Post Build Check Complete

The Return of the Caterham

As the car is due for its IVA test on the third of Feb we needed the car back sharpish, so Caterham kindly brought the car back on the Friday before the test meaning we have 5 days to sort the car out. However we are thrilled to finally have it back, and now have one night free to do the jobs we wanted to do before the car went up to Nottingham.

Finally Back!!!

Showing off their fancy trailer.

I think he has missed it...

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Post Build Check

Post Build Check

   

We got down to Crawley at 0830 after plenty of traffic on the M25, got the car out of the trailer and finally handed the car over for the post build inspection. The car was also accompanied by several items such as the extra prop shaft and a few other smaller parts which they replaced and wanted the incorrect parts back. 

We were initially told that they should be done by the end of the day, in which they were going to fix the engine trouble, replace the grill with the painted one we had paid for, and give the car the regular once over with the fine tooth comb. 

To kill the time we went to a local cafe to hang around and wait for them to finish, however around 3pm we received a call from Caterham telling us that they weren't going to be able to finish the work, so we drove over for a chat. They explained that the ECU was totally shot and it required a new one, which they didn't have in, and because the factory closes early on a Friday they couldn't get one driven over. 

They also gave us a list of things they had done so far, including wire tidying for the front and rear, changing Di-Dion ears, and changing the rear bulkhead carpet, which they had already said they would change. At the moment we can't see how the aluminium ears are wrong, or how our wiring isn't tidy, however we will have to wait until we get the car back next week.

Build Day 43- Post Build Prep

Day 43- Post Build Prep

Woo... just what I want to be doing on my birthday, but needs must, and the trailer needs loading and the car needs preparing for the Post Build Inspection.

Suspension Set-up    

Before taking the car to Caterham we decided to have a go at getting the suspension set up, with roughly 15mm between the front and back. This turned out to be incredibly difficult due to the rear adjustments put the front out, then the front adjustment puts the rear out. If we had a lot more time then it wouldn't be so bad, but we had a lot to do before we could finish, so we decided to get the difference right and get some advice from Caterham when the car goes in.

The keys for the old Bilstein shocks aren't really big enough for the newer, larger adjustable platforms on the newer shocks.

Fuel Filler Shroud 

Caterham quickly sent the correct filler shroud after we asked them for it, so we've been able to fit it tonight. 

Held down by two self tappers into the boot floor.

Fuel Gauge  

Along with the new bulkhead carpet and filler shroud came the correct fuel gauge to match the rest of the gauges. The correct gauges have red needles, however the fuel gauge fitted had a yellow needle and looks like it is normally from the 620R. 

Correct fuel gauge.

Tyre Pressures 

The tyres come pre-inflated to between 30psi and 40psi in order to properly seat the tyre on the wheel. For our tyre/wheel combo- 15" Orcus Wheels with Avon CR500 Tyres, we require 18psi of pressure in each tyre, front and back. 

Pressure beforehand. Just releasing small amounts until correct pressure.

Loading the Trailer

The big job tonight was fitting the winch into the front of the trailer, and then sorting a power source as Dad's car doesn't have a separate power socket. After the winch was in and working all there was to do was to put the car in ready for the 0530 departure in the morning, in order to get from Cambridge to Crawley for 9am. 

My car's battery powering the winch, and being controlled by remote control.

Carr all done and ready to get into the trailer.

While I steered dad directed and controlled the winch.

Plenty of room either side too, in order to be able to get in. 

Room to spare front and back, with lashing eyes in all corners and two in the centre.

Lashings on all four wheels then crossed for added strength. Also the cover is to protect the car as water condensates in the ceiling.

Build Day 42- IVA Trim, Handbrake Cable, Steering Clamp, and Lambda Probe

Day 42- IVA Trim, Handbrake Cable, Steering Clamp, and Lambda Probe

IVA Trim   

Covers on uprights, also on steering rod ends. (The one over the bolt connecting the steering arm to the upright was removed by Caterham during the PBI, however may put another back on)

Cap on head but not nut, of the front upper wishbone mount.

Cap on bobbin and on bracket top.
(Also on PBI Caterham fitted some scuttle trim onto the front of the cat heat shield.)

