[Music] hello everyone and welcome to another purple meaning YouTube video in today's video I'm going to build a kit car a Caterham 7 for 20 are in about 30 minutes this video isn't going to be for everyone but for those people building or looking to be able to Caterham I hope this will be an insight into what it takes to do a Caterham build there are lots of Caterham build time lapses on YouTube but I'm going to do something a little different and talk you through it as well as show you the time lapse the 210 bhp 420 kit that we built sits at the top of Kaitlyn's line of home build options they do make some more bonkers 620 s but you can't build them at home the 420 has a 2 liter Ford Duratec engine shoehorned into the chassis of a lotus 7 derived design their hearts back to the 1950s they weigh about 500 and something kilos and so theoretically the 420 number is derived from the power-to-weight ratio but for a number of reasons my car isn't anywhere close to that way more like five eighty or 590 kilos but it will still do nought to 60 in something like 3.8 seconds and go round a track like a car on Rails a Caterham KITT can be built at home or bought fully assembled from the factory but I think about half of all UK buyers choosing to do the build themselves as well as the base 420 are where our means we went for the race pack we also opted for some extras including uprated brakes and 4-point harnesses we also went for a custom Lotus aubergine metallic paint munching i time-lapse the build on three GoPros dotted around the garage and the video has been sped up by about 250 times to get it to this 30 something minutes you're watching to build the car a follow Caterham suggested build order using the older mostly textile build manual but the order is essentially the same whether you use that or the newer IKEA style guide that came out just after we'd finished our build the recommended order is to essentially start at the front of the car and work backwards you then fill in with things like the trim seats carpets if you ordered them and finish off with some tidy up items needed to pass an individual vehicle approval test more on the tests at the end of the video it sounds rather simple when explained like that but while the manuals were generally pretty good they were sometimes vague in places and not always up to date with what Caterham actually sent out in the kit there were also component shortages and some fit problems to deal with but as they say that's all part of the fun I like to think I'm reasonably experienced with a spanner but I think anyone can build a Caterham with a reasonable amount of care and determination but above all you'll need plenty of patience having said that no matter what your experience levels you're going to get to know kaitlin's build Support Technician it was a guy called Derek when we built her car thankfully Derek had an encyclopedic knowledge of how to build a Caterham and was an invaluable part of getting our car completed as the video plays I'll try and explain the major bits of the process but there's nowhere near enough time here to go into all the details needed for this to be a definitive build guide in some ways this video is just a bit of fun but hopefully it sets the scene for what's involved in building a Caterham I'd love to hear any of your questions in the comment section below or you can find out more on my build blog have purple Miko dot uk' with all that out of the way let's get building so before we can start any real building the kit has to arrive an event from Caterham we had 14 cardboard boxes delivered along with the engine gearbox chassis wheels and other assorted stuff that we took off the van and carried into the garage having wheeled axle stands was a great help here and allowed us to drop the chassis onto the stands and then roll it straight into the garage much easier than if we'd had to do that inside the garage in the end the offload probably took about half an hour once we'd had a look at everything we could see that there was much more on the chassis than we expected of course the bodywork is painted but the chassis comes with pretty much all the electrics installed and I was surprised to find that all the poppers for the web with a hood were in place along with most of the internal paneling me being me also wanted to familiarize myself with everything we'd had delivered and so over the course of an afternoon I pulled all the parts out of their boxes and took a picture to create a complete overview of the kit the picture was a bit of a stunt but I got to see and handle all the parts and inspect all the bags for the stuff which I'm sure helped me to find things later in the build each bag of fixings came with a part sheet showing what was in the bag session 1 the first task in this first real build session was to put some masking tape on the front bodywork to protect it from being dink next we got to the first task of adding short lengths of rubberized channel so the bodywork cutouts where the front suspension protrudes out of the engine bay items like this of the cars individual vehicle approval test or IV a which is a super MOT taken at a government inspection facility to prove that the finished car is Road worthy there are lots of IBA items to be added to the car most can be left to the end of the build but some like these are more difficult when the car is fully assembled which is why they're done at this point we also test fitted the steering rack Session two overnight I'd had a bit of a rethink about our body protection and decided to add some thicker carpet over the top of what we'd done the day before that seemed to do the trick and lasted all the way through the build