Days 9 & 10 (Full days)

I've been really busy trying to get as much of the car done before the weekend arrives so this post is long overdue. With Engine, Gearbox and Diff all in and the cooling pipework all sorted in the engine bay, the last couple of days have been all about the derriere (not mine!). Here's what i've been up to and the order I elected to do it in.

Dedion Tube

This was the obvious starting point. The tube is all one piece and has 'ears' which attach to each end which later become what the drive shaft pops out of and the rear calipers attach to. the first job is to attach to brake lines to the Dedion itself. A right and left are supplied for you in the kit and you need to rivet them in place, 2 rivets one side, 3 the other. You then mount a 3 way union to the back of the tube which the lines connect into. You then connect your last remaining flexible brake hose to the top of the union and you are then ready to fit it to the car.

Unfortunately no pictures of me doing this but I found the best technique was to pass the tube in (from RH side) rotating it so it would go underneath the diff and then, having popped out the other side, rotated and lifted over the chassis rails on the far side. So far so good, I had the tube lying just behind the diff, resting on the chassis tubes which I had duly covered in foam pipe insulation to stop it marking.

Rear Radius Arms

I then fitted the rear radius arms to the car. This was quite straight forward although it took me a while to work out what orientation to fit them. I even fitted one back to front initially (oops). The large bush goes at the Dedion end, narrower one on the mounting point towards the front of the car and you will find indents 'wasted edges' on the sides of the radius arms. This gives extra clearance for the caliper once fitted so make sure those are outmost.

There are actually 2 mounting points that you can choose. 'Comfort' is the higher one of the two, the lower one being more 'handling' focussed. I opted for the latter which left the radius arm tightened up and running perpendicular to the ground. I then fitted the bolt to the mounting point on the Dedion. No problems there.

Rear Radius arm bolted in

Rear ARB

I then moved on to the Rear anti-roll bar. The first stage is to get the supplied bushes on to the roll bar itself. The guide tells you to apply rubber lubricant at this point and to slide the bush down the flat part of the bar, around the corner and onto the main tube. What it fails to mention is that this is rather like being told to pull your lower lip over your forehead! Its got quite a bend to go around.

The problem

In the end i found a solution which seemed to work pretty well. Just remember to coat both the bush and the ARB in rubber lubricant to make sure everything slides nicely. Use a screwdriver to lever the bush around the corner, they are quite tough but have plenty of stretch.

The solution

The ARB is bolted to the lower chassis rail using the supplied aluminum fitting. Its exactly the same system as that used for the ARB

Rear ARB mounting point

A Frame

I grabbed this out of the box and thought yeah, this one will be on in 5 minutes. WRONG. This job took me a fair old while. Initially I started off by attaching the middle part of the A Frame to the mounting point on the Dedion tube. I got half way to 'drifting' the bolt through when I realised I hadn't put any copper slip on it, It was already a tight fit and trying to get it to come back out was really hard work. It was equally hard to get the bolt back through again and in the end it required some assistance from my better half who kindly pushed against the join with her foot from the far side of the car so that we could stop it from moving whilst I hit the bolt through from the other side. Anyway eventually it went through and I then moved on to the other 2 mounting points. At this point the guide uses the words 'centralise' and as soon as you read it you know you are in for the same difficulties as you had with the diff earlier in the build process and sure enough its near enough the same process. You have to use large washers to get the A frame (and the Dedion which is attached to it at this point) centralised. In my case I got quite fortunate as it ended up being an equal number of washers either side to get the tube within 1mm of being completely central.

Washers in place

Having done this both sides, I then had a quick look to see how close the Dedion actually is to the diff and the answer is very close indeed. Without the suspension attached at this point, I was able to move the Dedion up through its full range of travel to see at what point it would touch. The suspension would have to compress quite a way before this happens but it could conceivably happen under large compression. I'm interested to see what amendments Caterham have come up with to combat this as I can't see how anything other than a completely revised plate would solve it. We shall see...

Tight, very!

Drive Shafts

I then had a go at fitting the drive shafts. These are actually different lengths as the shape of the diff is such that the distance to the hubs is longer on one side of the car to the other. Before they can be fitted, the covering plates on the BMW diff had to be removed. A quick check with Derek at the factory confirmed that these were not to be used in anyway so it was OK to 'take to it with a screwdriver' so thats what I did. The shots below show the covers mid way through removal and then completely removed

Diff covers before removal

Mid removal

After removal

Before i stuck the drive shafts in I took a shot of what the diff looked like inside. I remember seeing a forum post some while ago saying that the type of LSD fitted to the diff could be identified from the patern inside. No idea where i read it but now that I can see what this looks like I'll be sure to dig the article out again and see if I can work it out.

