A few things happened today.

I installed end stoppers for the motor. They are the same kind you would find in a 3D printer (by makerbot),  There are two end stoppers, the open position one is barely visible. Here you can also see the stepper motor. It's an old variable reluctance stepper and can therefor be run with a darlington array from 24V.

Once the breakers were in place I glued the plate to the metal box using epoxy.

After crimping all the wires I made as tube socket replacements I glued the whole tube assembly as well. They are held in place by vulcanizing rubber to an aluminum rod.