Got a few things done today. I welded on the bracket for the circuit breaker to the front right side of the top rack. I was going to put it with the lever facing up to make it easy to trip when working on the car, but the instructions (and later the tech support people) said that for proper operation it needs to be mounted up right. It's not in the easiest place to reach, but my plan is to connect a cable to it so that it can be tripped from the driver seat.Next I welded on two brackets on the lower left side of the rack for the vacuum pump. This produces the vacuum needed for the power brakes to work. It will mount under the rack in the space to the left of the motor.
After the welding was done I finished up the cables - added the shrink wrap to the ends, the proper colored insulating boots and tightened them down nice and snug. 
I made the replacement cables up (to make up for the ones I melted) and added the two l o n g ones that connect to the rear rack. One goes from the circuit breaker to the positive terminal in the rear and the other comes from the last negative terminal up to the contactor. I was worried I would run out of cable, but I have a good 12 feet left of the fifty feet I bought.Running these cables was a little tricky. I decided to tie wrap the cables to the exhaust hangers, which worked out well. I used some foam rubber pipe insulation to soften the connections where the cable was tied to the rear suspension and the front subframe.
No conduit of any kind for the rear cables, huh? Those cables look a little "exposed". Probably ok, but did you consider giving them a little more protection?
ReplyDeleteActually, I was originally going to use a PVC pipe as a conduit, but the run follows the old exhaust pipe and wasn't straight enough for a long piece of pipe.
ReplyDeleteI got an email conversation with a Spec Miata racer who provided some real world examples of marked up and gouged exhaust pipes. I think I'll go back to my PVC pipe idea, but just for the last 2 to 1.5 feet of the run.