protecting the delicate aluminium bodywork from any damage next up was mating the gearbox to the engine first of all the clutch bell housing needs to be separated from the engine this is because the bell housing – gearbox bolts have to be inserted from inside the bell housing and are only accessible when it is removed from the engine the bell housing is then attached to the gearbox and the two are then reattached to the engine together as was often the case we had some friends come over to see what all the fuss was about and then stuck around to give a hand and of course to help us drink tea session three was simple clearing debris from a harness whole session four was the start of the front suspension install this is quite a big job and took a few sessions the big problems here are that you don't have much room to insert the upper wishbone bolts also the number of spacing washers used between the chassis and the bottom wishbones is quite confusing more on that in session five session 5 is a continuation of the front suspension and then getting on and building up the front headlamps as I said in the previous session hello a wishbone washers were a problem the nearside washers were a real pain in the neck to get in between the wishbone and the chassis but I got there in the end with lots of copper grease some adjustable pliers to squeeze the washers into the gap and a soft mallet to drive them fully in the front head line build was probably my least favorite part of the build getting all the protective sleeve Ingram it some wiring assembled was really tricky and I needed a couple of goes at it I'm still not happy that the electrics will hold the test of time as the electrical sockets just don't give the impression that they'll be very reliable session six is more headlamp assemblies and front suspension I spent most of a Sunday on this to assemble the headlamps I chose to follow Daniel French's excellent rethink Jenna's website is at Caterham r500 coat UK even with Daniels guide I managed to completely screw up my first attempt at a headlamp and had to strip it all back and start again my wd-40 PTFE lubricant earned its keep here and was one of the great purchases of the whole build being used in all sorts of places to ease things together my problem with the headlamps was that even after lying out all the nuts and grommets in the correct order I still managed to thread them onto the electrical cables and sleeving with one of them out of sequence there was nothing for it but to strip off the heat shrink disassemble the whole thing and start again as you can see from the video I spent a lot of time on these headlamp assemblies even with loads of PTFE lubricant I struggled to get the large diameter cable assemblies but now included the heat shrink down on the headlamp stays if I ever do this again I would try and enlarge the holes in the headlamp space to allow the cable assemblers easier entry and exit and finally I could start to get on with some more interesting stuff and test fitted the off side front damper session seven was all about getting the front hubs installed this is where the two-in-one folding creeper really came in handy allowing me to take the strain off my back and scooch around the garage later on in the build it was fantastic at scooting around under the car as well I found a lump of wood under the bottom wishbone kept the suspension from sagging and parallel to the ground as I tightened up all the nuts once I stepped back I realized that the wheel geometry was google-eyed we'd read the manual wrong and had to disassemble the track rod ends and set them up correctly for a second time session eight was the front brake pipes the front anti-roll bar and some dinner troll weather protection the brake pipes look simple but one of them wept when I first pressurized the system and it turned out that I'd used the wrong caliper couplings they needed to be the gray ones not the bronze coloured ones the gray ones seemed to be for the standard brakes but I have the uprated ones the final job of the day was spraying the lower engine bay with dinner troll weather protection session I was getting back to the anti-roll bar after Derrick had confirmed that the bushes to use here were meant to be the red ones not Orange I also found the socket on the wishbone where the ball on the end of the ARB goes was too tight for the ARB to be coaxed into it seemed that was too much powder coat in the socket so out came the Dremel to remove some it will be protected with grease and fully assembled so no fear of corrosion when finished I also fitted the horn at the end of this session session tent was all about prep for the engine to be installed first of all there's an l-shaped Ward hose that needs to be fitted to the top of the engine and it didn't seem obvious which one to use once I scratched my head for a bit though it did make sense which is the right one and it can only be one of them next up was prepped for the engine mounts there's an electrical earth that connects the nearside engine milk to the chassis and some powder coat needs to be removed from the chassis to allow a good electrical connection out with the Dremel and the multimeter to test the connection was good finally today I constructed what I hoped would be a leveling aid for the engine level I was worried that the engine was tilting from side to side as I lifted it off the ground and so I built a box section jig that I thought would help but I'm not sure it did much in the end session 11 was a big session installing the engine in the engine bay it was one of the most enjoyable sessions perhaps second only to firing the car up for the first time I thought the engine install was going to be a