topic on this forum (I cannot post a link before posting 5 messages...) were somebody put a wire through the hole were in my car is the throttle cable. The topic is called ' locating grommet on firewall!'. The picture is halfway the page.

Yes you have to make a hole, but you will have to no matter what.

Even if you manage to pass your amp cable through the cable grommet (which i looked at first) you would nor have much space ebtween the cable and the sharp edge of the hole that the cable passes through, plus there is also the possibility of if its too tight then it may squeeze the cable and affect operation!

As you feed the cable through you will find its natural downward path will bring it out behind the glovebox

The other way that has been done is to actually drill a hole through the bulkhead and use a grommet, but i didnt fancy that as you do not know what is on the other side of where you are drilling!! Plus unless you find a very very tight grommet then there is a chance of water leakage into the car

The big grommet of which i speak will provide a nice hole if you slowly use a drill it by hand slightly smaller than your amp cable and then placing the plastic cover back over everything will ensure no water ingress into the cabin

I thought I'd post this up for anyone who comes across the thread looking for an easy way to run a power cable!

Using the hole for this grommet I gently pushed a screwdriver through the insulation (blue/white stuff under dash) you'll need to remove the glove box as this will exit quite high behind it.

I made a hole in the grommet to pass the cable through as it is slightly safer and makes it look a bit cleaner than just running the cable through the hole without the grommet!

That is exactly the hole for the throttle cable in LHD cars... And what is said earlier: you do not want to risk squeezing your throttle cable by running a power cable besides it. For RHD cars it is a perfect place and also easy to install.

Where is the hole for the throttle cable in RHD cars? Maybe it is also present in LHD cars? But I think the RHD are modified versions of the LHD, meaning that the holes used in RHD cars may not be available in my car.

Timon said:

That is exactly the hole for the throttle cable in LHD cars... And what is said earlier: you do not want to risk squeezing your throttle cable by running a power cable besides it. For RHD cars it is a perfect place and also easy to install.

Where is the hole for the throttle cable in RHD cars? Maybe it is also present in LHD cars? But I think the RHD are modified versions of the LHD, meaning that the holes used in RHD cars may not be available in my car.

Click to expand...

The throttle is Drive By Wire on all Pandas, so no worries about squeezing the throttle cable

I used the very same grommet to route to my subwoofer, it was completely unused until I poked the power cable through it, so I don't know what it's designed to be used for, other than an easy access route from the cabin to the battery.

In my LHD Panda there is a cable that runs directly from the gas pedal through the hole were you run the power wire through. I think it is the wire for the drive by wire throttle, as you suggested. At least it is a black cable running to a place below the airbox, so where the throttle body is located.

The method as proposed by Blupanda seems to be the nicest, at least for LHD Pandas.

KozmoNaut said:

The throttle is Drive By Wire on all Pandas, so no worries about squeezing the throttle cable

Click to expand...

No they aren't. Maybe the new Euro V ones are, but the older ones mostly have a cable. AFAIK the drive by wire Pandas are dualogic and 100HP.

I thought all cars these days would be drive by wire, but both our i20 and Spark which both have fancy new Euro V engines still have cables.

Geddes said:

No they aren't. Maybe the new Euro V ones are, but the older ones mostly have a cable. AFAIK the drive by wire Pandas are dualogic and 100HP.

Click to expand...

Yes they are. All Mk. 3 Pandas are drive-by-wire.

It's fairly obvious when you look at the accelerator pedal.

KozmoNaut said:

Yes they are. All Mk. 3 Pandas are drive-by-wire.

It's fairly obvious when you look at the accelerator pedal.

Click to expand...

No they aren't. It's fairly obvious when you look at the throttle body with a cable running to it.

Maybe European Pandas are drive by wire, but UK throttles are definitely operated by tugging on bits of cable.

I'd love to see a picture Geddes as I was under the impression that all Mk3's were fly-by-wire, too.

Eklipze3k said:

I'd love to see a picture Geddes as I was under the impression that all Mk3's were fly-by-wire, too.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid someone else will have to oblige. I don't have a Panda anymore
But my 2009 1.1 very definitely had a cable.

I was really surprised that the super efficient i20 is cable too, especially as it feels like a drive by wire when you drive it.

I am sure it depends on the engine and gearbox and maybe even manufacturer date (after the engines power increased from 60bhp to 69bhp?) I made some photos of the 1.2 Dynamic manual gearbox out of 2004. As you can see this is clearly a cable operated throttle. The black cable runs through the white 'grommet'.







But if you scroll down at the following topic:

See next post...

You see the photos posted by KozmoNaut and you can see that the throttle is drive-by-wire.

Here is the link I referred to in my last post:

https://www.fiatforum.com/panda/185827-locating-grommet-firewall.html

I am now able to post links, so that is the reason.

You are of course correct, Timon.

The throttle must have changed at some point during production.

Last weekend I installed my subwoofer. Because my 2004 Panda has no unused grommets/holes I choose to use the method as proposed by blupanda earlier on: run the wire through the rubber thing where the original wiring loom also enters the car. Here are some pics. It is a nice solution, but it is not a 5 minute job, because you have to remove the windscreen wipers and scuttle panel. But for all LHD Pandas without drive-by-wire it is the best method in my opinion.

I used that method too

I don't think I would have sussed that myself so big thanks for the top tip!!

Took some tidying to get the wires out of site all the way to the boot but I got there in the end. I'm using a 6" sub LOL!! Don't quite sound as good but is a good compramise between a 12" sub taking all the space and no sub at all