Handbrake Cable 

We have now finished fitting the P clips to the chassis and handbrake cable as many others have done. We do feel however that it runs a little close to the drive shafts, however this is the best we can get it. 

During the PBI Caterham have removed the P clips, and cable tied it to the "A" frame, which somehow takes it slightly further off of the top of the drive shafts. 

Routing of the handbrake cable.

Steering Clamp 

We have noticed, when re-reading other peoples blogs that the chamfered side of the small side of the steering clamp should face the shaft and not outward as seems most appropriate.

Tightened and torqued.

Lambda Probe 

We have now decided where we wish to run the lambda probe wiring along the body and to the connector. We used adhesive cable tie bases to hold the cable tight to the body, then ran it up the end of foot well, then along the top, being fixed in certain places. We have decided upon this so as to reduce the possibility of cable damage by stones etc. as it runs at one of the lowest points on the car.

Cable tie base on inside of chassis.

Cable running from possibly destroyed cat and up the foot well.
This was later removed by Caterham and relocated along the underside of the car, then up the tunnel, under the battery.

Build Day 41- First Start Up

Day 41- First Start Up

Start Up Prep   

Before we can start the engine it needs filling with coolant and oil. After our research we have decided to run in the engine using mineral running in oil, and thus have decided to go for Millers CRO 10w40 Running in mineral oil. Initially we put in the 6trs the manual says to put in for starting. Also before starting we turned the engine over to circulate the oil properly. (http://www.millersoils.co.uk/automotive/tds-automotive.asp?prodsegmentID=187&sector=Motorsport)

Letting the bottle drain. Not a drop seems to come into the tank, evidently it requires turning over to circulate the oil.

Running in oil.

We then filled the cooler bottle, and the radiator through the top plug, with a 50/50 mix of de-ionised water and the supplied coolant. This was only filled to the minimum fill line then topped up as required. Finally we filled the petrol tank with roughly 15ltrs of petrol.

Be very careful, over fills very quickly.

Before putting the car on the floor we gave the exhaust bolts a quick torque, put the wheels on, then dug out the keys.

Primaries looking great with the wrapping off.

Certainly an unexpected surprise unveiling these when the car arrived.

Car rolled out ready to go.

Start Up

As instructed we initially disconnected the fuel inertia cut off switch on the bulkhead, then proceeded to turn over the engine for 30 seconds in order to circulate oil and coolant, and to get to 4+ Bar of oil pressure. Then we reconnected the switch, primed the fuel line with the ignition, then started the engine. This started straight away, however, as the idle hasn't been set yet the engine requires some revs in order to not cut out. We kept the engine at 2000 revs for a few minutes to allow for proper bedding of the heads.

This process quickly stopped however as we noticed that the catalytic converter had become cherry red and only two of the primaries were discolouring. After this we decided to allow the cat to cool, then we wheeled the car back in and not do anything more until we have talked to Caterham.

Only primary 1 & 3 being heated. Evidently not firing on all cylinders.

We have made a guess that the two misfiring cylinders are dumping fuel into the catalytic converter, which was burning from the exhaust gasses, thus heating the cat and eventually spitting flames out the exhaust.

Each of the light specks is a small blister where the heat was starting to damage the shield.

While the cat was cooling we decided to put the adhesive foam strips, supposed to be fore the cycle wing fitment for the protection of the paint under the bonnet. This is only going to be a temporary matter until we get some different foam.

Foam along front edge and underside.

Build Day 40- Exhaust, Battery, Steering, and Wipers

Day 40- Exhaust, Battery, Steering, and Wipers

Catalytic Converter   

To finish off the exhaust system I fitted the cat heat shield, and dad fitted the lambda probe. The heat shield went on simply enough, just thread the two jubilee clips through the shield brackets and slide over the cat, then tighten with the heads on the inside of the cat. The lambda probe simply screws in and connects to the wiring loom. In order to protect the wiring we wrapped the head and the first few cm of the wiring with self amalgamating tape. We have the wiring routed up the front of the foot box and then along the front of the pedal box to the connector.

Clips threaded through shield.

Polished cat with springs and band clamp on.

Shield on.

Lambda probe in and wrapped.

