Thread: Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

More progress was made thru the week on the cabling, I was able to snatch a hour or so of an afternoon before it got too dark outside. Bring on daylight savings!

The fuse holder arrived, and I also took delivery of a link bus bar for joining the RBS and ACR. I procured more 50mm2 cable (using Cigweld superflex for this) and some suitable cable lugs and thick glue lined heat shrink in black and red. I also bought some Projecta battery terminals with the 5/16" threaded bolts to which I'll attach my cables once complete.



The first cable was the negative link which will sit between both batteries. As this area is under the seat box, height is not as much of an issue and the assembly was fairly straight forward. The terminals were approx 173mm apart, so with a bit of measurement and holding the tongue the right way, I knocked that cable together. As the welding cable was orange, I gave it a sheath of black, and provided some cable strain relief around the lug with the black glue lined heatshrink. This will aslo serve as a good protection from the elements, and oxidation of the copper down the track which can lead to increased resistance.

With the fuse holder in place, I measured up the main positive feed to the fuse block. This is an odd shaped cable, as it needs to exit the bottom of the fuse block, wrap around the battery, and approach the cranking battery at a nice angle, while maintaining plenty of working room in the battery box for other stuff.
I repurposed the black plastic cable saddle which was used on the negative cable to train the positive cable into (as close to) a 90 degree bend. More glue lined heat shrink helps to set the bend, and keep the cable path fairly tight to the batteries. The above pic does not really offer any view of how it fits together, but the below pic should:



...and fuse holder with cover on:



For anyone interested, the earth lead on the factory setup is a 50mm2 cable, but it's got this horrendous hard plastic sheath which makes it almost impossible to get anything tighter than a 150mm diameter bend in it. I lopped the factory terminal arrangement off with extreme prejudice. I think it's clear already how much I hated that arrangement. It's now replaced with a 50mm2 lug, and 8mm diameter hole to match the battery post.



Depending on motivation levels, I might actually relocate this earth cable thru a cable gland lower to the bottom of the battery box, and re-make it with a better cable. Only issue is my ability to crimp a lug in the middle of the cable, as it needs to earth to chassis then the gearbox. This will of course necessitate the sealing of all the holes I now have in the battery box. The path of dynamat in there is getting ever more tempting! It will also help to deaden the large clunk noise that the RBS and ACR will make as they actuate- the rear of the battery box is essentially a drum skin.

The ACR and RBS are bolted in temporarily, there is a hole behind the RBS which I need to plug (this is where the negative cable originally came thru). I've used stainless hardware here, 5mm hex head cap bolts and nylock nuts. I'd prefer if they never came loose and shorted out on anything. That would be rather embarrassing.


Still deciding which position the ACR and RBS should be. The ACR needs a cable to go to each battery, which may be an interesting one to route. Likewise, the RBS needs to feed to a fuse block and then to the winch (and go over the top of the gearbox). Each way has it's own advantages, and I'll probably go for the way that looks nicest, and has best utilization of the space at hand.

Checkerpate is SO useful too!

Originally Posted by YOLO110

Checkerpate is SO useful too!

Yes it is!
It's like the work bench I don't have. Most of my work is done on the dining room table or in the car port. The footwell of the landy is currently piled high with tools and crap that I use for the task at hand. One night thru the week I spent a whole 3 minutes searching for my 4mm allen key in the fading afternoon light before giving up and finishing for the afternoon. Sure enough, the next afternoon I found that it was right in front of me the whole time.

The MOST bizarre feeling I have ever had was...

... 2 hours after I had taken delivery of my brand new Indus silver Defender 100, I was poised over the front wings, blatantly drilling many holes into the body-work of a $50k+ vehicle!!! NUTS

Looked good after I had the checker plate fitted however!

Originally Posted by YOLO110

The MOST bizarre feeling I have ever had was...

... 2 hours after I had taken delivery of my brand new Indus silver Defender 100, I was poised over the front wings, blatantly drilling many holes into the body-work of a $50k+ vehicle!!! NUTS

Looked good after I had the checker plate fitted however!

P.S... NOT doing this on my Keswick 90!

