September 7, 2003
Day 4 - a bad one
Decided to loosen off the top and bottom upright bolts to see what difference it makes to the upright/steering stiffness. The steering is a bit looser, but not what I expected (although how I know what to expect is anyone's guess). I think about proceeding with the steering, but it appears that the grommet where the steering column exits the pedal box towards the front of the car is missing - you can see the hole (with the column through it) in the picture below.
Trial fit the steering column and boss and find that I can turn it by hand pretty easily. Now the uprights don't feel tight! So I tighten the uprights back to 54Nm lower/61 Nm top and it goes a bit tight. Not too bad though. Having a look through the guide in more detail I notice that (for the top/ball joint for example) there is a difference in torques in different parts of the manual. 61 Nm in the text, 48 Nm in the summary at the end of the chapter (with 45 lbft equivalent!) and 48 Nm in the summary at the end of the manual (with 35 lbft equivalent). Get a bit fed up and decide that I need to ask Caterham which one they want me to use.
Can't really do anything permanent on the steering because of the missing grommet.
Look at the diff (which has everything cut and filed already for me) but I don't really want to do any more with so many things outstanding. The manual also says to remove the forward boot floor but mines got a fire extinguisher attached and plumbed into it so it's not that easy.
Grumpily decide to give up for the day and weekend and wait for Caterham to clarify some things for me.
2 hours today, 9 hours total.
Posted by charles at September 7, 2003 12:55 PM