99 Mercury Cougar; Where'd you run the Power & RCA?

[theCybe 5,000+ posts]

Hi.

I've gotta slap an amp and subs into one of these in an hour or so; I've never cracked one open before, so I thought I'd poll to see if anybody'd worked one before.

a) Any nice spots for the power through the firewall?

b) How's the backseat come out - bolt type and sizes?

c) Any console removal difficulties I should know about?

Thanks.

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[miked_mad 10+ year member]

Theres a hole with a little plastic plug right be hind the brake pedal.U can get any size wire through there

 

[jj4475 10+ year member]

wow i wish i had a plastic plug

 

[LoudCrownVic 5,000+ posts]

The backseat is a *****. there are metal clips that you have to push foward and pull up on. The seatback is much the same way but you have to unbolt the seatbelts i think and there is a nut on the underside of the car, I tried to take mine hout and the bolt just spun.

The firewall, low on the passenger side on my Vic was a grommet that I used. peel back the carpet and look for it then see where it comes out of the firewall, what goes through it, I remember it was a pain but ended up working well. The cougar might be the same.

Consoles are hard to get out. Id hope you had a small sized metric socket set, and were **** careful while prying clips, undoing screws. The consoles eat screws at times.

 

[LoudCrownVic 5,000+ posts]

I am not even entirely sure how to get the seatout, I hammered on the ***** for hours and eneded up taking my car to an installer. The clips are like a crabs pincers and there is a very small hole where the wire bravcket that holds the seat on can slip out, and it may need the extra force of a pry bar to get it to go.

 

[theCybe 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for the replies, I ended up having to uninstall a terrible and dangerous installation from a Neon, and move it all into the Cougar.

I wish I had a digital camera; It was really unsafe. There were three "power" wires from the battery positive heading into the (absolutely disgustingly dirty) cabin; One was to the headunit, one was to the amp (all of like 14ga - and that was the big one) and one to god knows where.

The battery was almost completely green; I didn't want to break one of the battery poles, so I just pulled the fuse from the amp lead, and clipped and terminated the other two.

That thing was a mess. There was a ****ing gummi-worm, some half-full big-gulps, and; I'll spare you the details. It was gross.

The Cougar was the easiest install I've ever done. That rubber grommet (shaped like a teardrop, on the firewall straight back from the Airbox) is kick-***; they should have it on every car.

You could slide three 0-awg through there no problem, and still have room for three more 4-awg at the top of the teardrop.

Of course, the equipment was laughable; Two 12" DEI subs from the 90's, one with a damaged surround; And a Radioshack 200w amp. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

There was already a (JVC) headunit installed, so I just had to snap it out to run the RCA (that I'd salvaged from the other car), and splice a remote lead into the harness (no, not the factory harness.)

I ran all that on the passenger side, and ran the power wire through the aforementioned grommet, right down the driver's side, behind the interior trim in the back, and voila; Power to trunk.

Proud of myself, it went perfectly, I couldn't have asked for an easier job.

It even sounded pretty good, (read: not as shitty as I expected) and the owner is thrilled.

Made $40.