reasonably quick job but in the end it was full dive prep install and final adjustments it took a couple of hours to get everything ready as I was worried about the engine being twisted actually as it entered the chassis in the end it turned out to be level enough though I'm not sure my level of level did much as the day wound on there was no shortage of help and advice from our neighbors and especially from Ted next door both over the fence and in person and then finally we could drop the engine in very gradually the tricky bit is to clear the gap made between the bulkhead and the lower front star crossmembers it was all hands to the wheel at this point with four of us keeping the hoist from tipping we shifted the car instead of the hoist as the engine got lowered as it was easier to move the car on the wheeled axle stands rather than move the engine hoist which tended to jerk on the driveway sets as we moved it around at the end of the day the engine was in but I wasn't happy that the gearbox seemed to be very close to the transmission tunnel it felt like the movement of the gearbox under load or over bumps might allow it to touch the chassis and so transfer NVH to the cabin I spent a good hour or so and doing and retightening the engine and gearbox mounts to see if I could get it all to budge over a bit to the offside session 12 was partly a crisis of confidence about the engine gearbox positioning but we did also get time to look at some electrics as I mentioned in the last session I was worried that the gearbox was too close to the chassis so helper Jack and I got to trying to shift the gearbox over using any play we could find in the engine mountains we tried this a couple of times slacking the bolts given the engine a Hoyt and then tightening it all back up again after a couple of hours playing around we found there was no budging the system and in the end we had to leave it as it was it hasn't caused any problems in 2,000 miles of driving so I guess it's okay we then set about connecting the gearbox electrics which is a little tricky as it's not totally apparent which cables go where but after some googling and a use of a multimeter to check which was the neutral switch we got there we then connected the starter motor and found that the manual didn't quite match the wiring colors we had in our loom but the connections seemed to be obviously in the end once we thought about it a bit we also had a go at loosely connecting up the main battery leads we got them in place but left them to be finally tightened up later in the build once I was confident the cable routing was going to work I spent the rest of the session talking about the car with our roads resident Lotus expert thief session 13 was all about the exhaust headers catalytic converter and lambda sensor the header pipes were pretty straightforward and just dropped in around the steering column the springs that hold the catalytic converter to the exhaust headers were fun though you need a combination of big pliers and cable ties to get enough compression on the springs before they can be gently maneuvered into place a quick job was to install the exhaust bobbin just in front of the offside rear wing once the cat springs were on I could tighten up the header bolts only to find my Allen socket was too long and needed to be trimmed with a hacksaw fixing the lambda sensor cable across the bottom of the car was a bit fiddly I thought I could use some small rivets but I was worried about the size of a hole I needed and so used rivets that were too small and kept stripping their heads when inserting them in the holes I drilled this is something I'll have to come back to after I'd talked up the engine and gearbox mounts again session 14 was about the oil tank and steering column the steering column could have gone quicker I messed around making sure the bosses where the column goes through the – were okay and then realized that the universal joint at the bottom of the steering column next to the steering ring wouldn't accept the retaining bolt and nut on one side so that all needed some dremel II testing then some smooth write for semantic corrosion protection then came the oil tank I got the tank dropped into place but getting the P clips on that hold the bottom of the tank in place were a real pain for me to get close around the bottom of the chassis member at least I had trouble with them for about an hour laying on my back failing to figure things out then I played around with some more smaller jobs in the engine paint and came back to the tank eventually I realized I'd missed the P clips instructions in the manual and after I'd sent an email to Derek all would have been fine if I'd have read the manual properly you'd think that that was a lesson learned but this wasn't the last time that our TFM would be uttered under my breath in the vain hope it would sink in session 15 was more work on the water and oil radiator and fitting the heater unit I'd lodged the radiator on its met elastic bobbins that's a great phrase there before starting the cameras that's why it suddenly appears in the shop and this was the third time I got the radiator only to put it back again on the first attempt of fitting the radiator I'd realized that the fan legs were missing I had to ask Derek to send some out to me on the second attempt I scratched my head for ages looking through the remaining kit pieces of what the manual called a radiator cowling turns out the Caterham had recently decided not to fit the cowlings anymore but not told anyone nor updated the manual of course by comparison the heating unit was no trouble at all session 16 was the rollover bar and some engine plumbing I needed some help with the