The first hole is the hardest. I cringed when I installed my air compressor. Now I don't think twice!

Well guys, this saga is coming to an end.

Over the weekend I ran the cables from the winch solenoid which lives in the driver's side wing, to the battery box.

The tasks at hand included working out the cable run, make necessary bracket / anchor points and making the final lug crimps and heat shrinking. I also used cable split tube, wrapped in electrical tape, and foil tape where the cables come into areas where there is heat from things like the gearbox, exhaust, cat converter etc.

The cable
I've used 70mm2 Cigweld Superflex welding cable. Aside from being a multi strand cable of 70mm2 Cross sectional area, it's also designed for welding applications - if it can survive a jobsite with a boilermaker, it can survive under a landy. This cable is dual insulated, and rated to withstand 655A @ 30% duty cycle, which in welding is generally calculated at 40 celsuis, over a 10 minute welding window (ie 3 minutes operating, 7 minutes rest (out of ten minutes) at 655A. Given the cable run, voltage drop should be <1 Volt under most operating conditions. Also, I get it at a good price thru work which helps
I don't have a final count of the cable length used, but I'll count the scraps when I'm done, and subtract from the purchased length.

The cable path
I've mounted the solenoids under the DS wing. I've got 4x 50mm2 cables run from the winch motor, under the DS headlight, and up over the wheel arch. From there, 4 wires have a junction- 3 attach to the solenoid box, 1- the negative attaches to a terminal post that will bolt to the wheel arch. Going back to the battery box is a positive and negative cable of 70mm2.
The path goes:
down DS wheel arch>outside of body support bracket> on top of DS chassis rail> along rail to diesel hose bracket > up to body bracket on underside of body shell > across to PS side of vehicle. From here the cables split- the negative enters the battery box from the rear. The positive enters from the front inside of the battery box (and is secured on the other diesel hose bracket).

Less talking moar pics

Used the glue lined heat shrink for the terminals, then butted up the tubing to the end.



I taped the tubing to the cable with heat shrink on the end, then added an additional layer of heat shrink over the cable to tie it all togher. The negative is shown below.


Finished the ends... Now is the part where I'd just finsihed wrapping the tubing in electrical tape for literally an hour. Looks good though.


At the joins which were being made, I used the same 3M Super 33 tape I used for previous wiring in the ex box. It's quality stuff. If you are a connoisseur of fine tape like I am, do yourself a favour and get a roll. Your life will be changed forever. Sticks like excrement to your wife's favourite duvet, and is incredibly heat resistant. The inadvertant blast of the MAPP gas torch I was using to heat shrink the tubing didn't even touch it.


In the areas which were close to the exhaust, or passing above the transfer case, I opted to wrap the cable/conduit loom with HVAC foil tape. This stuff is equally cool, and should cut cable temps and reduce a lot of the radiant heat in these areas- like factory.

Just like rollin' a fat one

...After the cables were made I commenced mounting them under the vehicle.




I was going to use stauff clamps... but I ended up using Narva P clamps in the 19mm ID variety. Readily available, cheap, and easy to work with. The P clamps are sufficient to restrain the cables, and are also relatively space efficient. There is not much room under there to work with, so it was probably for the best. If I were game to weld the chassis, or drill my own new holes to mount the cables, It would be an ideal solution, but alas, I'm just one bloke and a shed, and a project which is over time and budget, but theoretically bulletproof. P-Clamps will do for now

I used M6 rivnuts, inserted into a 9mm hole. Below is the bracket which attached the drivers side footwell floor pan to the RHS chassis rail. The dingleberry part is a mount for the wheel arch plastic (its plastic on a puma, I think older models were steel?)


This bracket was also modified with a rivnut. In the below pic, we are looking at the RHS chassis rail, just below the driver's seat. The bracket is there to carry the diesel hoses from the fuel filter, up and over the T case, and to the other side of the vehicle. There is a similar bracket on the other side... seen below:





Once all was said and done, the cables were secured.
Below is the first bracket. This is in the driver's side wheel well.



I'll look into making up a bracket to mount here to keep the crud off the cables. A few bends in alloy should do the trick. Might be a good time to try my hand at AC TIG again... this could get interesting...