October 2007

This shows the 2 connectors from the engine loom to the Engine Control Unit (ECU) and the 2 connectors from the engine loom to the Multi Function Unit (MFU). The ECU is a the bottom (silver) and the MFU is at the top (black).

20th October 2007

Quite a productive day as managed to get exhaust system, most of the cooling system and heating fitted.

I was looking forward to getting the exhaust system fitted as I quite like the look of the exhaust on the cars. On the Rover engine it comes out of the LHS of the car. There is obviously a hole in the body to fit to the manifold. I noticed on the Ford manual that for the Ford cars (for which the exhaust exits the RHS of the car) that 4 pipes are visible on the outside of the. On the Rover, there is only the one. I actually prefer the Rover system as to me it looks cleaner.

This shows the rear tale pipe, with the brackets and bobbins attached to the car. As can be seen here, there are two 'settings' for which the exhaust can be fitted to the bracket. I did a dry run of the fitting and preferred the inside bracket position, as the exhaust is the closer, but not touching, the car. I think this will then make it slightly easier for passengers to get in and out of the car without burning themselves!

These two pictures show the exhaust pipe fitted from the front and rear respectively. The exhaust guard is fitted to ensure that the clips do not contact the catalyst (so the clips are offset towards the talepipe). Also, the adjusters are positioned to ensure that they are not at the bottom of the silencer where they could contact the road.

This shows the exhaust connected to the manifold with a single band clamp. I'll need to tidy up the cables at a later stage to ensure that they are not touching the manifold.

The lambda probe connects into a threaded hole in the manifold, and connects to the corresponding socket from the vehicle wiring loom (shown here). I'm a bit confused by the following instruction from the build manual:

Once the connection has been made secure the connection to the bracket mounted on the RH rear of the cylinder head by inserting the locating spigot into the bracket and rotating the connector.

Now, I wouldn't know what a 'locating spigot' was even if someone came up to me and said 'this is a locating spigot', so I haven't been able to complete this section so the connection is not secured at the moment. I'll be posting a question to BlatChat, and may have to follow up with a call to Caterham if my 'locating spigot' is missing.

This shows the radiator and the fan fitted. There was initially a bit of confusion on my part here as I haven't got the same radiator that is described in the build manual. It is obiously important to make sure that the radiataor is the right way up and the fan connector has to come out of the right hand side, as shown. The gold piece at the top left of the radiator is the fan switch which is screwed into the threaded boss.

There were some spacers that were attached to box that the radiator came in, but there as no mention of them in the build manual. However, it became clear what they were for because when I initially lined the radiator up to the car, the fan was fouling part of the chassis. With the 8 spacers fitted (two on each rubber mounting), there was enough space between the fan and the car.

This shows the radiator fitted.

This shows the expansion tank fitted. I have connected all the pipes for the cooling system, except for a pipe needed to connect the expansion bottle to the inlet manifold on the engine (as I don't have the pipe at the moment).

Finally today I fitted the heater. This shows the heater unit fitted from the front of the car

This shows the heater unit from inside the car. I think I have some pipes missing which are needed to connect the heater control valve to the heater inlet and outlet tubes. There is a heater control cable (so that the heater can be operated from inside the car) which needs to fit with the control valve, but I haven't got the parts requried to fit this.

I'm up over 50 hours now (see Excel spreadsheet). I think I'm doing okay time wise, but still a long way to go. A quick list of things remaining are:

23rd October 2007

After the last day in which I made good progress, today was a frustratung day where progress was slow.

Fitted the expansion bottle to the engine inlet manifold. Also fitted the flexible rubber hose to the fuel regulator, to cover the nylon fuel pipe (which comes already attached). Had a bit of confusion over this on Saturday, as I initially thought I had some pipe missing. However, there is a long length of pipe (around 1m in length I'd say) that can be cut to make both of the connections (i.e., the cover of the nylon fuel hose and the pipe from the expansion bottle to the inlet manifold on the engine).

Fitted the heater control cable inside the car. Also fitted the other end of the control cable to the control valve. As mentioned above, unable to actually attach this into cooling system as the pipes haven't arrived yet.

This shows the heater control cable fitted to the heater control valvle. The eyelet is slid over the peg on the control valve operating arm, with the outer cable then being secured under the clamp.

This just shows the heater control cable exiting through a hole into the engine bay.

This is the heater control knob inside the car.

