I want to attach a permanent connection for my Ctek maintainer. Looking at the battery positive terminal, it looks quite complicated, haha. The big plastic piece with 3 nuts looks like an integrated piece and I’m not sure I want to add my accessories to it. The red arrow nut looks like it should work. Any of you gents have a recommendation? What about the negative?
Just connect to the jump point under the hood - otherwise you'll need to leave your trunk open while hooked-up. I just prefer a hood up, rather than a trunk open. If you slam the trunk on the charging cable; will you reminder to disconnect before driving off???
I’ve connected my CTEK quick-connect at the underhood fuse box, just leave the hood ajar when charging: Video #23 here, by @NutzAboutBolts, shows how to access the 12 volt positive feed-in point at the fuse box. The CTEK connector has a robust plastic shoulder, and there’s limited space at the fuse box connection point, so I had to trim off that shoulder, bend the ring connector through a sharp 90 degrees, to fit. I found an unused threaded hole just a little forward and down, on the car body, connected the CTEK’s neg wire there: I have a few spare small metric bolts though, believe it’s 6 mm thd diameter (10mm head). Without an extra bolt, any existing body bolts should work, verify with continuity meter.
I would rather go from the trunk and straight to the battery. The top middle goes through a clear plastic for some reason, and the red arrow is the nut that loosens the whole plastic attachment from the battery. Yellow looks promising but goes through what looks like a breaker. The yellow arrow nut attaches to the cable that runs through the car and ends at the fuse box where the positive post is located under the hood. I’m thinking it might be the best place to attach it.
I wouldn’t bypass the battery sensor on the negative terminal. Regarding the two fusible links, yes, I wouldn’t bypass them either, just in case. I wouldn’t loosen the large nut for them. So, just connect it to the 10-mm-scoket nuts for battery-terminal clamps on both terminals. Do not loosen the 12-mm-socket nuts, and do not loosen the two fusible link nuts. You then need a 120-V extension cord, which you can route through a cracked window into the trunk. Last but not least, connect a BM2 battery monitor.
Yes, I think so. The clamp nuts should be the 10-mm-socket ones. Gen 4 and Gen 5 should be more or less identical. I don’t remember exactly what I did when I replaced my Gen 4 battery, though. In any case, don’t touch the big nuts that connect the current sensor on the negative and the fusible links on the positive terminals.
It is hard to decide what to do without having the actual car in front of you, though. @Hammersmith can probably poke around in his and tell you what he thinks.
I attached to the circled stud on the negative side, but I think I attached my positive lead to the stud on part 28800A underneath the fusible link assembly. I wanted to try and get the connectors as close to the battery as possible without any vehicle components in the way. Although I might redo my choices this fall. I was using the mounting hardware from my Genius 2A, which has smaller eyelets than the set from my Genius 10A. I remember there was at least one stud I wanted to use that the smaller eyelet wouldn't fit over, so I ended up using one of the thinner studs. I might try using the larger eyelets this fall and see if I can figure out a more perfect connection. Probably the two larger studs on each side. So exactly which studs Rafsdhc6 uses might partially depend on their particular CTEK mounting hardware. As for front vs. rear placement, I prefer rear. It looks like the CTEK setup is basically the same as my Genius. The bulk of the maintainer stays outside the car with only the battery connector being inside. The quick connect between the two parts would be just outside the hatch. So if the hatch is closed on the wire and you drive away without remember to unhook, I doubt there'd be any serious damage. At worst, you might tear off the tiny plastic locking tab on the quick connect(though I doubt even that would happen). I guess the absolute worst case would be the quick connect holding tight and the maintainer unplugging itself from the wall and getting dragged behind the car. But that's avoidable by setting everything up so that you have to walk by the charger before getting into the car.
So it looks like any nut goes, haha. I ordered Ctek extension cord and size M8 quick connector which should fit all those studs. I approach the car from rear so visibility is not a problem.
I installed my tender under the hood see here: Where to connect battery tender harness under the hood? | PriusChat