LSD Inside the Diff

To fit the drive shafts, I lightly greased the ends and they slotted right in.

Gently does it

Drive Shaft push fitted into place

Dedion Ears and Hubs

I then moved on to fitting the Dedion ears to the ends of the tube. Straightforward enough once you know how although I did have to give Derek a call at the factory to confirm which bolts to use. I think the fastner packs have had a recent update and so unfortunately, where the guide tells you to use bolt (5) it is in fact bolt (6). With that all cleared up on went the ears. 2 bolts secure the ears to the Dedion, you then have 4 more bolts which are used to secure the hubs to the ears. Nuts behind the ears secured the whole thing in place.

Top Down view of Dedion Ears with Hubs attached

At this point the whole thing was nice and stable and with the suspension struts not currently fitted to the car, I took the opportunity to fit the roll bar.

FIA Roll Bar

I'd head from another 7 owner (and indeed the guide also tells you this) that you can't fit the FIA bar once the suspension dampers are in place. This is because you have to pass a bolt up through and into the roll bar from underneath, right where the suspension top mounts would be if you have them fitted.

The bar was simple enough to fit once I'd found the correct fastener pack although where the bar attaches to the rear of the boot, the bolts needed a bit of gentle persuasion to get them to go through. I really am extremely happy I purchased a soft faced hammer. It's seen a lot of action and has been great.

Rear Dampers

With the roll bar in, I then went back to fit the rear dampers. These were quite straightforward to do save for the balancing act that I had to do because I was doing it single handedly. The struts attach at the top by way of a bolt that passes through from behind where the backs of the seats would be in the interior. A straightforward 2 man job but tricky on your own as you need to line everything up by eye and then, whilst holding the strut in place, contort yourself round into the interior to try and get the bolt through. A light tap with the soft faced hammer helped here.

Shot of rear suspension needed

Drop links

The drop links supplied need to be fixed to the Rear ARB. This is straightforward enough but unfortunately I ended up breaking one of them during fitting. The link comes with two copper/brass coloured nuts at either end. One is re-used to provide a locking nut when attaching the large hexagonal spacing. At the other end (where it attaches to the roll bar), you are supposed to use the nyloc nut supplied in the fastener pack. Unfortunayely I used the supplied nut in error, threaded it and now can't remove it or do it up! I'll have to hacksaw it off completely tomorrow and await the replacement I have just ordered of the Caterham website (oops)

Drop Links to ARB

Rear Discs and Calipers 

The disks were simple enough, slide them into the hubs (they are splined) and then duly do the whole lot up using a HUGE nut. Luckily I had a 41mm socket for this, it's massive. For now, the whole lot has been torqued up to about 100 NM. Eventually I need to get this to a whopping 280 NM but I can't do that at the moment as the whole hub moves under that sort of force. Final adjustment will have to wait until the brakes have been bled and the force of the brakes can hold the whole thing still.

The rear calipers were then put on the car. Took me a while to get the orientation right but otherwise fine. I also fitted the pads at this point and I found the best method was to fit part of the caliper to the Ears then slide the pads in and then fit the bigger part of the caliper over the whole thing and then bolt it all together. Again remember the Copper Slip!

Pads fitted to 1 half of the Caliper

I've shown a picture of the bolts that attach both parts of the caliper together. I was looking through the fastener pack to try and find bolts that would work and then suddenly realised the bolts were in the boxes the calipers had arrived in - Duh!

Here is a shot of the whole thing once it had all gone together. You can see the handbrake cable has also been routed to the caliper and attached. I found getting the end of the cable over the clip on the caliper rather tricky. Loosening off the cable by winding the handbrake adjuster (white plastic thing mounted to diff) back helped with this process as did removing the spring temporarily on the caliper (copper bit shown below)

Brake Assembly

All I need to do now is see If I can find some guidance on how to finally attach the brake line to the caliper. At the moment the pipe is siting at completely the wrong orientation to get it to fit onto the calipers connection. Not sure If I'm supposed to lightly bend it into place but I'm sure a bit of investigation and I'll have it worked out.

