LandyManLuke

hear hear.

you want 35mm² or 50mm², cable is spec'd on it's cross sectional area (CSA) in mm² (squared). Either will do the job, there's little point dropping the wire size nearer the winch - it's still got to carry the same current. bigger wires will mean less of a voltage drop. The current goes between the solenoid and the winch twice, so performance benefits from having the solenoids nearer the winch, rather than nearer the battery, so does your wallet, as you'll use less cable!

Good plan , the only problem could be if the relay is in parallel with any other switch, then 30 could be live. Safest bet is to wack some heatshrink or an empty (crimped) crimp connector on the terminal.

If you specifically only want NC, rather than CO, Durite part number 0-727-02 is NC, rated to 20A.

As above, if you want the 'turning on' of one circuit to turn another circuit off, a 5 pin change over relay will do that out of the box.

What Jim says.

Or any Lucas/Durite/LSUK type place. There's a post on changing it in the archive here

I believe Bearmach did/do one.

I doubt the jump leads set on fire because they were too small, jump leads should turn a winch motor over with no load on it. I suspect it was wired up incorrectly and you had a dead short.

I'm 23, and with Adrian Flux. Suspension and other non-standard bits declared, they weren't that interested though, as no winch, cage, or 'performance' mods.

Pot - potentiometer - variable resistor, see wiki link

Yup, though (possibly confusingly) a 'closed' electrical switch is one that allows current to flow, and an 'open' one does not. so the inverse of what you have said is true. Of course, using a manual switch is not the ideal way, hence my question in my first reply, using a relay or a VSR is a much better solution in my opinion. this post might help explain a few options.

Not necessarily, look at this picture Two switches are needed, one to isolate the loads from the battery, and one to isolate the first battery from the second. The switch on the left, isolating the batteries from each other, could be in the live or the earth, Personally i'd put it in the live, but it doesn't matter, there's no hard and fast rule.

Find some flat concrete, using a small spirit level or plumb line, drop verticals from known reference points (hockey stick mount etc), and mark them on the floor. move the vehicle, then join the dots up, and check to see if they're square.

I think Daan on here did similar with his series. Why not fit a swing-away wheel carrier and just adjust the mirror to suit, or fit a small cctv-style camera?

Bloody hell, those sensors are expensive!!! I'd go with a pot, if you want analogue data, a hall effect sensor on the axle sounds groovy. Or, you could use photodetectors/IRLEDS and a bar with a hole in it, total cost of the sensors about a quid. There's a thread on pirate where they guy just used microswitches.

Looks like fun, it reminds me of the indy suspension thing SiR's building.

Yes, if the switch is in the negative wire, the switch will disconnect the second battery from the first, but not necessarily the loads from the second battery. However, the same would be true if the switch was in the positive wire... there's no difference. Water is not a particular problem, 12v wiring is on the whole not going to short out just because it's under water. The cable to the starter/alternator isn't fused on standard vehicles, as i said before, the fuse would have to be rather large to allow normal operation, so it will have much less affect in terms of protection. a fuse the size you would require wouldn't cost 25p either!!! Every load running off the battery should be fused, correctly for the load in question, as near to the battery as possible. A better approach is to stop shorts in the first place, use heat-shrink on open connectors and run cables through gromets rather than through sharp edged metal holes. Why is the battery between the seats? you can fit two batteries in the battery box.

No problem upgrading, the only slight hassle could be the terminals on the back, it's worth checking if you've got a block full of spade connectors, or individual ring/post connectors, which will be on the 65A alternator. If you've got the block of spades, it's worth upgrading the wire to the starter when you swap over.

last time i got a quote i think it was in the region of 30-35 quid for 1.6mm x 1m x 2m, that was a while ago though.

What MrMonster said, it's not worth bodging it on Comms kit, you'll only end up with potential melty wires and noise/interference issues.

If you bring the breather pipes up on the bulkhead, they will sneak out of the corner of the bonnet and up the snorkle without you having to drill any holes anywhere. Inside is a bad idea, unless you like the pong of EP90.

There's very little point in putting fuses in the main battery cables - they'd have to be rated to hundreds of amps - and at that rating, what are they going to protect? - you can start a fire with a lot less than that... You may be getting confused with the bodge-job split charging set up using a standard 30A relay, fuses have to be fitted in that situation as it's not hard to pull 30A through the relay in that application - but as i said, the fuses are there because the job wasn't done properly in the first place. Positioning the cut off switch comes down to personal choice a lot of the time, without knowing any more info about the setup, there's no particular preference one way or the other. In your situation, I'd have to ask what you expect the cut-off switch to do, and how other things have been wired up. Why did you choose a switch, rather than something like a VSR or a heavy duty relay?

I've got a manual switch and the X-eng thermostat housing - best of both worlds.

I'll be doing Kidderminster-ish to Sheffield at the end of May, if they can get that far.