A few more shortages

Given I could not fit the engine as I could not connect the gearbox as I don't have an o ring, and given I could not fit the diff as I don't have the complete handbrake assembly, I thought I would tackle a few smaller jobs today. I needed to achieve something as I had taken today off work.

I started with the front anti roll bar. I new I would not be able to fit it to the car as I am missing the R400 radiator cowling but I thought I could get it ready to go.

This plan was short lived, as I have a 9/16 bar and bushes for 1/2 inch.

I spoke to Derek and he has been a star. I have a big box of goodies winging their way to me.

Frustrating few days

I had a friend round to help out with the larger jobs.  Thanks Ross.

I was hoping that we could get the engine in but everything contrived to stop us archiving anything significant.

We had a few small jobs before the engine can be implanted

1. Mount the washer bottle on the passenger footwell. To achieve this, we had to move the bracket from the side of the engine bay and re rivet it, unfortunately there were no spare flange rivets. This was easily sorted with a quick trip to screw fix, however they only sell them in batches of 250, so I now have 247 spare!

2. Mount the horns, given the car is dry sumped this necessitates drilling the steering rack support 

Before discovering the mounting bolt was missing, screw fix to the rescue again.

3. Mount engine to gearbox, easy to do, we just needed to silicone seal the o ring to the selector shaft before adding silicone as a gasket and bolting it up. Easy unless you can't find the o ring, we looked in every box 3 times. A call to Derek is in order.

So fitting the engine today is not going to happen.

Not to be dissuaded, we decided that we could do the other big two man job. Fit the diff! 

The manual explains (I say explain in the loosest possible terms, as with all instruction in the manual) that the hand brake needs to go in first. Lots of hunting before we found it, and then on to looking for the pully which it attaches to. 

We found some of it.

But are still missing half of the assembly. So with time running out and Ross need to head home we gave up for the day. I have tomorrow off work and will resume with renewed vigour in the morning.

Upper wishbones, light assemblies and springs & dampers

I have not posted for a few days but have done something every evening, even if one night was four grommets and a email about a few missing parts.

I did not realise it but I was missing the ignition barrel, but it has now arrived, although the plastic bits from the keys are missing.

The next task on the car was upper wishbones and light assemblies.

Fitting them was quite easy until I struggled to fit the nuts on both front upper bolts as there is no clearance between the bodyside and the bolt. 

I hope the above photo to show the issue. I wanted to gently press the bodyside away to give space 

but the bracket pick up on the chassis has a flange that constrained the bodyside from moving in y axis across car. 

A quick email to Derek confirmed that a bit of "gentle" persuasion  is the only way.

And so it seemed

Having secured the upper wishbones fitting the springs and dampers was quite straight forward.

Lights and lower wishbones

Thanks to a bit of advice from Blatchat the first thing I did after my last post was to remove the masking tape and replace it with a some wall paper from an unused roll. Thanks Metal Mickey

Next was to fit the lower wishbones. The instructions are a little unclear on the position of the spacer, but a quick check on blatchat reassured me. It is now set up 0,4,0 the lowest caster angle as recommended by Caterham. I am going to leave it like this for now and modify once it is on the road, if required.

Before fitting the top wishbones it is suggested that you assemble the lights, indicators and specifically mounts. The instructions for this section is a little woolley, and given I had read another blog that specified an alternative (improved) method I decided to give it a try. This thought was 

further reinforced by a recommendation from realist on Pistonheads.

I therefore owe a big thanks to Daniel French and his R500 blog (http://www.caterhamr500.co.uk) as his method was faultless.

This entry would be incomplete without one further thanks to my little helper.

Things are rattling along at a blistering pace,

For a snail, however we know what happened in the race between the hare and the tortoise. Now having mixed enough metaphors it is time for an update.

I have agreed with my long suffering (pregnant) wife that the best time for me to build is when our two year one son is asleep. So last night, Thursday, I spent a couple of hours fitting the IVA protection around the wishbone cut outs. I had been advised to do this before the suspension is assembled and I can understand why!

Next up was a bit of masking tape for protection. I really hope it leaves the paint when I need to remove it.

Tonight I fitted, what felt like the first real bit, the steering rack.

It may be slow, but I am really enjoying it.

I have started

Well kind of

Having looked through the boxes I have found a few bits missing and frustratingly I have been given the wrong bonnet. Mine needs the cut out for the throttle bodies. They are not yet fitted to the engine as it won't get through the IVA with them on. I have been assured that all the other goodies are already built in. Cams - injectors - dry sump.

The one thing I have done is add some protection and treat all the susceptible area to some ACF 50

The Eagle has landed

The eagle has landed!

It is the right colour

Garage tidy

So I had two hours before delivery to sort the garage.

Before

After

The panoramic shots make the garage look massive, it is not I assure you.

WooHoo, I have a delivery date, next Wednesday.

The day is booked off work so all I need to do now is sort some space in the garage.