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 27- Sill Protectors, Fusebox Cover, Interior Carpets, and Harnesses.

Day 27- Sill Protectors, Fusebox Cover, Interior Carpets, and Harnesses.

To start we continued to finish fitting the sill protectors, but, in addition to the steps previously taken we applied some silicone sealant under the sill to stop squeaking when any force is applied causing movement. (We have however, a few weeks later, that the RH sill has settled and has stopped making a sound whenever pressure is applied, which would have driven us insane every time we got into the car.)  

Fusebox Cover

This took a lot longer than expected due to it being oddly confusing as to how the panel fits in relation to the fuse box. However eventually after a small strip of Velcro and a couple strips of IVA trim to stop vibration noise it was eventually in.

Small strip of Velcro along front edge. I believe this is an IVA requirement (according to the build manual). 

Small length glued in place.

Tidied the 12V Socket wiring, the smaller plug is not used.

Interior Carpets

This got a little messy as the spray adhesive is hard to control. After warming the can in-front of the fan heater we started with the rear bulkhead carpet, then the tunnel carpet, then fitted a couple of the boot carpet pieces, (namely the forward triangle pieces, and the rear rectangle piece). We found that excess came off fairly easily with a little WD-40 on a rag, and that the solvent designed for the adhesive worked a tad too well and started removing paint.

A bit of a stringy mess. 

It was at the point of completion that we realised that the bulkhead carpet only had trim on the LHS and not the other, so we will email Caterham to see what the best remedy is to the situation. (In the end they decided that they would remove the carpet and glue at the post build inspection and then replace it with the correct one.) 

                              

After the carpets were in we cut the Harness bolt holes into the vinyl strip along the chassis tube under the roll-over bar.

A small Stanley knife worked a treat.

We decided that if we ever needed to remove or replace the rear wings it would be much simpler if we attached the corner carpets with Velcro instead of with the impact adhesive.

Harnesses 

This was done for aesthetic reasons more than anything as we knew we would have to remove then later anyway for the boot cover fitment. We quickly found that the bolts were too long to screw in under the roll-over bar due to lack of clearance, and even using the either set of bolts, as there to two varying length of bolt in the Luke boxes. In order to fit them we had to cut roughly 10mm of the end of the bolt for it to fit. 

Later turned out that Caterham suggest fitting the harnesses before the roll-over bar, and thus technically before the rear suspension, and along with the boot cover and interior trim. 

Also now we have done the post build inspection (22-01-2016) it turns out that they didn't agree with our arrangement as they have spent a 1/2 hour changing the bolts!?!?!

We felt that the fitment of the harnesses would be better if we substituted the cardboard washers with rubber ones as we feel that the card ones would degrade quickly in wet weather. Also we don't see much point in the metal rings, that we can only presume are for inserting into the boot cover, but would be crushed under the bolt head. Also in order to reduce the amount the vinyl strip creases under the rotation of the bolt we applied silicone grease around the hole. 

Just remember the red buckles attach to the tunnel and the handle points downwards. 

We'll have to see what Caterham thinks of the way we have done this...