Weather kit and sundry bits

The project is getting close to completion now, and I've started reading through the new IVA Guide provided by Caterham. The first thing that hit me was that all my work on the front lights (see the previous blog post) was going to have to be done all over again! The new rules state that all wiring harnesses need to be sleeved, and wherever a harness passes through metal it needs to have a grommet. So the main headlamp harnesses need to be reworked, and the indicator repeater wires where they go through the cycle wingstays need to be re-routed via grommets, and (most irritating of all) I need to add grommets to the top wishbone mounts, requiring the wishbones to be disconnected (which in turn means unbolting the front anti-roll bar). Bugger. All this faff took me a whole day.

 Grommets a-plenty

As with most of the frustrating jobs on the car, I feel much happier now that this has been done...

Next, I re-connected the battery to check the lights were all still working. This revealed quite a perplexing problem with the indicator repeaters working intermittently. After much probing with my meter, I located the problem to poor earth continuity on the actual hub assemblies (left & right), which are the return electrical connection for the indicator repeaters. This is because the only mechanical connections to the hub are via wishbones, track-rod ends etc. and all these are via plastic or rubber bushes. In fact the only metal-to-metal connection from the hub to the car chassis is via the brake hose (!). So my wiring problem was due to a tarnished copper washer on the brake pipe entry to the caliper. Who'd have guessed that?

Now, with the electrics finally put to bed, next job is to fit the weather equipment. This meant first of all that I could finally re-install the boot floor and carpet, tie up the diff breather pipe (which I have brought through the boot floor, clipped to the sidewall, and added a black-painted breather from a toilet cistern), and bolt down the luvverly painted roll cage.

Next, the hood goes on. This is, as anyone with knowledge of Sevens knows, something of a Heath-Robinson affair. Nevertheless my hood fitted OK, although I hope I don't often have to use this in anger or in despair.....

I also drilled holes and bolted on the hinges to take the doors (or "sidescreens" as you are supposed to call them, because for legal reasons a "door" is fixed, whereas the Caterham screens are removeable).

Next I fitted the IVA mirrors, which are bolted onto the windscreen uprights (rather than onto the sidescreens). Finally I fitted the boot cover, which requires fixing the "durable dot" popper buttons to the leatherette cover. I'm not very happy with the tool supplied for this - it doesn't do a very good job of peening over the dot button rivets, and I think I'll do these again later.

Last, but definitely not least, I applied the rear-end badges. I think this looks bloody good myself...

The only thing left to assemble on the whole car is the exhaust silencer, which I bolted on without the supplied heatshield (because the shield appartently fails IVA).

The end is in sight now......