Mendy Shift Cables

[Shoeless]

Hey guys,

I've done a little research on the Mendy shift cables that come with that kit, being the fact they are quite long, to see what other have done. I noticed some guys buying different cables that are shorter to address this issue.

The manual says to run the cables on the inside of the motor mount, but that leaves you with a large bow in the back you need to secure. Any tips or tricks from those that have kept the FF cables? Should I run them on the outside of the motor mount to take up some of the extra length or just keep them as is and secure them in place the best I can?

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

I would not run them outside of the motor mount for the simple reason that it is almost impossible to find a route where they don't end up right against the headers somewhere. I have not done a Mendy install from scratch yet....that is coming soon enough in the coming weeks here, so I have not had to deal with that part of the installation yet.......

[Shoeless]

I would not run them outside of the motor mount for the simple reason that it is almost impossible to find a route where they don't end up right against the headers somewhere. I have not done a Mendy install from scratch yet....that is coming soon enough in the coming weeks here, so I have not had to deal with that part of the installation yet.......

Thanks for the quick feedback Shane, I'll stick with inside the mounts. Things are definitely starting to take up space underneath there, but I'll go stare at it a little more and see what I come up with. I do have some nice heat shielding to cover the cables as they will be somewhat close to the Kooks.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Yeah, it's definitely not easy to keep them completely away from the exhaust no matter where you route them.....but routing them on the inside of the motor mounts seems to get them about as far away as they can be.

[beeman]

...and layers of heat shielding. There's been several cases of ruined shifter cables from the sheath melting, you probably knew that.

[Shoeless]

Oh yea, tons of heat shielding going on the GTM. I'm actually covering my clutch and brake lines that are right back there as well at the moment.

While I've been working on the break/clutch line heat protection, I think I have a good idea of what I'll do with the shift lines. I'm going to try and take up the slack in the lines in front of the motor to keep the rear part of the lines closer to the motor. I'll see how this turns out.

[SteveE]

So I ran mine on the outside of the motor mount, right up agaist the frame rail and secured to it with DEI heat shield wrap. Put abot 700 miles on it like that last summer, several days in 100 degree heat. The dry heat not your humid heat.

Steve

[Shoeless]

Here is where my shift cables currently lie, starting from the rear of the GTM and moving forward. If you follow the red line you will see the cables in their heat shield protection. In the third pic where I circle in green I'll likely rivet a P clamp to loosely hold the cables in this spot. In the fourth pic I have two green circles where I'll likely loosely hold the cables in place with zip ties on the right to the heater cable and maybe a U bolt to the aluminum crossover piece I have added.

I'm going to sleep on this and look at it again tomorrow before I lock it all down.

One item of note is that Mendy cautions NOT to shift the transaxle while the engine is NOT running. I checked in with Ian on this as I want to set my clutch stop before firing the engine up. He said it should be ok to shift into first gear if I turn the engine over at the crank. We'll see if I can get the wife to help me with this when I'm ready to fill and blend the clutch. I think I"m about ready to fill and bleed both the brakes and clutch at this time before I continue with the build and the junctions of the tubing gets harder to access.

At what point did you guys start adding fluids to the brakes and clutch?

https://i.imgur.com/UjHPdEX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/gTk9b1N.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/1bajeQS.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/juMMJou.jpg

[SteveE]

Deleted

[beeman]

The first time I got the GTM aligned, I didn't have the brakes filled and bled, so they were unable to check caster as that required them to lock the front brakes. So my only recommendation is get the brakes functional before you take it in for a formal alignment.

[Shoeless]

Thanks Dave!! I may just go ahead and fill and bleed them to check it off my list.

I plan on doing all my alignment myself. The guys that put together HP Academy where I’ve learned all my tuning and wiring skills also started a company for teaching people how to set up race cars. Their first class they offered, wheel alignment, they did 50% off so I jumped on that deal.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

I think that looks really good. I would probably build some sort of physical heat shield to place between the headers and cables. And yes, I would go ahead and fill and bleed the clutch and brakes right away. I always do this right away so that if you do have any leaks, it's much easier to deal with now than after you have a bunch more stuff ran thru the car....and don't have to deal with trying to clean brake fluid off of wire harnesses or cockpit insulation or other components that will be installed later. I have found that the only really effective way to bleed the clutch is to push fluid from the slave to the MC. This might sound like a stupid process, but it seems to work best for me. I normally put fluid in the MC, open up the bleeder on the slave, and bleed the MC and slave in "normal" fashion. Don't fill the reservoir....just keep enough fluid in there so it can't suck air. Once I get things bled most of the way (because you can never seem to get it bled all the way like this), then I reverse-bleed the system by pushing fluid from the slave up to the MC with a helper to watch the MC reservoir to tell me when the bubbles stop coming up. That process seems to work 100% for me. I do remove the slave during this process and hold it so that it's the lowest point I can get it and so that the line into the slave is pointing up so all of the air will be pushed out.

[jamesfr58]

Sean,

I don't have a Mendy tranny and am using a Porsche G96 with Kennedy Engineered Products adapter plate, but routed my shift cable (supplied by Cable Shift) inside the engine mount and along the oil pan. This routing was best to keep as much separation between the cables and the exhaust system. I like your routing and the way it connects to the Mendy as my routing has to go down the drivers side and make a loop at the rear of the car to connect to the shift levers. It worked out, and I do have heat shielding on the cables on the area through the engine bay effected by exhaust heat. Might need some hard heat shielding once I run it with the body on I will have better idea but have though of a way to install a physical barrier to keep them separated.

