Auxiliary Engine Bay Fuse Block

This thread will document my process of installing a late 90's Land Rover Discovery 2 engine fuse block into my 2014 DCSB OF Tacoma.

Like many I want to add some additional electrical items to my Tacoma. I have seen others add fuses in several different ways. The Blue Sea Products seem to be a popular choice and many of the installations I have seen look very nice and neat. However I was looking for something that looked a little more stock and that was a little less expensive.

I have a retired friend who is currently restoring a project TVR 2500M. Part of that process has been to take the engine out of a Land Rover Discovery 2 and stuff that V8 into the TVR. A few years back after helping him take out the engine from the donor car as well as whatever bits and pieces that he thought he might need he ended up with the engine bay fuse box left over that he did not need. He owns a 2011 Tacoma AC and when I explained what I wanted to do he offered up the fuse box. If you are interested in checking out some of his work then visit the Facebook page of his side business, Patton Machine. I have made it as far as getting everything ready to install in the Tacoma. Without a garage or a warm dry area to work on the install I have been delayed getting the fuse box installed. Here is the progress so far.

Here is how it looks today, ready for installation except a few very minor last steps such as adding heat shrink to the exposed wires that are not going to be used immediately, painting one last bolt black and touching up one spot that did not paint as well as I would like.



Here is a picture of the inside of the fuse block.



The Tacoma has two unused captive nuts on the fender wall behind the battery that are the perfect location to mount a spare fuse block and many others have done just that.



The problem with the Land Rover fuse block is that the plastic mount holes do not come close to lining up to these holes. One mounting hole is on the wrong side of the fuse block and the one on the correct side is horizontal instead of vertical. So it was time to make a bracket out of flat aluminum stock.

A couple bends and twists later, a few mounting holes and this is what the bracket looked like.



Originally I thought some velcro would work well to hold everything in place but I did not think it was sturdy enough so I added a smaller bracket to firm the mounting points a bit.





Here are a few pictures of the bracket mounted to the fuse block.







After painting the bracket.









And here is what the bottom of the fuse block looks like:





I switched the fuses out to 7.5 A as I will be installing some LED lights to start.

Next up will be mounting the fuse block and running wires.