Starting to look like a real car now, not long before I move on to doing the interior.

Coming along nicely

Day 7 & 8 (Full days)

Progress seems to have slowed a bit over the last couple of days despite me actively working on the car pretty solidly. In part this was down to waiting on a couple of missing parts to arrive from Caterham which turned up today (thanks Derek) but also because I've had to spend a fair while on the forums seeking some advice on how to complete the routing of the various pipes that make up the overall cooling/heating system. With everyone back at work (apart from me - ha ha), I've been the only 1 taking a vested interest in the car. well almost....

Not the best at car mechanics

My main aim over the last 2 days has therefore been to finish off the cooling system but also do a few of the odd jobs that I'd not got round to doing in and around the engine bay.

Cooling System & Heater

I'd already got as far as fitting the top hose to the radiator which was very straightforward. Next it was on to the bottom radiator hose and the routing necessary to take it to where it connects to the head just behind the water pump. The rest of the hoses were far more confusing and its clear that the pipes supplied and what you need to do with them have changed quite significantly since the Assembly Guide was last published back in May 2012!!! (Edit - a recent owner currently sent me the lastest version dated Dec 2012 - it still doesnt have routing for this particular variant in it though) Rather than hash out all of the things that I found wrong with the guide, here is a general summary of the main things you need to bare in mind. Look at the guidance in tandem with the diagram I've now put together of how it should all be routed and hopefully it will all start to make sense:

1. The oil breather pipe should loosely connect into an oil breather bottle (mine was missing and turned up today courtesy of Derek). You do need to drill holes into your pride and joy to fit the bracket it comes with. Its the same style as that used for the water bottle which you will likely have fitted by this point. Use the rivet gun to fix to the chassis and route the breather pipe into the top of it
2. The SuperSport R has an oil cooler (Modine) which is not mentioned in the manual, you have to accommodate for this by routing the coolant system to the modine. Hot water goes to the heater first and then onto the Modine before coming back around the system again
3. The wiring up of the heater valve is pretty well explained in the manual as its obviously not changed in years so thats worth looking at
4. In order to provide water temperature readings, a water temp sensor is supplied and exits from part of the wiring loom round the back of the engine by the water rail. This fits into a 'submarine T-piece' made out of brass which has space in it to fit the temp sensor. This fits in-line within the J-hose which you have to cut in order to fit it in. The coolant system then continues on to the heater system. This Submarine T-piece doesn't get mentioned in the guide.
5. You might need some more pipes from Caterham. I needed 2 small L shaped hoses to connect to the Modine. I only had 1 in the kit, Derek at the factory kindly sent me another couple
6. (Edit 30/8/13) Where the temp sensor is fitted to the submarine pipe there will also be a black and black/yellow wire connected into a spade terminal. There is a special spade to ring terminal connector that you will need to use to mount this to the pipe. I didn't have one of these in the kit and neither did a fellow SuperSport owner but Derek kindly sent one of those out in the post to me

So on the advice of some kind forum members, here is how I have routed all of the pipes and wired it all up. Hopefully its right and the diagrams and photos help someone when the time comes for them to repeat this part of the build:

Routing of Top Radiator Hose (Oil Breather Bottle missing)

J-Hose leading to Submarine T Piece

T Piece with attached Temp Sensor

Making up hose attachments to Heater Control Valve

Heater all plumbed in

Looking down at Modine (Note 2 x small L shaped hoses)

T Piece next to washer bottle

Throttle linkage

I then moved onto connecting up the throttle linkage to the accelerator pedal. Nothing very complicated about how it goes together and the manual is pretty clear at this point. Things I feel worthy of a mention though are:

1. The cable is basically too long. I had to bend the hell out of the accelerator pedal at the top in order to take up the slack of the cable. I was a bit worried about how much I had to bend it but apparently its pretty standard.
2. The throttle cable needs to route round the front of the engine. Cable tie it so it can't flap about
3. The bit of the cable that attaches into the pedal (it will be clear when you look at it) was in my case a little bit big to fit into the required hole. I filed a tiny bit off the end so it would go in

Bending the pedal using a jack handle

I also went and completed a job that I'd not finished since the engine and gearbox had gone in. The propshaft was still hanging loose in the transmission tunnel so, having dug out the bolts, I started trying to fit and tighten them up from the top of transmission tunnel. I could do them up but trying to get the torque wrench on was a problem from here. In the end I went under the car and got a long extension bar out and managed to do it from there more easily. Remember to put the car in gear before you start to torque up the bolts else the propshaft will spin around on you!

