I spent the day at Buckmore Park karting in the fog and damp. It was excellent fun and, although it would have been nice to try the track in the dry as I’ve never been there before, I love wet karting so it was all good.
It was also great to meet up with Chris Middleton, a fellow Caterham Academy 2013 racer, who was working at Buckmore Park. We even managed to team up in the afternoon and form a super team for the enduro. We won, of course :)
When I got back to the garage, I found that Dad and Carole had made a fantastic job of the other cycle wing and the lighting. Having not left them with a key, they weren’t able to check that they had made the right connections but it all looked fantastic. Other than the wheels, it’s pretty much there now. Of course, there are, in reality, lots of little jobs to complete but at least it looks done!
UPDATE: Although I haven’t got the full details, the manual is not accurate (surprise :)). The wire colours don’t match up to what the manual suggests. However, as the wiring was done blind and was correct first time, I can only assume that a little logical thought and head scratching (plus perhaps a little luck) will see things to a good result. I’ve also heard from Steve Grubb that his earth cable wasn’t connected in his indicator repeater. He found this out ahead of threading it through the wing-stay but touching the wires up to the battery – that seems like an absolute gem of a tip! I would never have thought to try that.
My plan for the weekend was to get a few bits and bobs finished off, but most importantly, to get the cheesemobile fired up and purring.
First up was the brakes. Starting with the hand brake attachments. So long as the adjuster was slackened off a whole load, these went on OK. The manual doesn’t make the final connection position that clear but a little close inspection and things became clearer.
UPDATE: The handbrake cable routing that the manual describes does work. Essentially, where the cable exits the tunnel, it gets attached by cable tie to the top rear of the differential. It then sweeps down alongside the fuel tank towards the outside of the car and goes under the de-dion tube – now heading toward the front of the car. It should run close to a chassis rail, where it can be cable tied to. It will then exit the side of the car forwards of the brake calliper and pointing towards the front of the car. You then need to bend it back towards the brake calliper where the end of the cable goes through an aperture and the square hole hooks over the hook on the calliper. You can pull out the cable end to get it over – but you might have to fully slacken the adjuster to make it easy.
Time to fill, bleed, repeat. There was one joint that I hadn’t tightened fully but other than that, things went OK. The pedal never really got solid though and the position is too low at the moment to allow heel toe. I’m hoping that after the brakes have been run, bleeding more will finally get everything solid.
One query for Caterham will be that the right rear bleed nipple took a different sized spanner than the others and also looked like it could be sucking in air as it never lost its air bubbles completely.
UPDATE: This was another job for two or more people ideally. I hear that the ezi-bleed kits are great if you are on your own. Again, the method in the manual did appear to work.
With the brakes done, it was onto the engine! It was a bit of a mission to go and get a couple of jerry cans and get them filled with fuel, but that done and the remaining fluids filled, the time came for the initial start.
Filling the coolant was helped by hand pumping the larger tubing to get it circulated around the system. Oil just needed 4.5 litres added through the top screw cap and petrol was simple enough, shoving around 17 litres into the tank.
Time to crank for oil pressure. The manual says this could take 30 seconds. It didn’t take anywhere near that long for me. Good pressure was present after around 5 seconds. A note on the immobiliser! It doesn’t mention this in the manual anywhere that I’ve seen! Essentially, use the LED on the dash as the main point of reference for what’s going on. Turn the key to position 2, so the dash lights up fully. If you don’t hear the fuel pump prime and the LED is manically flashing, then the immobiliser is still active. You need to put one of the immobiliser fobs next to the key barrel (where the immobiliser arial is wrapped around) and you should then hear the fuel pump start up. You can then press your starter button and everything should work…
Reconnecting the innertia switch and cranking for start this time. It took a while for everything to circulate through the engine but then it caught and was a sound to behold :) A lot of family were around for the big moment and it was great that everything went so well.
UPDATE: When cranking for pressure and turning the engine over for first start, there were a lot of strange hissing and trickling noises as fluids found their way through the system.
Later in the evening, I finished off one of the rear wings. Mostly because it meant I could take a picture that made the car look almost complete! A couple of the bolts are hard to get in place but other than that, it’s fiddly but fairly straight forward.
The morning was spent re-visiting the drivers side seat. I thought that we’d made progress as, after taking out the seat again and the front bolts again, we got to a position where we had all the bolts through the seat rails and through the floor. However, this wasn’t the eureka moment I thought it would be.
Sadly, with the bolts through, I am now no longer able to move the seats on the rails fully enough to get access to the back bolts. When trying to move the seat forwards, the release handle can’t be pulled up because the chassis bar of the lowered floor prevents it.
I can’t move the seat all the way back because the loose bolts in the rail snag. I thought I’d admitted defeat on this one the other day but now, I really do think that this is an impossible task for me. I just can’t see how it can be done.
