Engine connections

These past 2 days we have mostly managed to get the engine all connected up using a very useful diagram Derek (Thanks!) had emailed us around the time of our wedding (see below). We also managed to sort out some other outstanding items and once again decent progress was made!

Diagrammatic view of the connections for the engine.

One of the things I've now learnt as I write this piece is that the routing of pipes and wiring is time consuming. Especially considering when you think you've got it worked out and then you realise you've forgotten another connection is going through the same space, ruining your plan, or requiring you to cut a cable tie AGAIN and retie with the new connection! Frustrating, but also most rewarding when it's complete and looks 'proper'. The reason I say this to you is that it might not look like much has been achieved when you scroll down the page, but believe you me a lot of work has been done and we now understand our engine a lot more than we did at the start of the two days!

First off was the 'Submarine'; (see below) the manual mentions it but in reality we had no idea what this meant, or did.

This is a Caterham 'submarine' (except it's also the wrong type for our car)

We were aware of a couple of hanging electrical connections on the rear near the top of the engine, the diagram finally showed us that those leads were an the earth lead and a water temperature probe that fits into this 'Submarine'. But what did the extra T-piece do? Was there a pipe we were missing from the diagram? How to connect the earth lead onto the Submarine? Nothing was supplied. Turns out it's the wrong type of submarine for our car (It's for an old R500 model?) and Derek will send us a new one through the post. Phew.

With that riddle resolved we moved onto fitting the heater control cable, simple task, just had to deburr the hole through the firewall.

Heater control cable routing out of the firewall.

Heater temperature control knob, driver's side, under the dashboard.

Once this was done we then cut the relevant pipework to size (manual mentions 120mm), we cut ours to 115mm and 100mm respectively, to make sure the valve was correctly placed for the heater control cable to run between the battery and heater assembly.

Heater temperature control valve.

Connecting the cable to the valve was a little fiddly, we spent a fair amount of time adjusting the sheath so that the full throw of the cable fully opened and closed the valve onto its stops.

T-piece out of the left side of the engine.

We thought it would be a good idea to start from the lowest point with the rest of the pipe connections, as access would become increasingly difficult if we were to start from top down. With that plan in mind we connected up the modine pipes and ran them to their respective locations including the T-piece (above) on the left of the engine. We had to remove the windscreen washer bottle to help with pushing the pipes into place. Then it was the turn of the expansion bottle and the radiator.

Expansion bottle connected.

Whilst I was swearing at the lack of access and using a lot of rubber lubricant to fit everything, (then forgetting to fit a jubilee clip and doing it all over again) Dad drilled a hole for the oil breather bottle and fitted the rubber elbow and union supplied, we aren't happy with how the elbow sits on the bottle (it's twisting upwards). Perhaps we cut the pipe (on the left) too short, however we'll rectify this next time (plenty of pipe left over in the box to correct our error!).

Oil Breather bottle with elbow.

Next we finally managed to get the wiring attached to the starter motor, we'd been having problems with the nut not engaging with the threads (again see earlier post), however we managed to make it work this time.

Positive wires connected to starter.

One of the outstanding tasks today involved fitting the new reverse light switch to the gear box, which Derek had sent us to replace the one we had inadvertently broken (again see a previous post). Didn't take too long, although getting the thread started was a pain.

Broken reverse light switch replaced

One thing we noticed from the loan car for the wedding was that the bracket for the throttle cable was rusty (on a relatively new car too), so we resolved to paint ours. I removed the bracket from the plenum and primed it, ready for painting the next day, I'm not a painter, so it's a little rough and ready, but seeing as it's under a bonnet and rarely seen, I'm ok with that! We'll fit that and the throttle cable next time.

Plenum throttle cable bracket primed.

It was getting late on the last day at this point, so we didn't get to finish fitting the airbox and filter, it didn't help that there are no instructions for this in the assembly guide. However we found out from another blog that you need to fit a rubber seal to the airbox intake that seals to the corresponding hole in the bonnet. No pictures yet, but will show you what we mean in our next update.