I then went back to fit the oil breather bracket and bottle which arrived at lunch time today in the post. Managed to snap a drill bit whilst trying to drill some of the holes in the chassis but otherwise pretty plain sailing. I added some washers to the back of the bracket before riveting it in place so as it wouldn't foul the existing rivets that are already protruding from the car slightly. And this is how she looks this evening. Starting to look like a real car already. Tomorrow its on to the rear axle and the suspension.

Day 6 (Half day)

After the onslaught of yesterdays engine fitting I decided to take it a bit easier today by doing a few of the more trivial jobs. My wife Harriet kindly offering to help me with a few of them. All in all a relaxing but frustrating day given further missing parts.

Gear Lever

Very straightforward one we'd found the correct bolts. Again we spent longer sourcing the parts than fitting the item. 3 bolts and it was in, fixing directly to the end of the gearbox.

Gear Lever in Situ

Once the lever was on, all we had to do was screw in the 'reverse switch' to the side of the gearbox doing so though the access holes that are pre-drilled in the side panel for us within the drivers side foot well. The picture below shows the switch in place with the little green connectors attached. The manual at this point talks of blocking off these holes using some large rubber grommets but we couldn't find those for love nor money. I'll be sure to ask Derek at the factory about those tomorrow just in case they missed the delivery.

Reverse switch access hole

Engine wiring and clutch release

With the engine now in the engine bay, now seemed as good a time as any to try and marry up the various parts of the wiring loom to the various connectors on the engine. The main looms were connected together (easy as its obvious they are a matched pair). We also attached the battery earth lead to the Bell Housing (hope I attached it to the right place) and the battery positive lead to the starter motor solenoid.

Main loom male/female connectors

The manual suggested we also needed to make sure that the brake switch (accessed through the pedal box cover that can be removed) was also attached into the loom. It was, having been done for us by Caterham already. Thats now the second time I've taken the lid off that to find the relevant job inside has already been done. Think I will leave it off for now.

Brake switch with connectors in place

Then it was on to fitting the clutch release cable to the attachment on the clutch master cylinder. This one confused me for a bit as there was already an insert in this fixing which needed to be removed before fitting the banjo bolt that was supposed to locate into the fitting. Caterham had kindly arranged the banjo bolt of us as part of their engine build process so it was already waiting for us at the other end of the cable coming out of the bell housing. simply removed the plug on the end and fixed it onto the clutch master cylinder.

Banjo bolt at end of clutch release cable

Exhaust Primaries, Collector and Silencer

My wife kindly lent me a hand with this one as it wasn't going to be easy to do single handedly. We started by removing the exhaust gasket which had been loosely screwed to the engine during its assembly. all the bolts were loose so we took those out, removed the protective film that was covering the exhaust ports and set the gasket to one side. Then we fed each of the exhaust primaries through the opening in the side skin as per the manual using the order outlined. We then loosely attached them to the head being sure to put the gasket back in place first.

The Collector went on next. The best technique appearing to be a combination of wiggling and lightly tapping each of the primaries towards to the collector using a soft faced hammer. Eventually all 4 went together and then it was simply a case of using the retaining springs to keep them all in place.

We then fitted the exhaust bracket that locates just ahead of the rear wheel arch. A rubber 'bobbin' goes onto this bracket, its purpose being to support the exhaust silencer once that goes on. Again the guide was a little confusing at this point as it talks about adding a bracket to the top of the bobbin. we hunted for a while for this until it dawned on me that its was actually pre-welded to the exhaust silencer itself!

Radiator Top Hose

Last job for the day was to fit the radiator top hose to the engine. This was one of the jobs I'd intended to do ahead of the engines installation but we weren't exactly sure which pipe we were supposed to attach. A post on the lotus 7 club forums cleared that one up for me and I'm pleased to say we had the relevant hose.

The Illusive Large 'L Shaped' Top Radiator Hose

Good news was that this was relatively easy to fit with the engine in situ. Identifying which of the supplied jubilee clips was the correct one to use was again a pain due to poor labeling of parts (edit 28/8/13 - actually just look at the descriptions for each item in the fastening pack, this appears to be the only pack where items have descriptions of what they are used for). It's currently protruding out the front of the car awaiting its attachment to the radiator. I presume we are going to have to cut it down to size at some point as its protruding beyond the foremost chassis rail by a good 50 cm. Unless i've routed it wrong of course....

