Radio and accesory installs

For later model E2’s and most other models, remove the gray top dash piece first by opening the engine compartment and removing the three torx screws located directly below the windshield. From inside the cab, the gray dash piece is held on with velcro where the gray top meets the bottom white panel. Slide your fingers under the panel and pull towards you and then up to release. You may now remove the entire gray dashpiece. Next, remove the white bottom dashboard cover panel by removing the three hex head .screws located on top. Lift straight up and the white panel should come free. The fuse panel will now be plainly visible and accessible. To the left of the fuse panel you will see 8 spade terminals. The sixth spade terminal is constant 12v and is the only terminal that stays live (even with the key off). This spade #6 is fused by position #10 in the fuse panel (labeled “radio”). It is a 10amp fuse and controls the parking brake lockout switch. There are essentially three ways to tap in to this circuit. 1.) Use a “Posi-tap” connector on the red wire with white trace going to spade 6. or 2) Use a Y spade breakout adapter at spade 6 and plug-in your own spade wire lead to the adapter. or 3) Buy ($3) what is called a 10amp molded “pigtail fuse tap” made by Accele Electronics mfr part #5710PT (using this method you would not need to remove the dash panels, depending of course on how you want to route your new wire. Don’t be tempted to use the metal fuse tap tabs that you would find in Radio Shack for example. There is probably an extra 5amps or so that is available from fuse 10. This method will probably work on most of the other later GEMCAR models, not just the E2, but I can’t say for sure.