December 27, 2003
PBC, SVA, race prep round up
Sorry, a bit of a long delay since the last entry. I've had a chance to go round the car looking at what Caterham did at PBC/SVA, and have started to do the couple of bits and pieces needed to ready the car for racing!
Firstly, running through my list of things for Caterham to look at at the PBC, here's what they came up with. Rear brake pipe routing - they thought this was fine (at least, they didn't do anything about it or mention in. Handbrake cable on RHS - they hadn't done anything here either, and although the cable is close, it doesn't actually touch.
Rear flexible brake hose/solid hose junction was leaking. They redid this with the locknut on the 'correct' side, i.e. the opposite side to the assembly guide. I had thought this was wrong during the build, but just blindly followed the guide! Headlamp flasher switch not working - this is a common problem where the wires are on the wrong terminals at the back of the switch and was fixed. Lower rear wheel protection bar bolt - I was concerned that the standard bolt wasn't long enough to go through the RWPB as well as the chassis/A-frame. I asked Tech Help and they told me that it was fine. The 'additional' race parts guide from Caterham Midlands and the guy who did my PBC obviously thought differently as a longer bolt had been fitted.
Gearbox oil - I could only get just over 1 litre in whereas the assembly guide says 2 litres. I assume they checked it :-). Gearbox filler plug was also tightened as I've got the square rather than hex drive plug. Wing stays rubbing against the tyres - they look as if they've been bent a bit, but Caterham had already told me that they all tend to do that. Driver's seat runners not running - this seems better, although it seems to be notoriously difficult to keep the runners operational. Accelerator/brake pedal clearance - they bent the brake pedal so clearance is now fine; in fact, too much for heel and toe really. It doesn't look pretty either.
So that's it, apart from the fact that I'd notice they had drilled a small hole in the inlet side of the engine and cable tied the throttle cable to it.
Following on from the Caterham Midlands day, there were a few things I needed to do before the car would be race legal. Fitting the headrest and putting yellow tape on the battery negative lead were easy.
I also removed the steering wheel SVA boss and put some tank tape on the driver's side rail as I tread on this to get into the car.
So, I still need to get some more miles on it (!), replace the rear wing steel bolts with Nylon ones and refit the wing mirrors which were removed for SVA.
Hopefully some more regular updates will follow!
Posted by charles at December 27, 2003 11:01 AM