Made some major progress this weekend with the installation of a 11.5 lb Braille battery. Took me about 7-8 hours total to get everything adapted - had to backtrack a couple of times but it's all kosher now. The main advantage to using a Braille battery is weight reduction - plain and simple. My stock 5+ year old battery was doing fine but I need something more reliable since batteries are known in my case to suddenly fail at the worst times. It weighs 39 lbs!!! The Braille battery I bought shaves almost 30 lbs dead weight from the front of the vehicle not to mention the mounting brackets and old lead terminals and shortened wires should add another 8-9 lbs to the savings...It is rated at 495 CA at 72*F and 375 CA at 32*F - which is more than enough for me - plus, having a manual shift works out in the worst case (push start)
Here is the BEFORE picture: Nothing special...BTW the nylon fasteners are holding up very well and none have vibrated loose!
The main reason I decided to relocate the cruise control was to eliminate the support brackets which hold the cruise assembly and battery to the frame. Also, the future custom CAI will run up to behind the driver's side headlight with an enclosure - relocating all of this should make it easier to install the CAI and take advantage of the coolest air possible - not from the wheelwell, but behind the lights and shielded from the A/C drier and radiator/condensor assembly as well. A good CAI should be "uphill" all the way to prevent water intake in my opinion
OK - on to the meat and potatoes of the project: First thing is to remove the plastic cover and then remove the three mounting nuts that hold it onto the bracket - IIRC they are 10mm
Then you want to disconnect both throttle cables and the electrical from the front side of the assembly. You will want to remove the small bracket held with 2 10mm bolts that secures the electrical plug - throw away the bracket - you need this disconnected to extend the wiring to its new location
While it's apart you may want to shim the washers and such that hold the throttle cable brackets onto the cruise assembly - mine had such sloppy movement that I added a washer that was twice as thick as the stocker, fixed it pretty well.
At this point the cruise control assembly should be free from the vehicle. I relocated mine to just above the rear of the transmission. There are two mounting holes present which align almost perfectly with the holes on the bottom of the cruise control - just by chance I guess! I made a 1" diameter by 2.75" length aluminum spacer and bought a M10 X 80mm (1.25 thread pitch!!!) steel bolt from the hardware store. This allows you to mount the cruise assembly lower and about 6" back from its original location and use an existing unused hole in the transmission. You will have to remove the lifting bracket from the transmission though - keep it in case you do a swap in the future. The other point of contact is to use a simple bolt-and-nut to a bracket on the fuel filter. Granted, this will make changing the fuel filter a bigger PITA, but this was the route I took - you may find another mounting location...See the next pics:
Snug the longer bolt and spacer first before finding a secondary point of attachment
Once you have your points of attachments mapped out, you can disconnect the main wiring harness from the body of the vehicle. You only need to disconnect about 3 or 4 keepers around the battery/ignition coil area to make it work. I had to slightly reroute mine to accomodate the cruise control relocation. Not much to it - just pull the keepers from the holes and run everything OVER the cruise assembly -again, no big deal here. Toyota gave us a little extra to play with and that REALLY helps with this job!
At this point you have hopefully relocated your cruise control assembly! Now comes the part which took me the longest to get right - shortening the throttle calbes! My first approach since I had them both removed was to pay a visit to the local Pull-A-Part and try to find some shorter cables. After a long search I found a cable from a RWD 1993 V8 Lexus which bolts directly to my firewall. This cable was about 2-3" shorter than mime:
It wasn't in perfect shape, but for $6.35 what the hell right! Turns out that it wasn't SHORT ENOUGH, so I had to come up with something different. The BIGGEST PROBLEM will be the pedal-to-cruise cable, not the cruise assembly to throttle body cable. The latter will work without any modification and can be somewhat adjusted out on the slack nuts...
OK - To shorten a throttle cable you need to first measure and cut it to desired length. I needed about 5.5" total removed for my application. The steel used for throttle cables is VERY TOUGH, so cut it with a cut-off wheel. You will get a frayed end most of the time - no problem - you will need this for the stop attachment later.
Save the zinc stop! This will be recycled! Next step is to cut the throttle cable body to length. Use a cut-off wheel again since this alloy is very hard to cut as well
Reassemble the throttle cable into the throttle cable body once they are both cut. You may find it somewhat difficult since the cable's ends are a little frayed - try to twist them into the cable body. Try to keep the teflon liner inside the cable body intact - sometimes it likes to come out if you're trying to push cable through. Only thing left now is to make a new cable stop - easy, right?
You'll need a crucible or some kind of small metal cup for the next step. If you have inadvertently thrown away the cable stop, find about 5 or 6 pennies minted after 1983. Melt them with a blowtorch and press on the metal with a blunt object to extract the pure zinc away from the copper skin. Zinc is fairly strong and has a low melting point, so it's perfect for this application! I used a brake caliper piston to get the zinc away from the copper.
That is a 5SFE piston by the way!
The trick is to encase the end of the frayed cable into the molten zinc. You may want an extra set of hands for this...IMPORTANT: Be sure your mold or cup is free of water or oil before pouring molten metal into it! Exploding molten zinc that lands in your hair is painful...And I do speak from experience! A good way to do this is to heat up the mold and the cable end with a blowtorch for a few seconds to drive off any moisture.
Once the metal is molten, have the assistant hold the cable end steady inside the mold while the metal is being poured. Tap the mold while it's still liquid to ensure the zinc gets between all the filaments of the cable.
DON'T USE A SOCKET FOR THE MOLD...It will take too long to get out as I found out the hard way!
Immerse this in water once it has frozen. All that's left is to grind the zinc to fit the hole.
You can see how the cable got twisted while I tried to drill out the casting from the socket - that's why I had to do this a second time
When you have it ground down to size you should see the darker steel contrasted to the lighter zinc on one side of your cable stop. It is virtually impossible to pull the cable away from the zinc without melting it or breaking the cable. This is why the frayed end is desired...
I know it's not that pretty but it fits and will hold 2-3X better than stock!
Now you are ready to reassemble everything - if you measured right any shortness or excess can be adjusted out with the slack nuts.
Once it's all together have an assistant press and let off of the gas pedal while viewing the thottle body directly to ensure full range of motion. When you have full range of motion without slack - you are 85% there!
Next comes the Braille battery install. This can be mounted almost anywhere since it's about 1/4 the size of the stock battery. First thing I did was cut the steel support off of the frame. This is very easy and took about 2-3 minutes tops.
I placed mine directly below where this mount used to be for two reasons: Lower center of gravity and ease of adapting the battery cables. This will help a little with the car's handling while still being accessible should something go wrong. I marked where the bracket screws would go and then drilled the holes
Once the battery mounting tray has been positioned, it's time to wire it up and crank the vehicle!
The terminal covers look a little shoddy, but those are easily replaced. Note how the wiring harness routes OVER the cruise control. First noticed that the car steers a little better at a standstill (I have non-power assisted steering). Didn't really notice any difference in performance although I know that the car is 35 lbs lighter in the front. The brackets, extra wiring, and unused fasteners added up to 8 lbs while the difference in batteries was 27 lbs
Next comes a CAI which will take advantage of this new mod!
Relocate cruise control on 5SFE and install a Braille battery!
95 Camry
AUTO to MANUAL Swap Guide (3rd Gen) - 
1991 Toyota MR2
1996 Toyota Camry
) Just something else to look at Friday night...
Linear Mode