Only thing missing is the airbox.

Aaaaaand............we're back...

Hi all,

We are back and building again! It's been crazy busy here since the wedding this past month and there is no sign of it abating anytime soon. However Dad and I hope to be posting more regularly and we hope to be making good progress over the coming weeks!

First off, around the time of the Wedding Loan Car (thanks once again Caterham!) - see previous post for details, Caterham informed us that we had to change our fuel gauge. This was due to our new Ford Duratec Engine now being made in Mexico (I believe) and there had been some minor changes to the ancillaries. We were sent the new Gauge (below left), to replace it and to send the old gauge back.

 

New (left) and old fuel gauge. Some cosmetic changes.

On the face of it, this appeared to be a quick and easy replacement job, however when we removed the old gauge from the dashboard it turned out to be far from a 'bolt-off, bolt-on' job, see below:

New gauge (left), showing the new style wiring connections versus the old spade clips style.

The wiring connections are completely different; the new gauge having an integrated 6-pin connection, versus the old gauge's three pin and a bulb holder. Naturally we can't find the right plug in the loom behind the dashboard and got onto Caterham, they are investigating, when we know something so will you. I really hope there isn't too much remedial wiring required... 

[EDIT 28/4/16: Latest info from Caterham is that it is more than likely going to have to be looked at in the Post-build check. Sounds like a connector will have to be spliced into the loom somehow.]

Loom connections don't fit new style gauge...

With that on the back burner for now, we turned our attention to fitting what Dad calls the 'Monuments' for the engine. These are the fixed parts that don't move under the bonnet and have all the connections going to and from them i.e. the heater, the water tank etc. The reason for this is that we could then more easily visualise where all the piping had to run and to work out the actual lengths of pipe required. We decided to fit the heater first and was a relatively simple job to do, we just had to enlarge the mounting holes, as the bolts supplied were too big.

Enlarging mounting holes on the heater.

Heater mounted.

The heater outlets under the dash.

EDIT 14/May/16
Andrew Bissell (who has a fantastic blog here) noticed that we've put the assembly in the pic above upside down and left a comment below. This has now been rectified; the 'ears' (see below) should protrude down from the bottom of the scuttle/firewall to blow air forwards towards your feet. This has now been rectified. Thanks Andrew!

'Ears' pointing down now...

One of the tasks on the manual that I wasn't looking forward to was mounting the oil breather bottle bracket onto the chassis rail. To compound matters we couldn't find the fixings required for the job in the fixings pack (a perennial problem!).

To do the job it required drilling off the existing rivet in order to use the vacated hole for a new one, this was so that the right side of the bracket could be attached. Also it meant drilling a completely new hole, through the chassis tube, for the corresponding rivet on the left side of the bracket, no mistakes allowed! In the end, I needn't have worried as it worked a cinch. The bracket (see below) is well and truly fixed and the bottle fits perfectly.

Oil Breather Bottle Bracket (note the 2 black rivets used)

The next job was to fit the radiator, again the SV arrangement is rather different, and the relevant section for the Duratec models was very short, vague and had few pictures to guide us! Fortunately there is a picture in the Sigma 125 engine section (figure 55?) and we were able to mock this up on the workbench:

SV Radiator arrangement mocked up on bench. We think it's correct!

We took some burrs off the edge of the Radiator Mounting Plates (silver pieces on the left and right sides) and fitted it loosely to the front of the chassis. This was so that the radiator could be centred on the front of the car and the slots for the bolts aligned.

Radiator fitted.

Finally, we fitted the steering wheel to the boss (you may remember that the screws supplied were mushroom-headed as opposed to countersunk). However as soon as we had completed this we noticed a rather alarming amount of play when turning the steering wheel. It turned out one of the Universal joints hadn't been tightened enough (oops), as soon as it was re-torqued to Caterham specs the steering became as tight as a drum and twice as responsive (note to self for when we drive her!). Also, another outstanding item checked off the list!

Steering wheel fitted. Time to climb in and make some 'Brum Brum, SCREEEEECH!' noises...