One thing I've also done (on the strength of a suggestion made by a fellow Caterham owner) is to loosen off most of the allen key bolts that fix the plate onto the top of the gearbox. I did this before the gearbox went in leaving the oil filler plug on the side of the gearbox (large allen key headed one) done up. The intention here is to avoid having to faff about cutting down an allen key to fit onto the drain plug, instead opting to fill the gearbox with oil through the top panel. Access is actually reasonably good from both ends with access down the transmission tunnel at one end (where the gear lever is) and from the engine bay at the other. When looking down through the cover from the engine bay, provided you use a torch you can actually see the backside of the drain hole so it should be relatively easy to fill it to the intended level. More on that one when I get round to it.

Access to gearbox top plate passed the gear lever

I also took a further measurement of the diff alignment as I'd been worried the day before that it might have been out by as much as half a centimeter. Measuring again today it looks more like 2-3 mm so hopefully within limits but I'll be sure double check with Caterham.

Day 5 (Full Day)

With it being the August bank holiday, got the opportunity to spend another full day on the car. After a leisurely morning (well we were working on the car until 11pm the day before), we started to get to work on the car at around lunch time with no real preconceived ideas about exactly which bits we'd try and get done.

The engine and gearbox had finally gone together the day before so it seemed to make sense to try and get some of the remaining preparation work done so that the engine could go in as soon as we had a hoist available. Unfortunately with HSS tool hire closed for the weekend, it was looking like putting in the engine might have to wait until they reopened again the following week. So, back to the story as it unfolded:

Engine Prep

We began by looking at what else we needed to prep on the engine before it could go in. Caterham have done a pretty good job of adding most of the required bits to the engine already so the Alternator, starter motor and various other bits are already fixed to the engine. Reading the relevant section in the manual suggests that the starter motor and the Alternator both need to be removed before trying to fit the engine so wisely we ignored that advice and decided to see if it would go in with those both still attached (it won't but more on that later). There is also mention of attaching an L-shaped hose to the water jacket on the engine. Unfortunately the diagrams had all dried up in the manual by this point so its not entirely clear what pipe arrangement to use (Edit - Full diagram was created once it had gone together - see Days 7&8 for full overview). Some comments from fellow forum goers suggests that the water rail may have been removed completely now and the pipe arrangement changed to accommodate. I can feel a call to the factory coming on next week to confirm.

Handbrake and Handbrake cable

We decided to give ourselves a simpler job to do to get the day started on a positive note and get us stuck back into the build so we had a go at fitting the handbrake and associated cable. With no Diff currently in the car we felt it would be quite easy to run the cable to the rear of the car at this stage and indeed it was. Fitting the handbrake itself is reasonably straightforward and again you spend more time looking for the relevant bits to bolt it together than anything. Unfortunately we failed to find the bigger of the two clevis pins that you need to fix it together so have had to resort to a second hand bolt and nut for now until I can ask Caterham for a replacement.

Bolt in place of Clevis Pin (Middle of shot)

The only other slight complication is the arrangement of what looks to be a switch for the handbrake. There is only a single connector to attach to the switch and yet there are 2 spade connectors that would readily accept the connector. I went for the one in the middle and will no doubt be coming back to change it to the other terminal at a later date. Still I've got a 50% chance it's right.

Handbrake switch

And that was it, it was time for lunch. Today we were home alone and decided to play it safe after yesterdays debacle and opted for some simple toasted sandwiches, mmmmm.

Then it was back to the Assembly Guide to see what other jobs could be usefully undertaken whilst I had the additional help of Leon. A quick check of that and also the forums suggested that we could look to get the dreaded differential in so thats what we decided to have a go at next.

Differential and Prop shaft

I'd heard lots of nasty stories about this particular job so naturally I feared the worst. The diff itself is quite a nicely packaged arrangement, the carrier in particular being quite compact. Taking it out of the box however confirmed that although reasonably small, the thing weighs a considerable amount.