rollover bar so enlisted my youngest son Joe or jiggling the ROV into place I then played around with the hood hoops to see how they worked with the roll bar next was lots of engine bay water plumbing chopping the top radiator hoster length was one of those measure five times cup once moments I'd been itching to test the fit of the bonnet and nose gun and today was my chance I wanted to see where the cooling water reservoir was going to sit in relation to the nose cone and then to get his mounting plate fitted there were no good instructions on the exact placing of the plate and I didn't want to get it wrong session 17 after fitting the water expansion bottle in the last session I could get on with the rest of the water plumbing the plumbing in the engine bay was a little confusing at first it wasn't making sense until I realized the thermostat for the radiator also included a bypass of the main plumbing that allows for fast engine heating on startup the pipe for this is hidden under the air intake plenum on the engines right-hand side playing at the bottom right of the screen is a 3d diagram of the whole plumbing circuit that I did for my blog the process of creating the diagram really helped me understand what was going on with the whole plumbing circuit although it managed to distract me from the build for a few days while I mocked it up in fusion 360 finally had seen a few ways of placing the pipes for the temperature sensor submarine and I decided to go underneath the other plumbing at the rear of the engine however since doing my build I've seen it done much better rooted above underneath is harder to get to if there are problems but above seems to put the pipes too close to the body you pays your money and takes your choice session 18 was working back from the gearbox with the prop shaft and the differential install first job was to get the prop shaft installed through the transmission tunnel this was trickier than it sounded at least on mica as the flange on the end of the prop shaft fouled the walls of the transmission tongue next with the differential it was heavy and bulky so I needed to enlist Joe again to help me lift it into place I'd wondered what a piece of black plastic was lying around in the kit of parts for weeks then it dawned on me one night that it was the skid plate that goes between the engine ahead of the bell housing I had no recollection of it being in the instructions but figured out where it went through looking at pictures on other blogs it also didn't quite line up on its mounting hole when I fitted it so it needed to be grinded back on its top face to get it to fit session 19 was a few smaller things first off was fitting the handbrake cable and threading it from the handbrake to the diff the exact routing confused me to start with but of course that was because I hadn't read the manual properly again next up was to fill the diff with oil this stuff's tank of bed eggs and was a relief to get it finished I highly recommend wearing a mask at this stage one of the more comical parts of the build was trying to tighten up the prop shaft to diff flange bolts you need to brace the prop shaft with something to stop it rotating and there's something I used a screwdriver got so tightly jammed when I did up the bolts that I had to cut it off with a dremel to get it free again finally today was getting started on the De Dion to build up on the bench and the first part of that is to attach the hub carries on to the end of the tube the next job was to test fit the brake pipes and check their routing at about this time I realized I needed a better way of holding the irregular shape of the de Dion tube onto the bench a better way is to slot the flange into a workmate bench as I've seen on other blogs nail session 20 I realized overnight that I still hadn't got the hand brake cable routed correctly so the first task of the day was to adjust where the tensioner sits for some reason I thought it lay in the transmission tongue but it should sit in a recess on the diff then it was back to the brake lines on the De Dion tube they get riveted to the cheap and you have to take a lot of care when bending the ends so they match up with where they get inserted into the rear brake calipers with that setup complete it was fairly straightforward to insert the de Dion tube assembly in through the offside rear wheel arch our camera footage isn't good here but I spent the rest of the day fitting the rear anti-roll bar and the radius arms I also attached the rear flexible brake hose that connects from the DD on to brakeman fold to the rear bodywork the chassis comes pre-installed with brake lines running from the master cylinder to the rear of the car session 21 the rear a-frame was relatively simple but was a little tricky to get installed by myself it had a tendency to drop out of alignment as I was fixing either side but once one side was in place it was simple to get the rest done I also had to open up the bolt holes in the rear of the a-frame and remove some powder coat to allow the rear bolt to fit without resorting to a lot of force next up was a fun pump fitting the hubs drop links speedo cable disks calipers and connecting the brake pipes to the calipers that was all nice chunky lumps of aluminium with easy to fix bolts and sensible torque settings there are lots of different bolt lengths to get right but the manual was both good at explaining it all and above all accurate which isn't always the case it helped to have a selection of different lengths and range torque wrenches during the build but that's obviously a luxury and not essential once the rear suspension assembly was in place I got my first chance to put all four wheels on