I finally got my son over to help with the upgrade of my Mk III to separate the wind vane from the main sensor array. I took us a couple of hours, but like any job you've never done before the work would move much faster if we were to do it again.
The first step was to install a second mono mount on the eve of the roof where I moved the main sensor array to for more convenient access. Before slipping the array onto the new mount I removed the wind vane and replaced it with the new cap.
The disassembly of the wind vane from the array is easy. One screw and the vane lifts off. Then disconnect the cat5 cable. The wind extension kit suppies a new cap for the array that has a fitting to support the humidity sensor at the correct height in the array. The cap attaches with one screw. The hardest part of the disassembly was carefully working the internal cat5 cable from the wind sensor. Once this was removed it was on to the extension kit.
The extension kit is mainly a pvc tube that the wind vane perches on top of. You are supposed to feed the 50' cat5 cable through the tube to the wind wane and secure it with a snug fitting at the bottom of the tube that keeps the cable from moving. I had planned to use 2 stainless hose clamps to then clamp the pvc tube to the mono mount at the peak of the roof after about an hour at Home Depot trying different fittings for a more elegant solution.
Fast forward to assembly day. I all of a sudden realized that the plastic tube that Rainwise provides to mount the sensor array on the mono mount fit perfectly with a $.79 straight 1 1/4" pvc coupler, and the wind extension tube fit perfectly as well. This is a very elegant and neat solution. This meant drilling a hole in the pvc wind extension tube about 2" above the coupling to thread the cat5 cable out the side. The cable was then secured to the pvc and mono mount with a number of zip ties. I then fed the cat5 cable down the roof line to the sensor array. The new cat5 cable fed into the electronics unit on the array much easier than getting the old one out. Once connected I sealed up the electronics chamber, cleaned the spider debris out of the now conveniently located rain bucket and turned the unit back on. Shes's working perfectly. Here are some pictures:
Here are both units on their respective roof mounts:
Here is the main sensor array moved to the eve:
Here is the wind extension at the peak of the roof. It is much more low profile than the whole array up there:
The wind extension from the front of the house:
One more of both units from the back yard: