Build Day 35- Throttle Cable, Brake and Clutch Bleeding, and Reg Plate Light

Day 35- Throttle Cable, Brake and Clutch Bleeding, and Reg Plate Light    

Throttle Cable 

We have decided not to do as instructed and bend the throttle pedal, and follow the advice of my Cousin, who used to work for Arch Motors constructing Caterham chassis' and has since worked on many Caterham rebuilds and repairs. His advice, as he had done this many times, was to remove the plastic from a chocolate block connector and and clamp the metal clam to the throttle cable either side of the pedal. 

We cut the end off, passed it through the hole, then connected one block before then two after.

Brake Bleeding

This is fairly easy but time consuming, and requires 2 people, unless one has an Eezibleed kit. Did this as instructed in the order:

1. Left Rear
2. Right Rear
3. Left Front, Inside
4. Left Front, Outside
5. Right Front, Inside
6. Right Front, Outside

This was going well until we managed to get air in the system from not topping up the fluid regularly enough. We did find that taking a rubber mallet to the callipers did wonders for dislodging pockets of are trapped in parts of the calliper. This was all going to plan up until the third circuit, where we ran out of fluid, so had to stop there.

Our Apparatus

We found that these surgical clamps were useful in reducing spillage of the brake fluid.

We have also bled the clutch, which was very hard without a proper bleeding tool (with the cut out in the hollow socket tool, allowing for the tube to pass inside the tool onto the bleed nipple. However we did manage to use a pair of needle nose pliers to give enough grip to close the nipple enough to then remove the hose and not create a leak.

Registration Plate Light

On our car the earthing for the light didn't seem adequate enough so we improvised our own. We started by removing the bracket the light sits on, then created a strap which passes from the self tappers to the light fixing. After attaching the light plate the bracket was re-attached and the power cable fed through the back of the bracket.

Earth strap fitted.

All slack pulled through. This is not required as we don't have the wheel carried option.

The power wire was cut to length then the bullet connection was crimped on the end and connected.

Light fitted with the fog and reverse light, and the fuel filler cap, which had all been removed for the application of the PPF.

Finally a finished layout for the coolant pipes, with all sensors and earth straps attached.

Build Day 30- Floor Mats, Seats, Breather and Expansion Bottles

Day 30- Floor Mats, Seats, Breather and Expansion Bottles 

Floor Mats

We put the mats it then aligned them with the tunnel, so the rear corner was butted up in the right rear corner of the floor pan. We then marked the three points at which the poppers would be positioned, removed the mats then used a belt hole punch to remove some material.  After attaching the popper head to the mat we drilled and riveted the popper bases to the floor pan.

underside of the popper.

Mat in place. as they do overlap we decided to have it only overlap on one side and this just happened to end up being the outside.

Floor Mats

Started by cutting the plastic off of the bottom of the bag protecting the seat, so as not to damage or cover it in grease. By sliding the rails back we could access the holes for the rear bolts. After each of the seats were in the seats were slid backwards allowing access to the forward holes. Then the bolts can be tightened, with one of us holding the Allen key in the top and the other tightening from under the car.

Rails slip forward. On the LH seat we applied some grease the rails were stiff and didn't slide very easily.

We cleaned the floor before putting the seats in.

Access to the forward bolts aren't easy to get to, even with an Allen key.

Interior starting to look great.

After the seats were in we decided to cut down the seat bolts as they do extend a little far. This was more prevalent a job because we had already experienced that when driving the car these bolts can ground out. This happened while I was driving the rental Caterham we had out in the flatter parts of central Cambridgeshire, drove over a bit of a bump, causing the seat bolts to out four, 2ft long gouges into the road. (However in the post build inspection they have quoted to have take 1/2 an hour removing and changing the bolts for the seats. When we asked they told us tha "Cutting down the bolts is an IVA failure"... can' think how it is a failure but it sounds like one of the guys at their local test centre (Gillingham) is an absolute nightmare for failing a car for any tiny detail.)

