How to fit Cruise Control

For those interested, I have fitted cruise control (Easily done in a morning) and it works superbly.

The cruise control has been fitted for a few years now and has been around Europe as well as trips in the UK. It allows for comfortable cruising and disconnects when it should. You can use the up/down button to match traffic speed or press resume to continue on the speed you were doing. I know none of this is ground breaking for those of you who have had cruise control, but this is on my TF and was a breeze to fit, for less than £100.

So, the kit comes in a box with all the adaptors and instructions you will ever need.

The main part of the kit is the actuator which is a black cylinder with a throttle cable coming out of it. It has a tube on the side for a vacuum supply

and also contains all the DIP switches for different settings. I set it up for
PPM = 2000
Speed Signal VSS & Tach
Sensitivity Low (May change to medium for improved response)
Control Switch Norm Open
Tach Source ECM

Possibly, the hardest part was fitting the actuator. This may have been made harder by where I decided to fit it, but this was the logical choice for neatness. I would never have got a drill in the space for mounting the bracket. Thank god for my Dremel thing.

I have mounted it on the right hand side engine compartment (looking from the rear) with the cable initially going towards the front before looping back on itself and going off to the throttle body. This was mainly due to the length of the cable (no real way to shorten it) and the position of the bracket. To mount it you simply drill a few holes and use the self tapping bolts to secure the bracket. This is also a good place to secure the earth connection as well. Remember to set the DIP switches and attach the loom before mounting the actuator, as you will have to remove it again if you forget.

The throttle cable then goes along the top of the engine compartment and runs through a supplied bracket which bolts onto the existing throttle cable bracket. I had to drill new holes in the new bracket to match the existing holes and trim it to length. The new cable end comes with loads of different ends for every type of throttle imaginable. The one I chose has a loop at one end. You remove the throttle cable and loop the new cable over the nipple end before replacing the original throttle cable. This means that there are essentially 2 cables running in the throttle mechanism. You then join the end cable to the actuator cable as shown in the picture below.

I took the vacuum supply from the brake line. This involved cutting the vacuum pipe (gulp) and fitting the supplied T-piece in line, then cutting a length of supplied tubing and connecting the T-piece to the actuator. **A word of caution here. The book tells you not to use the brake vacuum line. I did at my own risk, but you must ensure a good seal otherwise you will lose assistance on your brakes if you have a leak**

The cables were run upwards, in the supplied plastic conduit, through an unused grommet above the boot hinge. Remember to seal the hole with a new grommet to prevent fumes from the engine compartment entering the driver/passenger compartment.

The conduit then runs behind the seatbelt anchor point, along the bulkhead (below the speaker pod) and down alongside the armrest before entering the centre tunnel.

The place I chose for the control panel was the cigarette lighter location. Might be a great place for a cigarette lighter but it is a crap place for a socket for charging your phone etc as the cables get in the way of the gear knob. Simply remove the socket and run the cables through the existing hole. Another place I considered for the unit was the lower dash, opposite where the electric mirror controls are. The main reason I chose the cigarette lighter was it sits at your finger tips (Left hand) where as the dash you would have to let go of the steering wheel with your right hand and lean forwards.

The control unit has a small loom (6 wires) coming from it. Four of them connect to the main loom from the actuator, one connects to earth (Black) and one connects to your sidelight circuit (Grey) to provide illumination at night.

The four coloured wires (Red, brown, green and yellow) clip into a plastic plug and the corresponding 4 wires on the actuator loom clip into a plastic socket. These then push together to connect the two units. The red cable of the actuator socket connects to an ignition supply via a blade fuse (I fitted this last).

Three wires are taken behind the passenger seat (Behind the carpet) and are connected into the car loom that runs up the bulkhead at the rear of the passenger door. They are:

Grey wire from the Control unit to the rear side lights (Orange/Yellow)
Grey wire from actuator to the speed signal (White/Orange)
Blue wire from the actuator to the Tachometer feed (White/Black)

The last 2 wires are connected to the brake switch. Red (not the one with the fuse, the other red) connects to the 12V supply side of the switch and purple goes to the switched side. I know in the picture it shows purple and blue, but I didn't have any red cable and I had to extend them to reach.

Lastly I connected the red fused supply lead to an ignition switched supply.

A bit of tidying later and this is how it looked.

And the simple controls are pretty self explanatory.

The system works well and is a lot better than I expected.

As before, this is just how I fitted it. It may help someone and I will be more than happy to help via forum and PM if someone wants to fit one but I accept no responsibility for you choosing to fit this system and any problems caused by it.

As no one appears to use or want the exhaust noise control valve, could you use that vacuum take-off rather than the brake servo?:shrug:

This is longer than an hour surely? lol
At least a day for me I'd reckon.
But Cruise Control is something I do miss from my old Volvo.

A whilse since cruise control has been mentioned. I wonder if anyone is still making these or if not, whether there is a DIY alternative using parts from other cars

I looked at this a couple of years ago. The kit used here was no longer available then and so I parked the idea. Some people have installed cruise control onto other cars using scrapyard parts but I've not been confident in taking that path without some serious guidance. I'd love to have cruise control on the TF for longer journeys so if you come across anything that works, I'd appreciate the information.

What appears to be the same unit is sold under the Rostra brand…….you can get it on Amazon …..bloody expensive for what it is

@talkingcars You mentioned in a post a few years ago that you used the cruise control steering wheel switches from a ZS to control the cruise control that you installed in your MGF. I'd like to do the same thing. Do you recall how you adapted the cruise control's wiring to connect to the ZS' steering wheel cruise control wiring?