Last month I fell in love with an '83 300D Turbo, and last week I bought her. While I've got the seats and carpeting out so I can turn back twenty years of cleaning neglect with a shop-vac and shampooer (watching the sheer amount of pure sludge pulled from the carpeted well in the center console was a real freakshow), I'm stringing the wires to put an amp and subwoofer in the boot.

I bought the first amp kit I came across (and am kicking myself, having come across a Monster Cable kit in the J.C. Whitney catalog for ten bucks less than what I paid!) and have already strung the power cable alongside the vacuum tubes on the passenger side, with the RCA cable on the driver's.

I've already passed the RCA cable through the short wall which the front lip of the rear bench sits atop (with no ease, let me tell you), but am not sure of the correct way to continue; what's the best way to get the RCA cable behind the console?

This is a quick but by no means dirty job to get sufficient audio for an upcoming long trip -- I'm going to tear everything back out next month or so to lay some top-end four channel RCA cable, replace the speakers under the dash, perform the center-vent mod, and replace the sun-worn dash itself with an uncracked donor pulled from the junkyard. In the mean time, however, what speaker sizes can I drop into the rear shelf without any cutting?

And, lastly, is it alright that I'm stringing the power cable on the passenger side? There's no risk having a power cable so near the vacuum tubes (heat or static buildup, or something -- I know I sound like a total rook)?

Any help's much appreciated!