September 14, 2003
Day 7 - roll cage and start the diff fitting
Off to Beckenham this morning to pick up the tap. Have a chat with Pete (thanks again!) before coming back and running the tap through from the inside of the car to the outside so that the existing thread pattern is well established before reaching the cross threaded bit. Seems to work well, but an awful lot of material comes out. However, the bolts now go in beautifully - better than the non-tapped side I have to say. I expand all the holes I drilled yesterday with the Dremel to make sure that there is a clear path for the bolts and prevent me from cross threading. Finally, the cage goes on and I bolt in in place (except for the one bolt that I'd destroyed cross-threading the boss; need to ask Caterham for another). It was a bit nerve wracking torquing up the bolts into the tapped thread, but they didn't let go and the torque wrench clicked - sorted! A bit of damage (see below) from the cage where I constantly took it off and on but it is a race car after all (subsequent polishing with Autosol improved it a lot). James from Caterham had thrown me slightly by including some plain washers with the front fixings, but I just assumed these went under the spring washers.
With the cage finally fitted, it appears that you can get to the harness bolts; it must be an improvement with the new cage. Oh well, nothing lost.
Moved on to trial fit the diff. At the suggestion of Steve (or Grubbster, who is currently building his car as well) I checked the diff lower mounting threads. The nearside was fine, but the offside was very tight. I gingerly did the bolt up in to clear the thread a bit and then blasted the hole clean with WD40.
I hadn't arranged for any help with the diff and it was a bit of a challenge with my Black & Decker workbox, pieces of wood and bubble wrap to get it aligned with the top mounting bolt. A few washers later, I managed to get a pretty exact centre (the guide suggests +/- 2mm).
Decided not to fit it tonight, and will probably pick up this next weekend. I might bend the brake pipes onto the De Dion during the week as I can do that in the house and I need to take my time.
5 hours today, 22.5 hours total.
Posted by charles at September 14, 2003 6:40 PM