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Session 6: 26th September 2020
Session 6: 26th September 2020
The front upright in the foreground, with the brake disc and calliper dominating the scene.
Next up are what's described as the uprights. Whilst this is technically correct, the upright is a thin aluminium casting with a hulking great brake disc attached to the front and two random-looking steel tubes that need to be attached to the rear. So this page might also be called "front brakes".
Finding the parts was relatively fine. The nuts were in Parts Bag A and the uprights in a couple of well-labelled boxes. The wingstays (the aforementioned tubular sections) were a bit more of a mission but turned out to be yet another long tubular thing in Box 1. With that, it was just four nuts in each corner (top, bottom, steering and wingstay) and done.
The finished units in position.
Ha, of course it wasn't going to be that simple.
First problem: the back of the upright has some extra parts attached that aren't mentioned in the manual. In the "tips" for this step, "Rich T" helpfully says that there's a washer that should be removed. This is the only mention of this washer. The exploded diagram doesn't show it. Flipping the part over, locating the washer is easy enough, but it's held in place by a nut and that nut has a painted mark on it, whose purpose is to provide a flag if it were to ever come loose. Someone's put this nut on for a reason. Hmm. Offering up the wingstay to the part suggests that there's not really enough thread for the nut to stay in place, and besides I can't remove the washer without removing the nut first.
Okay, so I guess that the nut's got to go? Okay, fine I'll just get a spanner and ... nope, far too tight to just remove, and it's attached to an expensive spinny thing (the brake disc) that it's impossible to get any leverage on.
The only thing I have that is remotely shaped in a way to hold onto this component whilst I apply the necessary force is ... the front wishbone assembly. So, I have to fit the uprights sufficient to remove the nut, then put the wingstay in place, and then tighten everything on the car.
What's that nut doing there?
It then turns out that the damper at full extension is slightly overextended and doesn't allow the upper wishbone to locate. So, the lower wishbone needs to be jacked up to compress the damper using the weight of the chassis. Top and bottom nuts loosely in place, there was sufficient grip to remove the offending nut. Sorted, now for the wingstays.
Looks like it's from a bicycle, and it's there to support the bicycle wheel arch.
The wingstays are there to support the front wheel arches. Caterham offer two options for front wheel arches, "clamshell" (think big, flared 20s-style wheel arches) and "bicycle" (which sit close to the wheel, seemingly floating in mid air). I had chosen bicycle.
On the outside of each wheel arch there is an indicator repeater, which needs two connections to work - power and an earth. How the power gets across the wishbone, through the upright and onto the bicycle wing is a problem for another day (there's an awful lot of cable ties in the kit, I have my suspicions...) but the earth is directly to the chassis.
Edited to add: Reading ahead, the repeater cable threads through the complete length of the wingstay tubing, but only once the wheel arch is fitted. That'll be fun.
That earth needs a screw connection, which needs a hole in the wingstay which Caterham have helpfully ... no. Their manufacturing process is to cut metal and then paint it. As this needs a bare metal connection, it needs to be drilled after the component's been painted, and that makes it my job apparently.
Bolting the component to the chassis would, in this case, have meant lying on my back and drilling upward. Not great for control. I needed a Plan B. I'm sure that there's the purchase of a workbench in my future, but for now I've survived with the furniture I've moved into the garage thus far, so I rigged something up with duct tape that did the job.
The holes for the earth screws having been made, the wingstays could go on. The wingstays are held with two bolts, one of which is shared with the top of the front upright, so that had to come off again before going back on. All these nuts are safety-critical and have precise torque settings. The torque wrench that Caterham supply has a 1/2" connection. All the sockets for these nuts (that Caterham supply...) have a 3/8" connection. So, the 1/2" to 3/8" adapter is now on order and I'll finish that off next time.
Today's experience confirms that, for all my earlier comments about the assembly manual being from Ikea, this is definitely not at that low level of skill. There's nothing so far that's caused any issues, but I'm definitely drawing on experience from outside of this process in order to get this done.
Some people use clamps and workbenches, but why bother when an Ikea kitchen chair, a tool box and some duct tape works just as well?
Exhibit A...
As further evidence of this, here's a couple of pages from the next steps in the manual. I've provided both to show that it's not an artist's error. Both show the wingstay passing through the arms of the upper wishbone. This is mechanically impossible, as you can see from many of the other photos on this page.
There was a thing that James May said in a documentary, that Meccano had deliberate errors in its manuals as part of its educative aims. This is clearly not that. However, what's increasingly clear is that this project will throw curveballs. The instructions will be wrong. Parts will need machining to fit. Not every step will be explained. Prior knowledge, skills and experience is assumed, and will be relied upon. And that's not a flaw, that's a feature that makes it interesting.
..and Exhibit B. I'm assuming that M.C. Escher was part of Colin Chapman's original design team?
Interior and exterior shots of the right upright assembly in place.
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