October 4, 2003
Day 16 - plumbing (oil) and exhaust
The aim this weekend is to get the engine started. I needed to fit the Apollo first (or oil/air separator) and the first step is to fit the lower bracket to the chassis members. It's pretty tricky as you have to avoid the LHS suspension mounting and the alternator belt; plus you have to drill through the chassis members so don't want to get it wrong. In the end I modified the bracket slightly (look at the top left hole) so that I could move the bracket towards the front of the car a bit and drill centrally into the chassis members. There's also a top bracket to fit.
I put some PTFE tape on the drain plug and the temp sender to try and reduce the chance of leaks. I struggled for ages to try and match the routing of the oil pipes in the guide but eventually had to settle for my own routing - I also changed the horns round so that they were facing downwards. This gave me some more clearance for the pipes. In the end, I managed to keep everything out of the way of the alternator belt (I hope!)
I had a bit of trouble locating the black and yellow wire for the oil temperature sender in the Apollo. There was a wire wrapped round the upper LHS chassis member but it was shinkwrapped and so I couldn't see the colour and I didn't really want to start pulling it apart. Blatchat suggested that it could be low down and I found a black and yellow wire and connected it in - it did look as if it was from the engine loom rather than the chassis which made be a bit suspicious. A subsequent reply suggested that the wire wrapped round the chassis member might be the right one. Something to sort out then.
Went on to fit the exhaust without too much problem.
I went on to start to fit the radiator but one of the bobbins had a really short thread and so I need to get another. The list for Caterham on Monday is starting to get pretty long.
Did some wiring - plugged in the ECU and immobiliser (which I had to fit first as it was out of stock when my chassis was built) and then got confused about the battery master switch leads. Although the guide mentions the battery master switch I think it's inconsistent. It says that two brown wires should be connected to the solenoid and that a red wire should be connected directly to the battery. The latter certainly didn't sound right as this would bypass the master switch and I couldn't find the two brown wires. In the end I assumed that these were wired to the output of the battery master switch.
5.5 hours today, 56.5 hours total.
Posted by charles at October 4, 2003 8:05 PM