I'm no anorak when it comes to Caterham diffs but my understanding is that it's a BMW diff with, in my case, a 3.9 ratio LSD in it. Not sure exactly which type of LSD Caterham have fitted to it but believe it may be a Quaife? I've also heard some horror stories about the rear plate not being of great design with some owners reporting that the back of the differential has been hitting the Dedion tubes in some of their cars with suspension fully compressed. I'm not sure if I have the new or old type of carrier but Caterham have assured me that they will swap it over to the new type when they do the post build check if its the old.

Rear Differential and carrier

So we set about trying to get it installed and I was thankful that we had 2 of us doing it. On the advice of those that had done this job before, we ignored what the manual said slightly and opted to fit the lower 2 bolts in first (copper slip galore!), leaving the top of the diff in place by locating a couple of screwdrivers into the top mounts. We then set about measuring how central the diff was down at the lower mounting holes and began to take the left and right lower bolts out one at a time in order to add the necessary washers. We were quite pleased with our progress on this bit, it taking no more that 30 minutes with the pair of us shoved underneath the car. A measurement confirmed that we had it exactly centered at the bottom.

Note to others doing this job - just make sure that the brake lines aren't fouling the diff and that the connectors to hold the brake line in place on both sides are located in their relevant slots. The  adjuster (white plastic thing - see image below) locates onto a plate welded directly to the diff carrier.

Then it was time for the top bolt and oh my days was this a pain in the arse or what. The fact is that the tolerance on the top mounts attached to the chassis must not be that high as although we could get the bolt in (top right mounting) we couldn't get the bolt to go through to the other side as the alignment was quite a way out. After much swearing (sorry to my neighbors) and clever use of a jack to push the bottom of the diff up slightly we were still a good 3mm out. If I hadn't read previous posts on the forums regarding this job I'd probably have been more worried at this point but apparently it's quite common and the best tool for the job is simply more welly (Clarkson would love this job). So it was out with the soft faced hammer to 'give it some'. After a couple of hefty blows the top bolt was through - yipeee!

We did our best to add washers either side of the top bolt to try and sort the alignment out but to be honest there wasn't a lot of space to add many washers and the few that did go in required a bit of a hammer to get them to go. Ive taken an initial measurement and it seems to me like the diff could be as much as 0.5cm out of true alignment at the top and yet perfectly aligned at the bottom bolts?!? - I think I'll go back and take some more measurements this morning just to double check. Here's hoping I don't have to take it out again!

Rear Diff Top Bolt finally in

Despite it having taken the best part of 3 hours to reach this point we were feeling really rather smug at what we'd accomplished. I then promptly smacked my head on the corner of one of the lowered floors as I tried to crawl out from under the car and so the balance was restored

Ouch

At this point we felt it prudent to put the prop shaft into the transmission tunnel so it was in the right place before the engine and gearbox were added. I'd heard too many stories of others forgetting to do that only to find they had to remove either the engine or diff again later to get it in! We just left it hanging next to the diff for now.

By this point it was 5pm in the afternoon and time was moving on but as luck would have it, a very kind gentleman who lives close by kindly offered us an engine crane to use and said we could pop over to get it if we wanted. By 6:30pm we were back home again with it and thought why not try and get the engine in? So thats what we did.

Engine and gearbox fitting

With the crane quickly erected it wasn't long before we had the engine and gearbox swinging free and we began to try and lower it into the chassis. With the engine and gearbox already attached to one another we needed to achieve quite an angle on the whole thing. We also found that we couldn't get the  engine high enough (would have hit the crane arm on the roof) to clear the front chassis cross members so in the end resorted to dropping the car a considerable amount at the front using some conventional axle stands. Then we began to lower it all in being careful to go very slow with it all.

Slowly slowly creepy creepy

Nearly there

Unfortunately it wasn't long before we ran into some problems, the main one being a lack of clearance. The whole thing is an extremely tight fit and eventually despite our best efforts we admitted defeat and removed the Alternator to make some more space. Even then it was still pretty tight.

For those not sure, the tensioner is at the top right and just needs turning with a socket to slacken the belt right off. Just remember how it goes back on for later!

Removing the belt

Space left once Alternator removed

And that gave us the remaining clearance we needed to get it in. I'm pleased to say that our hunch about not having to remove the starter motor proved correct so that was one thing we were pleased not to have to refit later . Using a process of lowering the engine slightly at the front whilst progressively raising the end of the gearbox in the transmission tunnel (using a jack) and exercising plenty of patience we got the job done.