Battery

Quickly connected the battery leads after giving them a quick clean, then managed to break both of the very brittle terminal covers. We just used some glue to fix the top and cut come slots out to allow the leads out.

Leads connected.

Cables tidied and covers fixed and on.

When the battery was fully connected we tested all of the electrics, apart from the engine, and everything works so far!! Fingers crossed that the engine start goes without a hitch.

Wiper Blades

As the blades have smaller than a 3mm radius on the ends of them they require to be filed down to comply to the IVA test. I did this with a small hand file, then painted the ends with some black Hamerite metal paint after I had cleaned them.

Blade ends.

Steering

Started by attaching the steering wheel, then the universal joint. However first we had to make a better assessment of the steering, as at the moment they are a few degrees toed out, despite having 13 turns on each rod end, so turned each one in, on turn at a time, until they were straight, then did it one more turn on each end. Then we reattached the track rod ends to the uprights, put the rack central, then attached the universal joint to the steering column. 

Wish the pad wasn't required, the wheel looks much better without it.

Steering universal joint, as straight as possible.

Build Day 39- Exhaust

Day 39- Exhaust

Fitting Exhaust   

To really set the car off we decided to get the primaries, cat, and silencer sent off and professionally polished. We called round a few places and eventually got a decent quote from Mark Feltham, from Mark's Mirror Polishing, based in Peterborough, specialising is small scale polishing of car and motorcycle parts. Took them up on the Tuesday and picked them up the following day. They look fantastic. We had asked for the whole set to be race polished, but he decided to go half way between race and mirror polish for the Primaries and silencer, and the y look even better than imagined!!!!

One of the pics we sent Mark for the quote.

Beforehand I had done a fair bit of work cleaning the primaries and silencer with wet and dry paper in order to clean the weld marks and remove embedded grease. 

Our polished pipes.

This is the picture Mark sent before we picked them up. There are now other pictures on his website (marksmirrorpolishing.uk/mmp-gallery/) and I'll try and take some better pictures of them on the car.

To fit the pipes the instructions turned out to be useless, apart from the fitting order, because we had removed the labels from the ends. However they are pretty simple to fit with two sets of hands, mainly as the front and rear primaries have special ends which only fit to the block one way, and the middle two only go in one way too. 

Primaries in, car wrapped again in bubble wrap just in case.

Cleaning the bracket mount with a tap.

Cat required a few taps with a mallet to get it seated enough to get the spring clamps on.

As others have done, two cable ties around the springs.

For the silencer bracket we cut a small piece of rubber from some excess wing trim, and put it in-between the bracket and the body, which was then tightened appropriately. Then the exhaust bobbin was inserted into the bracket and tightened before the silencer was added, ensuring that the band clamp was put on before the silencer was put on.

All together, just the band clamp, cat heat shield, and the IVA trim.

A touch of exhaust sealant joining the cat and pipes.

Build Day 38- Boot Cover Prep and Headlight Wiring

Day 38- Boot Cover Prep and Headlight Wiring

Boot Cover Prep   

As Caterham have offered to replace and re-fit another rear bulkhead interior carpet we can't fully fit the boot cover, however we can at least do some of the fitting. The first job required removing the metal band from the forward edge of the cover. This required unpicking the stitching at one end and sliding it out.

Unpicking the stitching.

Once the strip was removed we could mark the positions of the harness bolts, then we used our punch set to cut holes for them. At this point we marked the popper base points along the top of seat bulkhead. We marked and drilled 3mm (7/64" = 2.8mm) holes 1 1/4" either side of the centreline, then one half way between each harness shoulder strap. Then decided to leave the rest of the attachment until after the post build inspection when we can do a proper job. After this we reattached the trim of the boot cover with impact adhesive.

Sticking the underside down. The top was most undamaged when we unpicked the stitching.

Headlight Wiring

Just a little bit of tidying and connecting before the cars goes off. We attached the wing repeater wiring into the connector block, then earthed the LHS repeater with a ring to the brake union t piece, and the RHS repeater earth was earthed in unison with the headlight earth in the connector block. We then tidied the RHS connector block under the expansion bottle bracket and the LHS connector block to the chassis tube under the top radiator hose.

RHS earthing of repeater piggybacked onto headlight earth.

RHS headlight connection tidied under bracket.