So, I moved onto the rear brake callipers. Essentially, the last piece of the puzzle, other than fibreglass and lighting, still to do. Once I’d found the correct spacers and bolts, everything went together well. I did need a piston release tool to slacken them off so they would go over the pads fully but my local car store hired me one.
I did forget to insert the small metal clip that sits above the pads on right calliper, but it came off the car again without too much problem. Adjusting the handbrake is tiring on the hands!
Everything’s starting to look pretty final now. Once the rear wings go on (hopefully tomorrow) we’ll be so close I can smell the petrol… well – I guess I will have to smell petrol in order to get the thing fired up :). Another trip to halfords for a jerry can is in order.
The final hose went on the engine and fed into it’s catch-tank on the bulkhead.
Lessons for today are that the tunnel top goes in much easier before the seats are in and that the handbrake cable needs to not be attached – or at least fully slackened off – so that you can get the cover over the handbrake handle.
Dad did his normal sterling work, ably assisted by foreman Penny. He got the wire through the front left wing so that could be bolted into place. He also then started the nerve wracking process of drilling and positioning the front right wing and wing stay. Mum had her first sit in the car, although she couldn’t get her leg over… ahem. She also made a trek down to the car shop for some bits and pieces as well! Thanks Mum!
2 weeks in now! A lot’s happened in those 2 weeks as well. I’ll get to putting the second video diary together to show the bits and pieces since week 1 but in the mean time, we made some good progress last night before coming to a grinding halt again!
The Fedex mad arrived, just as Jennifer at Caterham said it would, and all the bits I’d asked for were there – ready to move the car on a few stages. I now had the cap head bolts needed for the rear dampers and radius arms.
And that’s where the evening started. Firstly attaching the top damper bolt (making sure the aluminium spacer was inserted in the bush prior to fitting). With a little jiggling, these went in far easier than I thought they would. The bottom bolts were a little more tricky as I had all the hub and drive shafts fitted. It was definitely a 2 man job, with one person holding and manoeuvring the hub assembly, while the other pushed and rotated the bolt into place. Just as I was tightening the second of these long bolts, a had a sinking feeling that I’d forgotten a washer and a check of the manual confirmed this. It actually turned out to be a pretty simple step to insert these and get the bolt back in.
Whilst under the car, I connected up the rear brake hose from the de-dion to the car.
On to radius arms. Again, with a little jiggling and encouraging, these went in without too many dramas. And, other than the brake callipers, that was the rear suspension in place. You can’t finally tighten some of the bolts until the weight of the car is taken by the axle. You do this a little later in the build.
With everything having gone so well, we moved confidently onto the seats! It wasn’t long before we realised that this was going to be an adventure all of itself. They are tight to get into place, especially with the roll cage on and then you have to feed all the harness straps through as you lower. We started with the passenger seat and with a lot of jiggling and pushing, luck and just a small amount of grinding, we got that attached.
UPDATE: Don’t be tempted to tighten a bolt if it isn’t aligned correctly with the hole. If you accidentally cross thread the bolt, the riv-nuts that you are putting the bolt into are not very strong. If you apply too much torque to the bolt, the riv-nut will break and start spinning in the rail. At that point, you’re looking at a new seat rail to get it fixed.
Then onto the drivers seat… this put up a hell of a fight and it defeated us (well me really as I ran out of patience). Trying the method in the manual, we got the front bolts loosely in place. We then ran the seat as far forward as we could get it and went to put in the rear bolts – only to find that the seat wouldn’t go far enough forward to allow access to put the rear bolt in place.
Out came the seat and we pre-inserted the rear bolts into the rail. We put the seat back in and got the front bolts in and tight (that makes it sound simple but it actually was virtually impossible to get the allen key onto the bolt head to allow tightening and my hand is very bruised this morning because of it!)
When we went to the rear bolts, they weren’t magically in line (of course they weren’t!) and the pre-inserted bolts appeared to stop the seat from sliding properly to allow finger access to wiggle and jiggle.
At that stage, it felt like an impossible task and when you hit the ‘impossible’ stage, I’ve found it’s best to stop and come back to it with a fresh head another day. So that’s what we did!
UPDATE: Although I never got the drivers seat in place, I know that Steve Grubb simply substituted the cap head bolts that Caterham supply for the job with hex-head bolts that wedge themselves in the rail. That way, you don’t need to get an alen key on the bolt to be able to tighten everything. If I were having my time again, this is the route I would take with them. I also believe it is the method the factory use if you get them to do it for you. You could also be brave and bent the adjustment bar to allow greater movement of the seat forwards. As the seat moves forwards, you can’t pull up the bar as it gets trapped by the chassis rail. If the bar was given a ‘v’ shaped kink downwards, this might solve the problem. I wasn’t confident enough to give this a go but it might be worth keeping in mind – especially if you are not tall as putting the seat in all the way forward, will mean the seat can’t be adjusted backwards any more.
