Category Archives: Build Diaries

Follow along with the build of my Caterham Academy 2013 car.

Build Diaries, Caterham Academy

Can a theme be taken too far?

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Finally, after many months of waiting, building, waiting, driving and waiting the Cheesemobile is finally clothed. Yesterday, I went out in the freezing conditions to give the car a good clean and today, I was back in the garage to adorn the car with its racing livery.

It has always been in my head that this was going to be the final fate of the car but I still wasn’t sure I’d have the nerve. But in the end, I JFDI’d.

On the short drive back to put the car on the trailer, 2 people laughed heartily at the creation. This was embarrassing. But NOBODY could say I haven’t put everything into creating a unique car!

Putting the stickers on wasn’t as painful a job as I was expecting. Using the wet method does make things a little easier to manage but judging the right amount of soapy water to apply is a little bit of an art-form. A couple of stickers had to be re-positioned and they were pretty compliant when still wet. Once properly squeegeed, they stuck well.

I have made at least one slight error – but I’m not flagging it up and hopefully nobody will notice. (This means that it’s likely everyone will notice).

I didn’t end up putting the numbers on. I’ve decided that I’ll do this as a little ceremonial ‘topping out’ just ahead of the official test session.

Secretly, I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s not subtle. It’s not a work of photo-realism. But it is mine! Who knew, all those years ago at college when my mate Angela May  issued forth the decree that I should hence forth be known as Cheesy, it would lead to this!

Build Diaries, Caterham Academy

More car amends

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Back in the garage today for another session. I made use of the free delivery from Caterham during January to buy most of the remaining bits and pieces I need to get the car ready for the new season.

Here’s a run down of what arrived through the door on Thursday:

  • Red front anti-roll bar (including fittings to allow quick swapping)
  • Uprated front brake pads
  • 4 alloys
  • Door fixing kit (including hinges and straps)
  • Replacement water temperature gauge (warranty replacement)

It was like Christmas! And so I headed back over to the garage today to fit the new toys.

Red front ARB

I was dreading this a little bit. Ideally, you use the red bar in the dry and the orange bar in the wet. During the main build, fitting the ARB was a pain and a struggle. With the radiator now in the way, I thought it was going to be awful.

As it went, I undid the bolts holding the radiator and fan to give a little more room, removed the orange bar in its entirety and popped in the red bar. The first ball sank into place pretty  easily and the second just took a little encouragement to get it lined up with the attachment socket. Once it was roughly in the right place, it just popped itself into the socket! Great! The braket attachment bolts are awkward because of space but they eventually went home. Done!

I’m afraid the fact that I’ve fitted this has now pretty much guaranteed that it will rain on the track day on 25th January.

Doors

I picked up a second hand pair of doors just after Christmas. They were a little dirty and scruffy when I picked them up, but a good scrub later and they came up OK. The windows aren’t as clear as new ones would be and there are a few frays here and there but really, nothing that a new pair wouldn’t have after a few uses.

The hinges were simple to fit with 2 screws/nuts per hinge. Fitting the popper bases wasn’t too bad either. I drilled out a couple of the rivets that were in about the right place on the side panels and put the popper bases in place using self tapping screws. I was happy enough with the fit and the poppers made a strong connection.

Doors do make it even tricker to get in and out of the car of course but on my quick test drive this evening, they make so much difference to the buffeting and splash proofing. I think once I get the half hood up with the doors on, it will actually be a fairly dry place to be in the cockpit… famous last words!

Rain light

Having seen that it was indeed possible to mount the rain light on the central cross of the roll cage, I re-visited this. It was still an absolute pain in the arse and involved using pliers, not using the large washers that were supplied with the kit and even then, only just getting the nyloc in place. But it’s done.

Honestly, if I hadn’t seen that others have managed this, I would have sait it was impossible.

Boot sealing

I moved the fire extinguisher out of its mount to get the sealing and taping done around the back of the boot. I finished off the sealing of the rear edge of the boot ready for taping the next time the car is off the trailer and the sealant has gone off fully.

I’ve found that rather than looking at the whole thing and getting stressed about how to go about sealing everything, it’s better to take it inch by inch and just work your way along slowly. Each time you step back, it’s a surprise how far you’ve got.

One more session to go on this to get it done completely.

