December 2007
Summary
8th December 2007
Another frustrating day - the rear of this car has been very problematic. More on that later.
The first part of the construction of the de Dion tube (rear axle) and suspension, is to place the de Dion tube on a work bench and temporarily fit the de Dion ears and brake calipers to both sides of the tube. The calipers are handed, but the ears are not.
With these items in place, it is then possible to route the brake pipes along the de Dion tube to the calipers. This was actually quite a time consuming job because obviously no kinks are allowed in the pipe, so correctly shaping the pipe is important.
This shows the de Dion tube, with the left hand ear and calliper temporarily in place. There are two pipes, that are each conencted to a 3-way union that
is towards the right hand side of the tube (next picture). The RHS pipe is secured using two rivets and the longer LHS pipe
is secured using 3 rivets. This picture shows one of the bends made to reach the caliper.
This picture shows the 3-way union attached the the car with the left and right brake piers attached. The silver coloured flexible brake hose
is fitted to the inlet of the 3-way union, and the other end of this fits to the brake pipe that travels through the
transmisson tunnel and exits behind the drivers seat (which can't be photographed very easily). This picture is taken with the de Dion
tube resting in place on the chassis. The next step is to attach the rear dampers......
Even though I checked through the parts prior to starting this and I do have the parts that are mentioned in the build manual, it now appears that either the build manual is incorrect or I have the wrong pack/parts for the job. Below is an extract of an email I have sent to Caterham, which describes the problem:
"From the manual: "Insert a sleeve into the top bush of the damper unit (close coils of spring are at the top), align the top bush with the top mounting and insert the top mounting bolt (4) through the access holes provided in the seat back panel. Tighten to 54 Nm once the spring damper unit has been attached to the De Dion tube."
Just before this point, the manual says use 30A001A, which I have. However, Item 4 is not a cap head bolt - it is a normal bolt, and there is no way that this bolt can be used to make the fixing. There is a further pack (30R011A - which I also have) and there is a caphead bolt in that pack that appears to fit (it is not item 4 of the pack). However, there does not seem to be any item in either of the packs to fit the lower mounting bolt and damper fixing.
Have I got the correct packs? Should Item 4 be a caphead bolt? For info, as you know I've got a Rover based car but am following the Ford manual at this point - could this be the problem?"
So, now I have to wait a reply from Caterham before I can continue with the axle. After this, called it a day.
I'm not sure this is what I would expect from a supposed 'kit' car. Virtually every step of the build has been hindered by missing or incomplete/incorrect parts. This is very frustrating when a builder like myself is mainly making progress on weekends as it means over the course of a few weeks it appears that little progress has been made. In fairness to Caterham, they have been very good at sending parts out, but that's not really the point.
Looking back since the 25th October alot of time has been spent on trying to use components that weren't correct for the job, or waiting for other parts to arrive. I haven't worked on the car every weekend but holdups have been:
I've been tackling the rear components of this car for far too long. After the engine went in, in my mind I was hoping that the car would have been started and tentatively driven out the garage before Christmas - I'm way off from this milestone. Oh well....I'll get there in the end, I'm sure.
11th December 2007
Calmed down after my little rant the other day....
Got a call from Caterham and they have confirmed that I do appear to have the right parts - but they have also confirmed that the build manual is wrong on this part of the build. I was half thinking of going ahead with what I thought were the corect parts on Saturday, but I'd have worried about it if I had done that. Therefore, I'm glad I've waited for Caterham to confirm that I can proceed.
22nd December 2007
Made some decent progress on the rear suspension today. Probably the best days progress I've had in some time.
Firstly, the dampers have to be attached. The top bush on the damper attaches to the car and is secures with the top mounting bolt which goes through the access holes from inside the car. The lower mounting bolt is connected to the boss on the de Dion tube.
This picture shows the right hand damper assembly fitted and torqued. The same is done on the left hand side.
Next, the radius arms are fitted. These go from an upper chassis bush to the de Dion tube. The rear bolts are passed inboard and the 'waisted' section of the radius arm face outboard, to provide maximum clearence to the brake calliper.
This picture shows the right hand radius arm fitted and torqued. The same is done on the left hand side.
At this point, there is nothing much prohibiting the de Dion tube from moving laterally. To secure the de Dion tube, an A-Frame is
attached which goes from the de Dion tube to the mountings provided on the chassis. It's quite hard to take
a photo of all of this, but this is a shot of the A-Fram across the car. It is important to ensure that the A-Frame is centralised in the chassis with a tolerance of +/- 2mm on each side.
I had to fit a spacer to one side and then it came to within 1/2mm tolerance, which I'm pleased with. With the A-Frame
torqued up, the suspension is now firmly in place.
Next is to slide the drive shafts into the differential, and finish the assumbly of the de Dion tube by attaching and securing the ears, hub carrier and brake calipers.
This shows the right hand drive shaft inserted into the diff.
This shows the de Dion ears connected to the tube, with the drive shaft and hub carrier. When the hub carrier is
tightened, it pulls the drive shaft in to place and ensures that the shaft does not foul the ears. There are three
different sized bolts used to connect this, so it is important to get the right conenctions. Also, the threads of the rear bolts
are coated in Loctite.
So, that was a good morning and early afternoons work, and I probably should have stopped there (in hindsight!). However, I was now in a position to actually try and get this engine started, which would have been a big milestone, but ultimately it wasn't to be today. I filled the engine with oil, and also nipped down to the local garage and brought some petrol.
There is a start up procedure which involves firstly trying to crank the engine for oil pressure, but this first step failed. There are no lights coming on the dashboard (i.e., no immobiler light or anything). Spent some time checking the obvious things (i.e., battery is charged, fuses are okay etc), but when checking the voltage across the immobilser fuse and ECU fuse, there is no reading. I've posted a question to BlatChat and await a response.
All in all, a good day, but frustrating hour or so at the end. If I don't get a response from BlatChat, I'll probably get the brake callipers fitted next.
28th December 2007
Fitted the rear disc assembly and had a go at fitting the callipers.
This shows one of the discs fitted over the drive shaft. These are secured in place with a 41mm nut (the largest in the kit) and must finally be tightened to 270 Nm. I think the biggest torque setting so far has been around 100 Nm and to torque to the correct setting I'll need to borrow/hire a larger torque wrench for this. The final torque seeting will be more easily achieved when the brakes have been bled and the foot brake applied.
Interestingly the LH nut has a LH thread...not sure why this would be?
Was going to fit the brake pads and callipers, but stopped short of this task. Taken directly from the build manual is the following:
The brake pads fitted to the REAR callipers may be incorrect. Cars equipped with standard FRONT brakes should bear the number 3460 on the REAR pads. Cars equipped with uprated FRONT brakes, should have blue tabs on the REAR pads. Using the incorrect rear brake pads will result in SVA failure.
I have standard brakes, but here is a picture of the pads I have. As can be seen, the number on my pads don't match
what is said in the build manual on this point, so I didn't fit them in case they are incorrect.
Spent a bit of time trying get the engine started again, but to no avail. I may be missing something fairly obvious, so may need a second pair of eyes to have a look over it.
| <<< November 2007 | January 2008 >>> |