Post, Post Build Check

Post, Post Build Check

Having finally had the chance to have a look around under the bonnet and nose cone we've been able to find a few things that Caterham have carried out over the last week. Here are a few things that may help others who are building their car, and a few things that are the up-to-date how-to's for building the car ready for VOSA.
   

• One job that we were going to do, but ran out of time, was to bend the wipers so they are parallel with the windscreen, which Caterham have done for us.

• Caterham have added another negative lead to the battery, which then bolts to the chassis under the heater control valve.

Extra lead. Also the battery breather hose had also been removed.

The Battery covers have been changed and removed.

• When looking at the oil breather bottle we noticed that they had removed the breather hose, and had removed the hose clips holding the breather bottle hose.

The breather hose we had relocated has temporarily been plugged to stop dirt getting in and allowing us to later fit another cover or hose.

• Admittedly we made a little bit of a mess with the wiring for the right hand headlight, which was functional but not pretty, however it has been moved from under the expansion bottle and onto the chassis tube. Also the indicator earth we had sliced into the headlight assembly had been removed and bolted to the chassis in the same way as we had done on the LHS. 

We can't remember whether this hole behind the brake line was there before, but we can't imagine someone would drill a new hole into a chassis tube.
Also, as can be seen here, the trim around the exit hole for the steering arms have been removed.

• The braided clutch cable had a length of fuel hose over it in order to protect it. No idea how this has been put on, unless it has been cut open and cable tied, as I didn't check. 

• The front edge of the cat guard has had a small length of scuttle trim added.

• The way the handbrake cable has been fixed to the 'A' frame has also been changed. Before we used 'P' clips to hold it off of the drive shafts and the chassis, as others have done, however now it is being held in place with cable ties. 

Cable ties around the rubber sleeve pre-attached to the cable, and onto the 'A' frame.

The length above the diff has been held off by a cable tie.

• Another length of fuel hose has been used to protect the brake hose to the rear brakes.

• All of our cut down seat bolts have been removed and replaced with the original length of bolts...

• For the life of us we cannot unearth what they have done for the quoted two hours removing and re-attaching the Di-Dion ears.

Just no idea...

• The engine seems to be working fine, sounding like it should, and now all of the exhaust it the correct colour. 

• A piece of scuttle trim has been fixed to the underside of the steering rack bridge in order to reduce abrasion to the oil hoses.

From Above.

From the front.

To end the day we decided to add one of the last visual finishing touches to the car by adding the recently acquired nose badge. We decided to go for the black and chrome Super 7 badge sold by Caterham, as the rectangular green monstrosity isn't going to go well with the colour scheme. The dilemma of the badge seems to have been resolved by Caterham as, according to an article in Low Flying, the badge has been changed to a black circular design, which is currently on the 620R and 620S. 

By drilling through and bolting the badge to the nose cone we don't have to worry about the self adhesive patch, on the back of the standard badge, sticking to the paint protection film. 

The black badge surround is very similar to the "Starlight Black" stripe.

The only thing now is the painted grill.

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.