Uprated front brake pads

These are simple to fit. Just unclip and slide out the originals and slot these in their place. They are supplied with plastic anti-squeal pads, which I fitted. Steve has said since that Caterham removed his shims to give a firmer pedal. If I find the pedal a little spongy going forward, I will have to remember to start by removing the shims!

Water temperature gauge

The final job of the day was to fit a new water temperature gauge. This mad broken previously (the case had cracked all the way around the body, just behind the glass.

Caterham sent the warranty replacement very efficiently, so I was able to get this in as well.

The gauge attached so the wiring and just pops through the dash to roughly seat itself. You  then need to feel around to attach a metal U bracket and some plastic thumb wheel nuts to stop the gauge falling forward. Because it all happens behind the dashboard, you have to have a good feel around to get it right. Another job I’m glad is over!

Overal, I’m happy with how the prep has gone and the car is really now looking the part. Once the race numbers go on, it’s going to be amazing (if a little embarrassing driving it around!)

Remaining jobs are:

  • Tape handbrake down
  • Fit race rear view and drivers side mirrors
  • Take trip to Demon Tweeks for race gear (possibly buy mirrors here or at Autosport Show)
  • Adjust arm restraints
  • Bypass inertia switch
Build Diaries

Race prep of car

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I’ve spent a couple of days in the garage getting the car race prepped ahead of the new year. I haven’t quite managed to finish everything, but I made some good progress and feel that the worst of it is now over!

Fuel sample valve

As part of the race regulations, you need to have a fuel sample valve attached to the car so that the scrutineers can check that you’re not using some exotic concoction. The parts are all supplied by Caterham in the kit, but there aren’t instructions on how to fit it.

It come supplied in 3 bits. There’s an S shaped dog-leg piece, a barrel shaped piece and a threaded valve and protective cap. The valve simply screws into the barrel. However, it doesn’t make a perfect fit, and so Caterham advise that you use some PTFE tape (plumbers tape) to ensure a tight seal.

In order to fit the dog leg piece, you need to release the fuel hose from the engine inlet. The manual says that a special tool is required to achieve this, but I found a screw driver was sufficient! One side of the black fuel hose connector presses inwards to release the hose. Gently pushing against the connector on this side should allow the hose to pull away from the inlet easily. If it doesn’t want to come of easily, chances are, you’re not pressing the right bit of the connector! Obviously, be careful as the hose is full of fuel so be ready to mop up any spills and keep the garage ventilated!

The dog leg then clips into the engine inlet and into the top of the barrel piece, and the now vacant fuel hose needs to be re-routed to attach into the botto of the barrel piece.

Check that all the connectors have seated properly and then activate the fuel pump using the ignition and check that there are no signs of any fuel seepage.

Leg strap adjustment

My leg straps were hopelessly long and needed shortening to get them to sit correctly. The folder handed out at the seminar shows how they should look when adjusted properly. It is, of course, a pig of a job to adjust these. I pulled the straps out at the back of the seat and spent ages fumbling around blindly. Eventually, I found the right combination of pulls and tugs to get them shorter. It’s made more difficult again as you have to make sure you thread the webbing back on itself through the buckle to for a ‘lock’ so it can’t slip.

It’s then just a simple (hahahahaha) job of poking the adjusted strap back under the seat towards the leg strap hole. A bit of luck and perseverance does eventually get it into the right place so you can grab it with your finger tips through the hole.

Roll cage padding

I looked at a number of different cars from the 2012 Caterham Academy to see where the padding should be applied. It’s not difficult to get it into position but if you have a hood/half hood, you need to take care to ensure that your padding doesn’t make these impossible to fit. This is tricker with a full hood, but warming up the hood ahead of attaching apparently makes it easier.

Once the padding is cut to length and tacked in place, you just use duct tape to make the attachment solid. I used duct tape all along the length of the tubing, this is probably overkill, but as I was using coloured tape, it was the look I was after.

With the rear padding just above the seat, you need to cut a slot in the padding to enable it to go around the rear leg of the roll cage.

Rain light

In the ‘roll cage’ bag supplied with the kit is a large P clip. The recommended placement of the light is on the central ‘cross’ at the rear of the roll cage, with the metal attachment holes pointing downwards.

