Checkup

Yesterday I decided to check the car. It now has roughly 3500 km on the counter.

I had to add almost a liter of oil. Oil filling on the CSR is tedious if you don't know how to do this. The first time around I recall having had difficulty in getting the level right. And this time was no different. It seemed as if I had to put in a tiny bit of oil but the level hardly changed. Then, all of a sudden, the level went over the maximum and I haqd to tap off a bit of oil. The trick appartently is to fill oil, let the engine run a short time to get the oil pumped around, then to wait and to measure the level. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I also decided to refit the heater valve. That was one of the remarks made by the engineer that checked the car. So now it is as intended. (The other items on the TODO list I already had fixed.) The reason for waiting with the valve was that this is best done in good weather. Also, the valve wasn't shuttung perfecly and with warm weather this turned into a problem as the heater consequenty was always turned on. I noticed that the valve has a preferred flow direction and that I had it fit in reverse. It now should work.

Approval and Registration

Since my last post much water passed under the bridge.

I put in the carpets. I used Velcro to attach most of the carpets. This way I can very easily take them out for cleaning. The carpets on the transmission tunnel and the bulkhead are glued.

Then the weather equipment was fitted. Everything went fine and Chrigel helped me with the tonneau cover.

As a last thing before bringing the car in for approval I had to move the inertia switch to the left hand side of the car and use rubber bushes to fit it.

Then my wife Irma strongly advised me to take a week off and we took a trip to Spain. Irma arranged everything so that on my birthday we were in Figueres where we visited the Salvador Dalí museum. Next day we went to see his house in Port Lligat and later in the week we visited Barcelona. A truly brilliant way to distract oneself from the daily routine. The kids were good and were apparently pleasantly surprised by Dalí's work and the architecture in Barcelona. Of course we also went to the beach while we were at it.

On the 29 October 2008 I borrowed Hans-Peter's, car rented a car trailer, loaded up the Caterham and brought the it in for approval at Kumschick Sports Cars in Schötz in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland.

Apart from a few bolts which had to be tightened an apart from an engine management connector which was loose everything was good enough to allow the car on the road.

I still have a few minor things to do which I will do later this week:

• Fit a new windscreen stanchion -the one I have got dented- and a right hand side mirror. With this I won't need the rear view mirror and thus I'll have an even nicer view. Here in CH this is allowed, I don't know how the regulations in other countries.
  
• Move the rear silencer slightly to the back.
• Slightly reposition the steering column.
• Fixate the the positive lead from the battery so that it will remain away from the engine. Wear on the cable may result in unfortunate situations.
• Swap the Schroth "Profi II-FE asm" seat belts from left to right.

The loose connector on the engine management unit caused a single error with the fuel pressure. More fuel was added and the control unit for the fuel pump was replaced but still the problem remained. After some time the engine management was checked and the culprit was found. To be completely fair, the culprit was yours truly for not checking the connector in the first place.

At around 18:00 I loaded up the Caterham on the trailer and started driving home. We had a wonderful October with marvellous clear and sunny days where we could see the Pilatus mountains of the canton of Lucerne and the Alps of the canton of Glarus. That is until it was time to transport the car home. Snow started pouring down and the next day we had about 50 cm of it. As temperatures are still above freezing the snow isn't much fun for the kids to play as you get soaked when doing so.

The good this is no salt was used on the roads. When the weather improves I might get the Caterham out for a first trip. When doing so I will have to take into consideration that the tyres are particularly suited for summer weather and that lower temperatures have a negative effect. Also the brakes need to be run in and after around 200 km of periodical testing they will start working really well.

Yesterday I got my license plates. Now I am waiting for the right weather.

Fluids and electric finishing

Last 2 weeks I put the fluids into the car. Not much to see here so no images. The kids helped me with the bleeding of the breaks and the clutch. They got to sit in the car first.

I finally found the last missing electrical connection and now the whole electric system seems to work. The starter motor turns but I still haven't got any petrol in.

Next thing I'll be doing is the carpets. Partly I'll be gluing them and for some of them I'll try velcro.

Cooling, exhaust, wings

This week was good. Initially I thought I'd only do the cooling tubes and radiator. But as you see from the left front wing, I got further than I thought.

After the cooling tubes I tried the exhaust. At first I had to study this but then it went in like a charm.

For the front wings I hat to get special SIKA adhesive which is not sold in shops. It happened that a trading company at the other side of the Albis "mountain range" had this. Took me 20 minutes in all to get this. To properly fit the front wings I had to mount the front wheels and that was the point where the "tin can" transformed into something that resembled a car. So after the front wings were on, off I went for the rear wings. Now people around me notice the difference just that bit more.

Rear suspension

This weekend I had two social events so I only managed to fit the rear suspension. Nothing spectacular here. The thing worth mentioning is that the brake cables have to be led well away from the drive shafts.

LSD

Yesterday I contemplated and today I fited the limited slip differential. (What were you thinking?)

LSDs are heavy. Especially when you have to "bench press" them into a narrow space following words in a "foreign" language. "Tilt it to the right" it read and I tilted to the right and a fair bit to the back. Finally I tilted just to the right end all was fine.

I got help however. My daughter Giulia patianlty waited at my side an pushed the differential bolt in at the right moment. Thanks Giulia.

Then later on I contemplated the rear suspension and discussed this heavily with Chrigel. Beer tastes so much better when supported by a good argument.

Mates

Yesterday 30 August 2008 we got the engine in. I say we meaning Hans-Peter, my neighbour Chrigel and myself.

Hans-Peter is the guy that helped me transporting the Caterham from the dealer to my place. (Which took from 3 to 11 PM.) He has a pallet lift which is used as engine hoist. It needed maintenance on the braking system but on Friday morning we put it on his trailer and got it to my garage.

On Friday afternoon I got an "emergency" call from work. So on the evening I prepared -almost- everything in order to fit the engine. Nuts, bolts, the fitting screen wiper tubing... The works.

On Saturday Hans-Peter arrived and after a getting-to-know-each-other-nod we set off. I explained the situation and sure enough we -well they- did find the vacuum system I could not. (As a word on my defence, I have a German manual for the CSR and my German is far from perfect.)

Anyway, after having struggled a bit with the improvised engine hoist we got cracking. As both Hans-Peter and Chrigel have much more experience at fitting engines then me, they did most of the work. The engine of a Caterham CSR fits rather tightly and there isn't too much room for manoeuvre. With a few ups, downs, lefts, rights, forwards and backwards everything went OK.

Without Hans-Peter and Chrigel building the Caterham would be so much more effort. More importantly without them it would be so much less fun. Thanks mates.