Bongo Fury

Hi all,

I've just been spending the day fitting a wiring loom so blinds, radio, lights and cigarette lighters will run of my leisure battery instead of starter battery. Main reason so can use usb adaptors in cigarette sockets to charge / run electronic items.

During the process, I've noticed that the circuit coming from the top right hand corner fuse in the driver's knee fuse box (Fuse 8 ?) as well as powering the cigarette lighters, radio and mirrors also seems to power my special japanese mystery box on the dash board.....

I'm a little concerned of how much of a drain this will be on the leisure battery and as a result how easy it will be to remove.

The box in question is branded as a "Furuno ETC" which after some googling I understand is for the Japanese Electric Toll Collection. My questions are:

1. Is it going to be consuming a significant amount of power from leisure battery if left connected?, constant red LED on to show it is powered.

2. Would there be any negative knock on consequences from disconnecting it?

3. How can I disconnect it? It has two leads coming from it - I suspect one leads to the dashboard signal sender (led turns amber when I disconnect this one) and that the other connects to 12v circuit at fuse box - looks like thin 2 core wire. Can I just cut this power wire and run live ends into small white junction box / wrap in electrical tape or do I need to trace it back to the source and remove properly?

I suspect, I know the answer, to 3 but wonder if anyone can advise me, a complete auto electrical novice, how to go about it. Particularly, I'm not sure how to gain access and what I should look for. Do I need to unscrew the fuse box and work through there or is there a way of gaining better access??

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cris

If you switch everything off and disconnect the battery a meter will reveal any draw from the battery.

Personaly I'd snip the wires and insulate the ends.

That's what I did, with no detrimental effect.

dont know if this may help access but if you open the drivers door they grey panel at the end of the dashboard clips off, may help you see a bit better whats going on behind, it helps to stop the blood running to your head. .
from memory the fuse box has either 1 or 2 screws in the top edge, remove them then tip the top outwards then unclip it from the bottom edge then you can carefully look behind the fuse box.

Thank you all for your swift replies.

I'm going in this morning for another look and will let you know how I get on.

Cheers, Cris

I feel a little guilty for removing some of the Japanese heritage of our bongo but the Furumo ETC box is now removed!!

I had a look behind fuse box with my head torch but couldn't quite trace the wires. However, I did discover that both wires to the Furumo box had clip adaptors to fix to box and not as I thought direct wires into the innards - as a result I felt a lot more comfortable just wrapping them in insulating tape for now.

I was amazed at the amount of seemingly redundant wiring behind the dashboard which I would have thought the original importer/convertor ideally should have removed when converting to UK approved camper van. We bought second hand, but would be disappointed if I'd paid top dollar for a pro conversion and all this junk remained!

I couldn't figure out how to remove the end panel of dashboard to get a better look, when I do, I might do a proper job of removing some or all of the redundant wiring and, who knows, with the loss in weight, gain some much needed mpg from my V6

I have to confess I didn't realise that I'd be getting embroiled in and enjoying all this tinkering so much when I bought a camper van!!!

I'd be careful removing wiring just in case something isn't as redundant as you think, doubtless why the convertor left it.

Out of sight...