the chassis it's starting to look like a carnie session 22 need trim panels and some carpets the new trim panels are one of the few cabin panels haven't been pre fitted at the factory and in order to fit them the factory is also left some of the rivets missing from the other cabin panels so you can slide the knee panels in behind them the new trims took way more time than they should have the best part of a whole day lots of people on various blogs talked about fitting the panel's and then read ruling the New River olds to accommodate where the panel's position ends up it wasn't so keen on them and wanted to see if I could actually get the panels to fit properly but that took a lot of painstaking trial and error nibbling bits off the trims and repeatedly fitting them to get them into the correct position once I was happy with the new trims I moved on to carpet fitting carpets are very much an optional extra on a Caterham they tend to be fitted to touring cars and I was going for a Torah that does occasional track visits the carpets have some limited ability to dampen noise in the cabin and hence they used for tourism I started with the larger carpet sections in the cabin so I could get acquainted with working with the material and glue before trying some of the trickiest sections in a boot the trick seems to be to do lots of test fitting before applying adhesive there were many areas where the carpet needed to be trimmed to get a good fit are you spray adhesive on both the carpet and the bodywork for a permanent fixing in two years and two thousand miles I've not had any of the carpet session 23 harnesses and seats with the cabin carpets in place and the glue cured I put some of the signature cater and components in the harnesses and seats I wanted to track the car so I needed at least four-point harnesses as well as the track day rollover bar had also gone with the leather seat rather than the more race orientated carbon fiber bucket seats with the driver seat in I couldn't resist my first test fit we were going to tour with the car and we were cane for that to be as comfortable and experienced as possible I've since found out that the bucket seats are also comfortable session 25 engine start we filled the car with the various fluids and made a couple of trips to the petrol station to fill up the requisite 15 plus litres of fuel that's needed to prime the system our first attempts weren't very successful it takes a while to get used to disengaging the immobilizer and we thought that was our problem for a while then we realized that the fuel pump wasn't priming and so started to look at that taking the boot floor out to get at the pump and electrics but that all seemed to be ok as well after taking a break in the evening I suddenly thought that it might be the tilt switch on the bulkhead that was causing the problem and sure enough after bypassing the switch the engine finally fired up [Music] [Music] well left the engine running for a while to see how the various temperatures were doing all four headers were getting hot at about the same rate and the engine sounded good so we knew we were firing on all cylinders but we were keeping an eye on the water temperatures and weren't happy that the radiator thermostat didn't seem to be opening so we chickened out for the night and decided to have another look at in the morning session 26 dad and I tried to decide whether the water circuits were working and in the end we decided discretion was the better part of valor and we'd Mull it over some more over the coming days session 27 was mostly coolant worries the first task of the day was trying to adjust the throttle pedal position the remainder of the day was about engine coolant temperatures I thought the car was getting hot but the thermostat wasn't opening so I did the usual massaging of the coolant pipes and that didn't seem to help and then decided that tipping the car up might do the trick so I dropped the front and then rear of the car in turn to see if I could budge anything in the end I think there wasn't an air law and I was just being overly cautious about temperatures session 28 was all in a boot the first job was to treat the plywood boot floor the bottom of the boot floor is exposed to the elements under the car I chose to go with three coats of clear wood varnish next up was have a go at the fuel filler shroud that sits inside the boot it should be a simple job but mine didn't fit quite right and so I had to trim down the upper edge so it would sit flush in the boot with its IV atrium applied the boot carpets were quite tricky and needed a lot of patience the carpet edges needed some small amounts of trimming off to get them to sit properly in the boot once they were all dry fitting okay it was on with the spray adhesive to the back of the carpet along with the boot walls and then apply some pressure for a few minutes I used various wooden chocks to clamp the carpets in place as the glue cured surprisingly the carpets have managed to stay in place ever since the one area of the boot carpets I didn't blow in place was the boot floor I figured it would be easier to insert and extract the boot floor if the carpet wasn't permanently fixed I also thought that it was likely to get wet with rain or spillages so leaving it free to be aired without the wooden floor would be a good plan session 29 was finishing off the boot carpets then getting the rear wings fitted the boot carpeting was a simple job it was then on to the rear wings and took most of the day I did the off side wing first and that took about twice as long as the nearside one took later in the day job involves applying both stone chip guards and beading to the wings and then attaching