Some potentially useful tips for anyone else struggling with this process.

• Consider removing the washer bottle off its bracket - we found the engine mount on that side was fouling it and we didn't want to wreck it. Its possible (though fiddly) to refit the bottle to its bracket once the engine is in its final resting place.
• Consider refitting the Alternator when the engine is not quite fully down into the engine bay and its weight is still supported by the hoist. There was good access from underneath to do this
• Have someone doing the lowering at the front whilst someone is under the car at the rear to raise the gearbox over the rear gearbox mounting point and to ensure that the end of the gearbox locates properly into the propshaft as the engine is lowered

Gearbox about to connect to propshaft

Redoing the Alternator from underneath

Engine fully home

Getting the engine mounts located using the supplied bolts into the rubbers attached to the chassis proved quite a challenge. Its easy on the exhaust side as clearance isn't an issue with the primaries currently missing. On the other side though it was a pain. In the end I resorted to doing that one up from underneath the car using a large allen key. There was no way of getting a socket in there let alone the torque wrench so I resorted to a spanner located onto the end of an allen key to give me the leverage I needed to get it nice and tight.

Finally (and it was midnight by this point), we refitted the washer bottle. Again a right pain in the arse and I can't help but feel that a different type of bracket would make the whole process a fair bit easier but its back on the car finally and it was off to bed for a well deserved rest.

Day 4 (Full day)

And finally the weekend has arrived and the first opportunity to work on the car for a full day and what a day it was too. My friend Leon arrived in the morning (with a hangover) having been out for 'some drinks' the night before. I did the decent thing, took pity on him and put him straight to work on reading the next stages in the assembly guide. If his head wasn't scrambled before it certainly was after that.

Leon's first taste of the wonderful Assembly Guide

Quite a few jobs were on the agenda for today and I will go through the order in which we completed them.

Adding the Uprights & Wingstays

Job number 1 seamed like reasonably safe ground on which to start the day. The Uprights were both in a box of their own labelled left and right respectively so we took them out and then set to work. Frankly there is only one way these are going to go on the car so there is little to get wrong here. Just needed to make sure that the various bolts were torqued to their correct settings.

The Wingstays fit over the large bolt that holds the upright assemblies together (big bolt that goes right through the middle). You have to temporarily remove this bolt, fit the wingstay over it and then refit the bolt. The guide does tell you to discard the nyloc nut that was previously on there, presumably because they don't work so well once refitted. Unfortunately we couldn't locate any replacements in the parts supplied so these have had to go back onto the car again with a liberal application of Loctite. Hopefully this suffices. 

Anti-roll bar

Next we moved on to fitting the Anti-roll bar to the front of the car. Again reasonably straightforward once you know how and quite a fun job given all the sexual innuendoes which are impossible to avoid given the need to regularly talk about greasing ones balls (ahem).

Once the plastics balls had been fitted to the end of the roll bar, we plastered them both in LM grease and then set about pushing them into the plastic cups that form part of the upper wishbone. This was reasonably straightforward with two of us on the job but we did need to apply a fair bit of pressure to get them to locate. Remember to pass the little rubber boots up the anti-roll bar before pushing the ends into the cups as these are then used to cover over the ends of the cups and keep all the grease in the joint. Cable ties are used to keep them in situ.

Front ARB located into Top Wishbones

Front ARB mounts

Brake Hoses, Calipers & Pads

Then it was onto the front brake hoses and Calipers. Once they'd been found this was again a reasonably straightforward job. You need to be a little careful not to over-tighten the nuts either side of the side skin where the brake hose passes through the side of the car to make sure you don't crush the aluminum too much. The end of the hose that you are left with nearest the brakes locates to the caliper by way of a banjo bolt. That bit's easy and the only thing you are really left to think about is the routing of the brake line itself. We opted to fit it through the triangle that is formed by the attachment of the Wingstay. A quick check by way of turning the steering fully from lock to lock confirms that nothing will be fouled with this arrangement and that there is sufficient length on the hose not to rip it from the car on full lock!

Routing of brake line

The Calipers were another straightforward fit. They'd both been kindly scribbled on in marker pen to indicate which was left and which was right. The guide made no mention of the fact that these were to be fitted at this stage with the brake pads in but we chose to do that anyway as it seemed logical to do so. We were surprised at just how small the front pads were but then I guess the car is so light it simply doesn't need the stopping power of larger more modern machinery.

