As far as the fuse panel goes, I could put it in a drawer under the passenger seat. My '04 Dodge van has a similar pull out drawer to your PT. Probably the same thing. It could also be made to come out far enough to access all the wiring to the panel.
No. Because I have done it. (magic wagon drawer) I thought it sounded good too and it looks cool, but there are a couple of drawbacks (learnt afterwards of course) ; it takes a lot more wire because if you are using it as a distribution source then the fused power goes to the dash switch and then back to the panel and then out to the switched device, this all adds up to a lot of wire and becomes very difficult to hide neatly and interferes with the opening and closing of the drawer. Also the seat cushion sits overtop of the open drawer and limits accessibility. Ask me how I know all this? I will do it differently next time, with more accessible. My shop truck;
Ray, I didn't have in mind using an open topped drawer. It would seem to me to be begging for trouble. I will have more than 3" of vertical space, as that is the height of the channel which I raised the seats with. Probably more like 4" plus. That should be plenty. We will use a larger wire gauge as necessary if any of the runs get lengthy.
But as Gene points out, those cars are tiny inside. Not a lot of added length in any event.
Another option might be to conjure up a hinged panel mounted on the firewall, such that when it opens, you are looking at the business side of things. Or maybe mounted on some sort of sliding mechanism. There will be a way.