However, the supplied clip isn’t quite big enough to achieve this. Or at least, I couldn’t do it! I have seen it done, so it must be possible. Steve Grubb used a pair of mole grips to achieve it and left of the washers that are supplied in the kit.

I copped out a little and put the light slightly to the right of centre on one of the diagonals. I’m not sure whether this is allowed in the regs – but it’s on now!

The wire needs to route down to the rear right of the car. People tend to remove the fuel filler cover and pop the wire down there. You will need to cut a small grove into the cover to allow the wire to pass through when the cover is back in place.

Apparently, it is possible to route the wire down the roll cage diagonal and into the boot to keep things neet any tidy, but the wire isn’t quite long enough to do this comfortably. I just opted to trail the wire straight down under the boot cover and across the bottom of the boot. It’s not pretty and makes the boot even less use but that’s no real loss.

The light plugs into the fog light socket. If you follow the wire from the fog light, you’ll find the socket you need to unplug and then you need to use patience and a good deal of luck to blindly fumble the two plugs together.

Head restraint

This is supplied in the kit. Mine was wrapped in cling film! Amazingly, the main build manual actually does a good job of explaining what needs to be done to fit it! Essentially, stick the foam padding onto the square part. Attach the bracket, long leg downwards, to the two holes in the roll cage just behind the drivers seat (using washers under bolt and nut). Use the remaining plain nuts to position the headrest around 10mm behind the headrest.

If you have the seat a long way forward, you’ll need to add padding to the square section and then gaffer tape it in place. Apparently expanding foam will do the job.

Nosecone 7 decal

An easy job at last! The nose cone needs to come off. Inside, there are two small black clips that hold the top of the grill/decal in place. Simply remove these clips, reverse the order of the decal and grill and put the clips back in place! Why can’t all the jobs be this easy!

Mind you, you’ve still got to get the nosecone back on the car, and if you’ve ever tried this, you’ll know that’s not the easiest thing in the world! I find it’s better to attach the bottom two points first, then finish on the upper points.

Boot floor sealing

I didn’t consider that this was going to be a tricky job when I started it. But I never completed it and will have to return to it at a future date. The boot needs sealing all around its outer edge. A continuous, fireproof, seal needs to be created between the fuel tank and the boot.

The method described is to use fire proof sealant on the gaps, followed by aluminium tape. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if some of the gaps were over 1cm wide and there were generally straight edges to deal with…

A sealed the edges as best I could with the sealant. I’d recommend spending a bit or time trying to tidy up the seals as it will make the taping job easier. I didn’t and I regretted it.

I taped everywhere I could get to but didn’t complete either behind the fire extinguisher, which needs to be removed to allow you to get into the far left corner. I also didn’t complete the rear-most edge of the boot as there is a metal bracket with lots of holes that rises up from the fuel tank area, which has gaps everywhere. It’s not clear what needs to be sealed and where!

I shall try and get some answers from others/Caterham to see how they tackled this area. I have to say, I’ve made a right pigs dinner of this process. It’s far from neat and tidy and I found I was having to use short sections of overlapped tape in order to get it anywhere near properly stuck. The curves and contours of the boot make it almost impossible to use long pieces of tape and get them to sit correctly.

Cycle wing washers

It was recommended to me at the Donington track day that I should fit larger washers to the cycle wings as the small bolt heads have a tendency to pull though. This could be a race ending black flag if the clerk of the course deems it so.

Unfortunately, the only washers I had 8 of that were in any way more sensible than the existing rubber washer were great big disc washers. I therefore used these and will no doubt find out pretty quickly whether I’ve made more or a problem for myself than I have solved!

Transponder

When the car went in for its post build check, I asked the factory to attach the transponder for me. The factory supply the car with the transponder attached to the front of the car and it’s wire tracking back to the rear of the bonnet along with the wiring loom. Beyond that, there aren’t any clear instructions available.

However, the factory method is to split the two individual wires out of the sheath. The positive wire is sent along the bulkhead to the pedal box where it enters through the hole in the rear and tracks around to the brake light switch. They then use a ‘piggy-back’ spade connector to give two electrical connections on the brake light switch, and attach a suitable blade terminal on the transponder wire. The earth wire for the transponder is made a lot shorter and is connected to the fire extinguisher mounting point using a ring terminal.

