Front Suspension

Right - spanners at the ready, let's build a car!

First job in the Assembly Guide is to protect the whole front-end paintwork of the car prior to assembly of the front suspension components. This took over an hour - I used thick polythene sheet and masking tape. The first proper mechanical install is the steering rack - no problem here, except they have improved the design of the mounting bolts so you don't need the washers mentioned in the Guide. Note that the steering column and wheel don't get put in until after the engine install, and you must leave the bolts on the rack loose for the moment.

I was slightly confused about the PVC boots on the track-rod ends, until I realised that the ones supplied in the kit have to have their ends sliced off with a Stanley knife in order to fit.

Next the lower wishbones are installed, with copious copper-slip grease. Again no real problems - instructions are clear and precise. Front hubs and upper wishbones are next, but if you have the ventilated disc & 4-pot caliper option (the salesman talked me into it) then remember to install the brake pads first before building up (the cycle wing support bracket covers the brake pad locating pin).

The only confusing part of this section was the headlamp mounts - Caterham have switched to the "EU4" style which is not covered in the Guide. The new bracket fits over the front-top wishbone mount, but you need a couple of extra 10mm flat washers to pad out the bracket and make a tight fit. Installing the spring/damper units was quite a struggle: I used a soft-head hammer to knock the top bushes into place, but I have had to order some special hexagonal-drive sockets to be able to torque the damper Allen bolts correctly.

Final job on the front suspension system is the installation of the front anti-roll bar. The bar is supported by brackets on the chassis front, but the actual bar-ends have plastic balls screwed into them which locate into sockets on the top of the upper suspension wishbones. It was fiddly getting the plastic balls to sink into the sockets - First you need to bend the roll bar to get the balls roughly in the correct place, then work the bar up and down a few times to make the balls enter the sockets correctly. Rubber boots are cable-tied over the joints to prevent ingress of crap.

  

Last job in this section: connect the flexible brake pipes between the disk calipers and the copper pipe unions inside the chassis. Only problem here is guessing how tight to make the joints...

Engine & gearbox next.