Breather and Expansion Bottle

We finished the night by attaching the cooling system expansion bottle and fitting the dry sump breather bottle. For the expansion bottle the support arm is bolted to the bracket then the bottle is bolted to the support. Then the hoses are pushed on and jubilee clips tightened over the end. 

Expansion Bottle.

For the breather bottle we only had two short off cuts for the right size gauge hose, which we had to join together with a plastic hose connector which we found in the coolant parts bag. The end into the bottle was wrapped in self amalgamating tape and pushed into the hole left when the small rubber hose and cap is removed. We then cut the small thin hose off from the rubber cap we removed from the top of the breather bottle. This was then forced into a small hole we had drilled into the corner of the breather bottle. The other end of the hose was then routed through the car so if it did over fill and oil were to escape it wouldn't cover the engine bay in oil, only escape onto the road. We have seen a lot of cars with 90 degree rubber hose connectors going in and out of the bottle, but we weren't given any and we couldn't find anything correct online. 

Breather Bottle.

Build Day 17- Radiator Cowling and Dry Sump Tank

Day 17- Radiator Cowling Flaps And Dry Sump Tank

Cowling Flaps

Got hold of the rubber flaps which cover the holes in the back of the radiator cowling, so we decided to fit them tonight. Annoyingly we had already had to fit the cowling and the radiator, which made it quite difficult to get the rivet gun in the space. In the end we just took it off as it wasn't going to work. 

Riveting Rear of Cowling

Horn

Before we re-attached the cowling and radiator we put some silicone into the ends of the horn power connectors. This is in order to reduce the likelihood of corrosion of the terminals.

Dry Sump Tank

The dry sump tank attaches to the chassis via a bracket at the top and via two P clips at the bottom. Firstly couldn't find a suitable bolt in the kit so used one from our various stores, and generally guessed as to the fitment as there are no instructions for the fitment of the tank, except a grainy aerial photo of the engine bay and a sentence saying to attach it via P clips. We attached 19mm P clips around the diagonal, thinner chassis tubes and not around the horizontal tubes. There is very little room in the space for the tank, millimetres in fact, but it does go in snugly if someone is at the top holding it straight. Care had to be taken when tightening the top bolt, as it was very easy to distort the bracket. After fitment the hoses went on very easily.

Bottom Clips on Chassis.

View from below.

Tank in and looking lovely.

Build Day 10- New Toys and Cooling Hoses

Day 10- New Toys and Cooling Hoses 

Annoyingly we haven't had any time to do anything for a while and doesn't look great for the near future. However while at home I can still have a little fiddle so not a fully day today, just an hour while dad is at work, just to figure out what we are going to do next and to open a new toy which arrived this morning.

New Toys

Firstly unwrapping the trolley jack just to realise just how big it is...  

3 Ton, 98-535mm Trolley Jack, By SGS Engineering.

Now we "technically" are able to get the car off of the stands we have made...

Cooling Hoses

After playing around with the new Trolley Jack I went on to dry fit the cooling hoses, which, as usual was harder than planned due to the standard insufficient number of parts. However I was able to get one of the hoses into place and figure out where on of the others goes.

Bottom radiator hose passing along stearing rack.

Bottom radiator hose connecting to LHS of block.

Oil Breather pipe, has to be cut to fit to dry sump tank.

Having a look at the other three hoses it was clear that none of them were were going to fit. Pretty sure the 'J' hoses are heater hoses for connecting to the modine, which is useless for us as we have a dry sump system (Modine on wet sump engines only). Also the small 'L' hose is another oil breather pipe.

The other three hoses.

Supplied 'J' Hose ends are way too big to fit onto the end of the water outlets.

Went to offer up the throttle cable as it looked quite short to say the least, only to find it barely stretches the width of the car.

This is how I Believe the car should be plumbed, however if it changes don't be surprised as it'll be due to the confusing manual having detailed instructions for Duratec engines and a couple of sentences and a picture for the dry sump version. (Image styled heavily on Tom's on his Supersport R Blog)

So to sum up we'll have to send an email to Caterham to get the required heater hoses (orange and red), the water expansion hose (Purple) and to get the right throttle cable.