Apart from fitting the expansion bottle for the water (we have a wet sump, hence the tank fits on top of the cruciform, see below), that was it for the day. Decent amount of progress made and happy with what we had achieved. Next time we will be trying to get the engine properly connected with the mass of pipes and jubilee clips.

Note the expansion tank now fitted on top of the Cruciform. Overall Decent amount of progress made!

Engine Bay preparation (Build Days 4 and 5)

I'm writing this a few days after the fact. Days 4 and 5 were very busy so I'm not sure what happened when, as a result I amalgamated this post into one!

Derek called and said the bolts for the front anti-roll bar plus the special nyloc nut were in the post, hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow. However, today was spent preparing the engine bay and getting the necessary systems and ancillary equipment fitted, before access is restricted by the engine.

First off this little thing has been invaluable now that winter proper has arrived:

It's an industrial electric fan heater from Machine Mart. It's 'only' 3kW and doesn't appear to instantly make a cold garage warm, however, over time, it really does make a difference and has made the garage a much more comfortable working environment. However having the heater on for periods of the day is going to push up my electricity bill!

Whilst we're on the subject of equipment we also took delivery of our engine crane from SGS Engineering and we're very happy with it. We also got a load leveller.  It comes in 2 large-ish, heavy, boxes (the delivery man required assistance getting it off his van) and required assembly. It's vastly over-engineered for what we need, but due to the possibility of me rebuilding my classic Land Rover (needing the extra lifting height) and not knowing how a hired crane had been treated previously, we elected to purchase. Also with not knowing when exactly we will be installing the engine and gearbox we did not want to be beholden to a hire company neither.

Building the engine crane; big bolts and big pieces of metal!

Crane assembled.

Once the crane was assembled we finally managed to turn to our tasks: Firstly it was to fit the brake hoses, all seemed to go together pretty well. Just had to spend the time thinking through what piece goes where and how to orientate them so as not to foul the suspension throughout the full range of motion.

 

 Brake hoses fitted.

Next it was to start preparing the engine bay for the engine and gearbox installation. The assembly guide said to fit the horns, again no real dramas, crucial thing was to undo the nut at the top to rotate each horn so that the electrical connections can be fitted.

Horns fitted. Note electrical connections placed close together.

Also test fitted the washer bottle (removing it for engine installation), glad we did as the wiring that runs behind the bottle made fitting pretty difficult. After a bit of pushing and pulling it fit just fine, would not want to do that job once the engine plenum was in the way!

 Washer bottle test fitting, Note to self; must remove for engine installation.

In order to protect the chassis tube I bought 3 lengths of foam pipe lagging from a local builder's merchants and cut them to length covering the chassis tubes (although it wasn't quite enough in the end).

Foam pipe lagging to protect the chassis tubes.

Dad got on with covering any potentially vulnerable areas with bubble wrap, maybe a bit overkill however, with not really knowing what to expect, better to be safe than sorry!

All wrapped up (a bit too well Dad?)

We also fitted the engine mounts, easy in principle but not in reality. Let me put it this way, I needed my Dremel. As you can see from the picture below there was excess weld on one of the chassis junctions which wasn't allowing correct positioning of the engine mount rubbers.

 

Too much weld around joints preventing engine mounts from aligning correctly

My Dremel set has a small grinding disc and managed to whittle away the weld just enough for the engine mounts to fit. Great piece of kit (if you don't have one I recommend you purchase one, especially if you're going to be building a Caterham!). I've primed the bare metal and will paint it black once it's dry.

Excess weld removed, now to prime, then paint.

Test fit, looks good! Note grey primer prior to painting.

Next task to fit these two together:

 

Delivery 2.0

She's back!

Andy stopped by this morning with the reworked chassis and I'm happy to report that the bolts now fit!

I've ordered an industrial looking electric fan heater from Machine Mart, hopefully that'll warm up the garage enough when we're working in the dead of winter. Was hoping to have the majority of the build complete by now. Alas it was not to be.

Let's get building!