Having spent about two hours fighting I am now seeking wisdom and experience of others in how to successfully get a power cable routed through the firewall and into the passenger footwell of a Countryman.

I have searched for any other owner's sharings on this but have come up with nothing. I did make a hole through the grommet located to the right of the battery and then fed through about four feet of cable but it seems that there is a lot more "stuff" (e.g sound-deadening material, rubber, who-knows-what) that is missing on R50/53/56/59 models as it just disappears into no-mans land!

This will be to power a high(ish) power amateur radio transceiver and provide aux power for a microwave rover station. The standard auxiliary/cigarette lighter power option is too noisy for effective ham radio usage.

Anyone successfully got power through the firewall for either radio or high-demand audio in a Countryman?

Chris

 

Following up on my own posting:

This evening I opted to retackle the cable routing problem. Routing the cable into the interior of the car using a different firewall gasket than the one I tried to use a few days ago, the wire dropped down into the footwell area, just as it had on the two prior cars I added a power drop to.

This time I used the gasket closest to the passenger sidewall in the battery compartment rather than the one nearer the middle of the vehicle.

Don't know if this will be of use to anyone else or not but I guess it can't hurt!

 

There is a nice rubber grommet with free nubs, waiting to be cut off/opened to route wires through. Right behind the battery.

 

Been several years since this has been updated.

I am about to take delivery of a new F60 JCW All-4 Countryman.

Does anyone have any experience in running (heavyish) power from the battery into the cabin area to power 100 watt class amateur radio equipment?

 

Getting ready to install the OEM LED driving lights and the instructions specify this grommet to send the wires from the engine to the cabin.

 

Thanks for the reply, Propak.

I did find that installation guide and drilled a hole as described. Unfortunately I still can't get the wire through into open space. Perhaps it's necessary to drill further? Anyway, I am going to get back on this project sometime soon and hopefully have better success.

This is the sixth MINI that I will have performed this work on and it's the first time that I have had such trouble getting the power cable through the firewall.

I just read someone else's experience trying to get a wire through actually for auxiliary lighting. That person said they found it much easier to get the wire routed through on the driver's side rather than through the passenger side grommet described below. Perhaps that will prove to be the case for me too!