them to the bodywork my strategy was to first cut and hole punch both sets of beading I used a leather hole punch to make holes in the beading once the beading was sorted I turned to the wing guards that protect the rear wings from Stone chips if you driven a Caterham you'll know how they do their job as you drive along and here stones ping off the guards at anything above walking speeds I use masking tape and then place the stone guards on the wings marking the hole positions with a paint marker pen and then did the drilling this was another one of those measure twice cut once moments as the wings are not only expensive but it would have put me back weeks if I'd have botched one up and had to have a new one ordered resprayed and delivered the wings also need cutouts adding where the wings drop over the radius arms while drilling the fiberglass wings I made sure I used the best face mask I could get my hands on and glasses or goggles at all times even with the protection and doing all the drilling in the open air my lungs still felt as though some of the fibers had gone in there and I'd recommend using the best protection you can for this job I found it really difficult to figure out how to hold the rear wings in the end I came the idea of placing the wings on top of the tires and obviously being careful not to drill through the tire the tires gave the wings the grip they needed to stay relatively as I worked on them then the rain came down as I was working on the wings and I had to retreat into the garret to finish the job session 30 was adding some more fuel and getting the washer bottle installed we'd added just enough fuel to get the car started I used some spare time to fill up the remainder of by kicking around in a jerrican the washer bottle gave another one of those comical moments during the build the build Manning will tell you to fit the washer bottle in the engine bay but on tracing the washer plumbing you realize it ends up in the boot not in the engine bay at all so I also had to come up with my own mounting bracket one novice error I made was to miss out the non-return valve next to the washer bottle this resulted in washer fluid pouring over the windscreen when the car was finally on the road but that was a simple fix session 31 was a simple job getting the rear light clusters installed this is another slightly nervous task that means you have to drill more holes in the rear wings so out with a level masking tape and lots of measuring before doing any drilling it's also quite fiddly to get the brake light cabling plugs and sockets connected as you flounder around under the back of the car session 33 was front wings lights and hem brake one of the more nerve-wracking parts of the build was getting the front cycle wings attached to their stays but as well as just fixing them to the stays I had another one of those measure twice cut once moments or drilling the holes in the cycle wings to accept the flashing units I've gone with the 15 inch wheels that come with the more road orientated even zgs tires which didn't seem to leave a lot of room between them and the wing stays it also seemed that the width of the tires was the biggest problem a meant that the wings would fail the tires unless I could space the wings off the stage somehow I also spent quite a bit of time bending the wing stays with some aluminium bar to try and get them as central as I could before bonding the wings on next up was to get into fixing some more lights to the car I think I came back to the headlamps a few times as I couldn't get the crimps around the headlamp leads to make correctly with the sockets in the loom good electrical sockets just sort of work when you crimp them all together and these didn't though to be fair they've not caused too many problems since being on the road for the rest of the session I spent a lot of time sticking bits of masking tape to the stays and tires to get my head around where the tolerances were and what gaps I had to play with session 34 was fluids and more on the front wings first up today was to fill the clutch system with hydraulic fluid this went a lot better than I thought it would and I guess it's helped by the fact that the braided clutch line exits the clutch from the top meaning there's little chance for air bubbles to be trapped next up was filling the brake system before finally adding any fluid I did a final work around all of the various couplings and joints to make sure everything was nice and snug then set about filling the system and working around each corner of the car into to bleed the system I went with the old-school method of using some plastic piping a jam job with some fluid in the bottom and then opening and closing the blade valves as I pumped either of the pedals I also cut a length of wood that I could use as a brace against the clutch and brake pedal when depressed spongy pedal I got after doing this wasn't a particular surprise but the rear brakes were my main suspect when they clearly felt like there was air in the system I think it was more about the brakes bending in at least after the first couple of bleed sessions it was session 35 I was still spending a lot of time pondering the front wings before finally bonding them down to the stage I was rapidly running out of other jobs to do and was going to have to bite the bullet soon a job that I probably didn't need to do was to sort out the routing of the handbrake cable I didn't like the routing around the left hand side of the diff I could remove a large chunk of rib off the dip that didn't seem to be doing anything on my car and would allow the cable to route without the casing binding on the dip the rest of the session was all about