126046

[jamesfr58]

Shane,

Thanks for the write up on bleeding the slave cylinder. I had to replace the new on I first got as it had a leak (defective even though new, very small leak at rod) and need to bleed the new one. Not sure if I ever got the it bleed the first time due to the leak but now need to bleed the new slave cylinder. I can remove as you suggest and will try bleeding from slave cylinder to MC this time. Sure sound like a better way as I know I still had air in the system. Again thanks for the heads up on bleeding the slave cylinder

[Shoeless]

Many thanks for the input guys. I like the idea of creating a physical barrier between the headers and the lines. I've got some 2" aluminum L bracket material that I can fab something up and put the gold heat shielding on it as additional protection. I might even be able to get it configured to block the starter as well. I'll think this through a little bit and see what I come up with. I'll post pics when done.

Thanks for the input on getting the fluids in the car now before I go any further. I had some leaks all over and it helps if you tighten all the fittings before you start LOL. I made a hell of a mess when I moved to the rear breaks. I also had to replace one of the Wilwood reservoirs as the lid seem to be stripped and wouldn't close and tighten properly. Thankfully I had another small one on hand from when I picked up a different MC for the Mendy. I also had to replace one of the adapter fittings that goes from the MC to the brake line. No matter how much I tightened it, it would still leak. Once I got everything tightened down properly I was able to bleed the brakes and clutch by myself with the Harbor Freight power bleeder system. Took a little fiddling with, but overall it worked really well. I now have a rock solid brake pedal and can feel good resistance on the clutch.

Your guys mention of a slave cylinder in the rear for the clutch threw me off for a bit. The Mendy Stage 2 simply has a fitting on the side of the box to hook up the clutch line and the bleeder is on top of the box. Hooked up the HF Power Bleeder and suck the fluid in till no bubbles. I also had the rear jacked up just for kicks to help out. I liked the new rear hight of the GTM on the jack stands so much, I raised the front up to match it. Hopefully this will help my horrible back working on it. Thankfully I didn't have any leaks under the heat protection I metal zip tied over the clutch and brake lines in the rear. That would have been a PITA to cut off, clean up, and redo.

Clutch Line is green and Bleeder is purple.

https://i.imgur.com/42rWn17.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TnXKR0x.jpg

[Perkster029]

I really enjoy the little speed bleeder Mendeola has on there!

What did you use for the foil-looking heat protection?

[Shoeless]

Hey Ryan,

that's Therma-Shield Heat Shield Tubing. I picked up a few 10 foot rolls of different sizes and will be covering everything in or near the engine compartment.

[Shoeless]

I took Shane's recommendation (when someone that has built so many of these and takes the time to support the community, you listen to his suggestions :p) and created a physical barrier between the headers and cables on the passenger side, I even took it one step further and put a piece in to shield the starter motor. After a bit of trial and error and couple test pieces, below is the final product. Looks a bit goofy, but I can install and remove it with everything in place and I can even remove and install the starter motor with it in place (as can be seen in the pics, I took the starter out just to see). I thought about putting my gold film on the hot side, but double checked the specs and it says its only good up to 500 deg F of continuous heat soak. I'm thinking they are so close to the headers they will see more than that temp wise.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, so much so, I'm going to build another one for the driver side to shield the e-brake cable.

https://i.imgur.com/MUv9tF0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/WbArLZY.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/QmeZ9fD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/zxvUPwB.jpg

[beeman]

That's definitely the right move. Just a thin sheet to block the radiant heat.

[Shoeless]

Thanks Dave!!

I knocked out the drivers side as well. As I was crawling around I noticed a couple drops of brake fluid so I tightened up a couple fittings and gave the pedal a few pumps to see if there were any more leaks. I didn't notice any, so I hope I have this complete with no issues, but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

https://i.imgur.com/EVDxtuZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/g73bBMu.jpg

[crash]

Just an FYI, but if you still have any issues with heat simply try using a thin sheet of stainless steel instead of aluminum. In my experience the difference in heat transfer is about 50%.

[Shoeless]

Just an FYI, but if you still have any issues with heat simply try using a thin sheet of stainless steel instead of aluminum. In my experience the difference in heat transfer is about 50%.

Great point, thanks for the feedback.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

That looks great!

Yeah...sorry to confuse you on the clutch slave! The last Mendy I worked on had the slave on the outside of the bellhousing on the RH side. I'm guessing that the leak at the MC was the steel T fitting for the front brakes? That fitting NEVER seals. I stopped trying years ago..... I throw those in the garbage and go to NAPA to find a brass replacement.

[Shoeless]

That looks great!

Yeah...sorry to confuse you on the clutch slave! The last Mendy I worked on had the slave on the outside of the bellhousing on the RH side. I'm guessing that the leak at the MC was the steel T fitting for the front brakes? That fitting NEVER seals. I stopped trying years ago..... I throw those in the garbage and go to NAPA to find a brass replacement.

Thanks Shane!!!

No worries on the confusion on the Mendy. There are no published instructions on the Stage 2 SDR-5, so that adds to the confusion. Thankfully Ian at Mendeola has been Johnny on the spot answering emails with my questions. I'll send him pics, circle the focus area, and ask the questions. I have been getting responses in less than 24 hours, so that's a positive.

I replaced that T fitting long ago at your recommendation. It was actually one of the Wilwood metric to standard adapters. Once I took it apart you could see where the break line was trying to seat flush on the tapered section, but was starting to dig in on one side. Very odd, but glad I had an extra one laying around. Swapped it out, tightened the brake line down and I'm good to go.