You know you’ve got it right when the green LED on the front of the transponder turns on (bottom right of transponder) when the ignition is on.

Side impact bar

The last big bit of the kit left in my lounge! Now safely stowed on the car. The bar has 3 attachment points. The front right roll cage saddle bracket; The rear right A-Frame mount and a circular mount just in front of the hoop mount behind the drivers head.

There is also an fixing kit supplied, containing some bolts and washers. There are, however, no instructions for fitting!

It’s actually relatively straight forward to do. Remove the existing rear A-Frame bolt. Make sure you retain all the washers and spacers you so carefully put in place! Remove the front outer roll cage bolt. You can disgard both these bolts as the fixing kit contains to longer versions to use in their place.

I loosely attached the front attachment, with a washer in between the two metal brackets. I then loosely attached the rear A-Frame bolt back in place, putting back all the spacers / washers. I then went to loosely attach the top most attachment point only to find that a) the kit doesn’t contain a cap head bolt, which would make the job a hole lot easier and b) it didn’t quite line up with the hole.  I got the trusty file out to shave off a smidgeon of the sleeve just where it was contacting the roll hoop and eventually the bolt started making its way home.

Then it was a matter of tightening everything. The top attachment gets harder the further down into the sleeve the bolt goes. However, it is just about possible to get it tight using s standard spanner. Once it’s far enough in, you can then squeeze a socket on to finally tighten it down. The front attachment point bolt is just slightly too long and makes contact with the opposing bolt that goes in from the drivers cabin. I took the drivers side bolt out, tightened the outer bolt and then use a washer to pad out the drivers side bolt just slightly. This was enough to allow the bolt to tighten without hitting the opposing bolt.

V-Box plumbing

I also used the opportunity to plum in my Video V-Box whilst the car was in the relative warm and dry of the garage.

I used some brake cleaner to clean the central console material just behind the gear stick and also down onto the tunnel cover metal. I then used 2 strips of velcro reaching from the metal of the passenger side of tunnel, all the way over to the drivers side of the tunnel. This left a nice neat fuzzy carpet for the V Box unit to sit on. I then stuck a corresponding strip of hooks onto the bottom of the V Box (making sure to take a note of the unit’s serial number before covering it up!). This offers a really good attachment point, out of the weather and within reach to force start a recording or to reset the box if it doesn’t boot properly.

It was then a matter of making a decision on positioning of the two cameras and the GPS receiver. In the end, I put the GPS receiver on the top left of the roll cage and the secondary camera mounting point next to it, pointing towards the drivers seat.

The professional fitted kits tent to put the GPS unit in front of the windscreen, as this offers more of a metal base to help receive the satellite signalIs, but I found on the last two track days that the roll cage seemed to work OK.

I plumbed in the GPS wire and the main camera extension lead from the V Box Unit, under the dashboard, down next to the left knee trim pannel and then back up the front roll cage leg. It looks neat and was happy with how it ended up.

I made use of the wiring loom that comes into the cabin right at the front edge of the runnel cover to stow the excess wires, making sure to leave enough slack to allow the box to be moved forward in front of the gear stick so that attaching/removing the wires is a relatively simple and quick process.

The last piece of the puzzle was the LED display. I used some ‘click tape’ for this. A strip applied to the dashboard just behind the steering wheel and then two small squares attached to the bottom of the LED unit. This gives a nice solid ‘clunk’ when attaching and won’t be going anywhere! I didn’t cable tie this wire in place to allow me to remove the LED from the dashboard for safe storage away from prying eyes!

The secondary camera has a solid wire all the way to the V Box, therefore, there was no way to plumb this in without having to leave it permanently in place. I didn’t want to do that for obvious reasons so this will have to be added/removed when at the tracks. This does have the advantage of being easy to move from pointing at the driver for training purposes, and then being used as a rear view camera when the racing begins!

This now leaves my current to-do list as:

  • Buy and fit Red front ARB
  • Buy and fit uprated front pads
  • Move inertia switch into cabin
  • Finish off boot sealing
  • Move rear light? (if where I’ve put it isn’t acceptable.)
  • Fit doors (buy hinges, one attachment strap)
  • Buy and fit long acre rear view mirror
  • Buy and fit compact race wing mirror