Monthly Archives: October 2012

Caterham Academy

Build Day 6 Summary

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Day 6 saw the return of the Dad. And Mum also had her first sighting of the yellow beast. Her first comment being that ‘it is a better yellow than it looks in the videos’… thanks Mum!

So, what did we achieve this evening? Well, I re-fitted the steering column as I wasn’t happy at the end of yesterday. Now that I’ve done it once, I was able to align everything much better and was happy with the result.

After some tea, we managed to bleed the clutch. I had read that this was much better to do now than during final checks due to the lack of access once all the wiring/cooling is in place. It was hard enough to get the tube on and get going with the space available even without the wiring and hoses in the way.

During this process, I got to sit in my car for the first time! No seat of course, but it was fun none the less :)

Finally, we went on to attach the throttle cable. This came with some interesting problems. The pedal end of the cable has a metal blob with a prong coming out the end. This prong is supposed to fit through a hole in the top of the pedal, with the blob sitting in the hollow tube and the cable coming out the other side of the pedal in a cut away groove. Problem is, there isn’t enough room to get the prong in the hole and then get the blob seated correctly. A little umming and ahhing and we made the decision to make the prong shorter by snipping it in half. That did the job and with a little persuasion, the cable seated correctly.

The manual then said to crimp the top of the pedal to catch the cable in place. Which we did… only to find that the cable is way too long. The manual says that you need to adjust the pedal by inserting a philips screw driver in the end and using a block of wood to brace the pedal against whilst you ben the top of the pedal back towards the rear of the car. So, we had to un-crimp the top of the pedal and pull out the cable once more.

A fair amount of bending later and the cable was at the correct tension. Now the pedal stops just had to be move to allow the full throttle movement – but no more.

And that was pretty much it for the evening. We took a look at the boot cover and felt suitable scared of how to approach this.

Next jobs will be the cover, the trim, harnesses, seats and roll-cage.

Build Diaries, Caterham Academy

Day 5 Summary

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So, I was all alone in the garage today and I have to say that it showed! I dotted around the manual and around a number of different tasks – not really focussing properly and going along until I hit a point that I didn’t understand fully or had to commit to something (like the attachment of the fuel line – which is one time fit….)

So, in the end, I attached the cable to the solenoid and the battery terminals, including the attachment to the starter motor.

I attached the clutch cable to the master cylinder and bell housing. I scoped out the possibility of bleeding the clutch ahead of moving on with the wiring and cooling but I decided this would be easier as a 2 man job, so I’ll await another body in the garage.

I turned the battery to it’s correct orientation! It was 180 degrees the wrong way!

I did a loose attachment of the exhaust primary pipes so I could install the steering column.

I installed the steering column. I stupidly managed to knock the plastic insert out of the column bush and then wasn’t able to take the bush back out and retrieve it. I didn’t know how to solve this so I am adding that one to a list of things I want Caterham to resolve for me… my dashboard tube also didn’t contain a bush at the far end (which I think it is supposed to, although I’m not certain). I could see another white plastic insert which rather looks like someone had at least tried to put the bush in before.

I took the opportunity to also fit the steering wheel. I was missing one of the screws that attaches the wheel to the quick release boss but it felt good to see it in place and check that the steering action was smooth.

And that was about it! I’ve not got a plan of action at the moment – I want to leave some bit bits for the weekend when I’ve got friends coming over to help. That probably means leaving the exhaust and rear axle work till then. That leaves the cockpit trim – which really needs to start with the boot cover to allow the harness’ to be fit.

Build Diaries, Caterham Academy

Day 4 Summary

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Phew. Got tired today! And threw a hissy fit off at dad – which wasn’t the best thing to do! Sorry about that! Still, another good day of progress. Today the engine went in. Not a lot else happened but that was still a good achievement.

Lowering the engine into the bay wasn’t too bad. It’s tight, but does just about fit. Getting the engine to sit onto the spline in the bell-housing was a bit of a pain but it eventually went home after a lot of jiggling and a slight adjustment to the angle of the gearbox.

The bolts listed in the manual for the engine mounts (the bolts that link to the engine block itself) appear to be wrong. However there are bolts in the same pack that are a good fit.

The bolt that goes into the starter motors are an absolute pig. There are 3 bolts. One went in and was torqued without too much problem. The topmost bolt was a fiddle and we got it in tight – but couldn’t torque. The inner most bolt was just impossible. We were able to get the bolt into the hole and turn it by fingertip perhaps 3 threads in before it got too stiff and we couldn’t then move it backwards or forwards. We tried all sorts of ways of getting to the bolt to tighten it, but it just wasn’t possible. Because this is now sitting half in, half out of the hole, I will have to let Caterham know and get them to tighten it in post build.

The other bolt that caused problems was the left hand engine mount bold that goes into the rubber bush that the engine sits on. The tool that we found yesterday at Halfords that fitted, was too large to get to the bolt once it was in position due to a chassis bracket being in the way. Might have to be an Amazon order for this one.

Other odd jobs done – we aligned and bolted the gearbox in; we attached the gear lever and reverse switch into the tunnel; we made a quick start on identifying and attaching the wiring looms between engine to car. This didn’t get very far as lots of the wires were not the same colour as described in the manual.

Really happy with progress so far. I now have a complete drive train in the car, so lots of the really heavy stuff is in place. Now begins the really fiddly, time-consuming parts of the build.