I fitted the throttle cable to the throttle linkage and throttle pedal. This was a little tricky as initially there was a large amout of slack in the cable. After a quick call to Caterham, it was established that the throttle pedal was in the wrong position, so after it was moved back the slack in the cable was taken up.

This shows the throttle cable connected to the throttle linkage. There appears to be two positions where the cable can be routed, the the way it is shown here provides the smoother curve in the cable.

This shows the top of the throttle pedal (in the pedal box) connected to the cable. Connecting this through the hole in the pedal box was quite tricky and required a bit of 'brute force'.

This shows a general view of the pedal box, throttle pedal, routing of cable and throttle linkage.

Afther the cable is fitted, the air filter is connected to the throttle housing using the hose clip. The hose clip shouldn't be overtightened as doing so may distort the throttle body.

Other than that, attempted to mount the rear differential. The engine, gearbox and prop shaft are already in place, and the differential needs to be connected to the prop shaft. However, when doing a couple of dry runs of the fitting of the differential, the chassis mountings don't seem to line up with the threads in the differential - infact, it appears to be around 4cm out. After much head scratching, decided to call it a day and have a fresh look at it in a couple of days.

The shows the 'cheese wedge' which as to be attached to the outside of the pedal box ideally using three rivets. Two rivets were used on the the bottom edge, but the hole in the cheese wedge lined up exactly with a rivet which is attached to the clutch pedal on the inside of the pedal box. Will have to relook at this at a later date.

It also shows one of the grommets in place. The pipe in view is the lower steering column.

The shows the lower steering column attached to the steering rack using the universal joint. The two bolts that can be seen are actually passed through the joint and through machined grooves in the column and steering rack respectively. The idea is to get the universal joint in line with the angle of the steering column, but shifting the moving the steering rack on its axis.

Prior to fitting this, the uprights have to be in a straight ahead position.

The upper and lower steering columns are attached using a clamp. I have the 'U-shaped' piece of the clamp, but the flat part of the clamp (though which a grub screw is used to secure the columns) is missing. I've put in a call to Caterham who will be sending that to me.

The cooling system was completed and (partially) filled today. The build manual talks about the need to remove a bleed screw in the radiator. Although the radiator I have has a small pipe through which a bleed screw could be fitted, my radiator doesn't have a bleed screw.

A quick call to Caterham confirmed this, and they advised that a three way join should be inserted into the pipe, with one leg of the pipe going off to the radiator. I had the 3-way join, but this was not mentioned in the build manual...

This shows the expansion bottle with the three way join fitted.

The pipework and hose clips also arrived today, so the heater control valve was fitted. The inlet pipe (upper one) was left loose, as this would later be used as a bleed point. The system was filled with 5-litres of coolant (Caterham recommend Comma XStream Red), but there wasn't enough to fill the system as it didn't reach the pipe that was loose. I'll get some more and do see to this as part of the initial engine start up.

That was the 'good' part of the day. It got worse after that, unfortunately! I mentioned on 23rd October that a couple of dry runs were attempted on the diff. Another attempt was made today, but it still seems like something is wrong.

The build manual talks about inserting the long upper bolt (11in long) through the diff and chassis. This is to then be used just to hold the diff (i.e., not to be tightened at this stage) whilst the two lower bolts are inserted. However, this picture shows that with the top bolt in place, the lower bolt holes on the chassis do not line up with the lower bolt holes on the diff.

Another way would be to remove the upper bolt, attach the prop shaft to the diff and then reattach the upper bolts. With the prop in place, this picture shows that the upper bolt hole on the chassis does not line up with the diff.

Back to the drawing board on this one at the moment. So far the following has been considered:

At a bit of a loss at the moment. Need to go through it with Caterham.

Will be making a few phone calls and have posted some questions with photos to BlatChat. I won't be working much on the car over the next week so hopefully something will come to light before I tackle the diff again.

31st October 2007

I measured the prop shaft and sent the measurements to Caterham. It turns out that I do have the incorrect prop shaft after all. This is despite the apparent correct part number being stamped on the prop that I have. However, the prop shaft I have is aprox 71cm, which is 5cm too long. Caterham will be sending the correct item to me. Very frustrating as a lot of time has bveen wasted on fitting the diff as I (wrongly) assumed that I had the correct parts in the kit. Oh well...at least the problem seems to be sorted out now.