It shouldn't be too confusing when you fit them but just in case, the arrangement looks as follows when you do. Make sure that the curved part of the pad is towards the outside of the caliper (so that it follows the natural curvature of the disk once fitted). The securing pins work as shown in the image below. We also applied lots of copper slip to the backs of the pads at this point to ensure no squeaking of the brakes later.

Locking the front pads in place

The bolts that are used to secure the calipers to the uprights had been loosely fitted to the upright assemblies for us by Caterham. We quickly removed them and then reused them to bolt the calipers in place. We did make a small mistake at this point and initially had the supplied washer up against the bolt head. This meant there was no clearance between the caliper and the ends of the hubs. Re-arranging it to that shown below just gets you the clearance you need.

Correct sequence of bolt and washer to gain clearence

This is what the final assembly looked like viewing it end on with brake pads in place:

Completed brake assembly

At this stage we broke for a well deserved lunch. This year my wife and I had decided we'd plant some Courgettes in the garden (something not previously tried) and so today it was decreed that we'd be having Courgette soup. As lovely as it was, this was something we would later come to regret as it began to work its way through our digestive tracks. I won't go much further other than to say that its quite a small garage and that opening the window was definitely required later in the evening!

Engine & Gearbox prep

This one took us most of the afternoon (about 4 hours in all) as things didn't go quite as smoothly as we'd hoped. Being a Duratec car, the bell housing had come pre-attached to the engine. The guide suggests that you should then offer up the gearbox to the bell housing, locating the splines at the end of the gearbox shaft into the hole in the bell housing. Could we get it to locate? Could we heck. After much deliberating and swearing we resorted to asking a question on the Lotus 7 Club's forum to see if anyone could shed any light on it for us. The general consensus that came back within only a matter of minutes (got to love the power of the forums) was that there was nothing obviously wrong with what we were trying, but that removing the bell housing from the engine and fitting that to the gearbox first might help. So thats what we did, took it off, bolted bell housing to gearbox (the bolts were a very tight fit) and then offered that lot up to the engine and hurray, it went on first time. It was still a tight fit mind and the bolts going into the engine effectively had to be used to pull the thing together finally. We were careful to ensure we went round the various bolts tightening them bit by bit to make sure we pulled the whole thing on as straight as possible. The final arrangement is shown below and is now almost ready to be fitted to the car:

Measuring the shaft to try and work out where we were going wrong

Complete engine, bell housing and gearbox assembly

It was then onto some of the smaller jobs

Washer bottle, Horns, Engine mounts and Earth Lead

I particularly enjoyed fitting the washer bottle, mainly because its a job that we seemed to manage on the first time of asking. You have to fit the washer jet (there is only 1) to the scuttle which is pretty simple. The hardest part is getting the plastic tubing onto the end of it. After a few times trying to do this blind by passing my hands under the dash and feeling for it, I gave up and resorted to a new method which I'm sure is almost certainly how they do it down at Dartford.

The inverted attach method

Once the pipe was on the end of the washer then I set about running the pipe along the existing wiring loom that passes down through the bulk head and exists part way down the transmission tunnel. This job was definitely easier using the method shown above as I could easily see what it was I was attaching the cable ties onto. We then neatly ran the rest of the plastic tube down to the (newly located) washer bottle, the bracket for which was already attached to the chassis in the engine bay.

Plastic tubing leading to washer bottle

Washer bottle in position

It was starting to get late by this point so we finished off with a couple of simpler jobs these being the horns. these are very straightforward and need no explanation. Simply attach them to the relevant part of the chassis having first loosened them off on the bottom so that they can be rotated (you need to get them so that the single connecting plug can reach the connectors on both horns). Make sure they don't touch each other (presumably so they don't resonate against each other when you use them).

The engine mounts were already fitted to the engine in my case but the rubber bushes that they locate into needed to be added to the chassis. One of these also needs the engine earth lead attaching to it to provide a ground for the engine. This was another nightmare part to find. In the end I had to resort to the pick list that comes with the car to try and find what the part number was for this. Eventually I found the relevant part identifier and duly found the cable I needed in a pack that had been loosely put together in the boot of the car with no other useful identifiers on the pack.

So thats now on the car, tomorrow we look to do the various other bits of engine prep work before we attempt to fit the engine, although we do need to source a crane first.....