tidy ups there seemed to be endless cable ties needed to stop the cables and pipes from flapping around and I went with the motto you can't overdo the cable ties session 36 repeaters IVH tough mirrors wipers rear hubs and front wings this was day three of the big push overnight had finally landed on my front wing approach I put a large bead of Sikaflex on the top of each of the wing stays and would let it cure before bonding the wings on top of them that would give me about a one centimeter standoff and in the end it was crucial in getting enough clearance from the tyres to the wings the repeater wiring was a little fiddly to get down the wing stays especially as I decided to take the Earthwise back to the chassis and not ground the repeaters using the wing stays themselves so I decided to extend the grand lines find some good earth points inside the engine bake the wing mirrors were also a simple job that took longer than they should as an actor getting the tensioning screws tightened wipers were a simple job and you don't have to be afraid of bending the arms to make the blades sweep the window as best you can the rear hubs were a fun job you need a reasonably hefty 274 Newton meters to tighten them up to the spec and that caused problems embracing the wheels as you applied torque to the nut in theory you combined the prop shaft while also applying the handbrake but that didn't work for me so I improvised with a length of oak that I drilled to fit between the wheel hubs and the ground some people leave this to the post build check but I had the right torque wrench and wasn't going to be fazed by something so simple session 37 the final session overnight I finally bonded the front cycle wings to the wing stays without any cameras running unfortunately we'd only got a few days until the post bill check was booked in and it was touch and go whether the Sikaflex would be cured in time so it was now or never the final build session was just getting to all the nitty gritty things that needed to be done for IV a some things had to be left off until after the PBC are some talk settings and fixings would need to be looked at during the check and meant I couldn't fit caps on the ends of some of the suspension that's for instance I also went around and checked all the torque settings I could along with making sure all the nuts and bolts had position markers painted on them so I'd know if anything moved while the car was being transported or checked it could also take off all the protective masking tape and cardboard that had been keeping the bodywork safe for the past four months one of the final jobs was to add the protective foam strips that sit between the nose cone and the bonnet and between the bonnet and the bodywork after a few hundred miles on the road I'd come back to these and add much more foam to stop the various bits from chafing apparently that's a fruitless task but you've got to try and then that was it it was all done and there we go that's how to build a Caterham in 30 minutes we took about 160 hours to finish the build completing it in the December of 2017 four months after we arrived once the girl was finished we then had to get it checked tested registered and then taxed and insured before we could get it on the road firstly we had to get the car through it's BBC where the car gets inspected back at the dealership you bought it from Williams in our case I was looking forward to the PBC as it will give me a chance to talk to someone knew what they were doing unlike me and was my first real chance to see if I'd right royally buggered things up I arranged for it to be picked up by Williams and taken to their workshops they didn't find much wrong with it in the end so the car was delivered back to me a few days later ready for the IV a the IV a or individual vehicle approval test was reasonably straightforward was a huge relief when the car passed with no particular problems except as I rolled the car out the garage on the morning of the IV a the heavens began to open and my decision to have the car tested without the hood was looking rather suspect then as I got to the end of the drive with the first pots of rain hitting the windscreen I realized that the windscreen wipers weren't working they've worked the day before but they weren't working now there was nothing for it though but the head to the test center with no wipers while the heavens descended on me and on the way that meant getting rather wet [Music] once there soon became apparent it was just the wiper fused at a blank and the tester was happy that I fitted a new one and the car passed is that one small change but that was a very nerve-wracking couple of hours while the test with the Catherine's places once I've got home and dried myself off I submitted all the registration form that day and we eventually got on registration dock a few weeks later it was a fantastic thing to have built the car and I enjoyed almost every second of the build and I was very pleased and proud of what we had managed to achieve I mean no rush to do it again though I'm very happy to spend a few years driving the car around and on the occasional track outing building a Caterham was a fantastic experience and I'd highly recommend it to anyone that's thinking about it we've had some great experiences with the car in the two years since building him we've taken it to the track a couple of times and been on a number of car rallies and runs there's also a fantastic Caterham community all having fun blasting around the world in their cars that's finally it if you like this video and please like subscribe and hit the bell icon to get updates on any new videos thanks for watching stay safe and happy blatting
