Saturday 8 August 2015

Checking the Leak and Cleaning

Having taken control of my irritation, I contacted Caterham Midlands and have organised for the car to be collected (again) to have this gearbox oil leak inspected / fixed... I guess as this will be the third time it's been back for this, I'm hopeful of the old saying coming true 'third time lucky' and I've a feeling I'll be 'lucky' if it is fixed.

Anyway, enough ranting... With the superb weather this weekend, I decided to get up early and give the car a check over, see if I could confirm that it was in fact the gearbox that was leaking  and to give the car a clean as it was still filthy after the service.

I decided to start with the long job first - the clean.  Starting at the front, the wheels, nosecone and bonnet came off.  All were cleaned to within an inch of their lives!  The sides of the car were cleaned, and then I started on the rear...

I wanted to get a picture of the new diff cage, so here it is:-
Replaced diff cage on BMW diff in Caterham R500
Replaced diff cage on BMW diff in Caterham R500
With the rear wheels off the car, and the car firmly on axle stands I took the opportunity to check under the car and to see where the leak was coming from.  In the picture below I've highlighted the area, and it appears there is still fluid on the bottom of the rear of the gearbox tail (silver section) and also some fluid on the chassis cross member.  I guess the cross member is where it is dripping to and from based on the fluid spots on my garage floor.
Tail of gearbox housing moist with oil and oil also on chassis cross member
Tail of gearbox housing moist with oil and oil also on chassis cross member
I'd also mentioned on my previous post that there seemed to be some fluid dripping from one of the seat bolts, and I'd noticed that looking through the hole in the seat base that there seemed to be a lot of fluid in there too?!?  So I removed the floor mats to reveal this mess:-
Oil and gunk under drivers floor mat
Oil and gunk under drivers floor mat
The picture doesn't do it justice, as there is so much oil and gunk in here, I guess from the initial problem, and also compounded by the steam cleaning Caterham had to do?  Quite poor (but not unexpected) that they didn't even remove the floor mats to clean up the mess.

After seeing how much fluid was under the floor mat, I checked the passenger side, which also had fluid and gunk there, but not as much as the drivers side.  I thought it necessary to take both the seats out, to check what was under there.
With drivers seat out you can see the amount of oil and gunk on the floor
With drivers seat out you can see the amount of oil and gunk on the floor
This is what both footwells looked like:-
With both seats and floor mats removed you can see the fluid and gunk remaining
With both seats and floor mats removed you can see the fluid and gunk remaining
I cleaned both sides with kitchen roll... Just aiming to get rid of the oil, gunk, stones, and the occasional ladybird in there! - this is how much kitchen roll was used... I estimate there was around 100ml of fluid that required removal.
Crazy about of oil, crud, stones and the occasional dead ladybird in the footwells and under the seats
Crazy about of oil, crud, stones and the occasional dead ladybird in the footwells and under the seats
I continued with the rear of the car, boot cover, put the seats back in and then it was finished and looking glorious once more.
The R500 is clean once more
The R500 is clean once more
I've also wiped clean my garage flooring, so will keep an eye on how much fluid is still dripping onto the floor.  If the dripping has stopped (which I doubt) then I'll cancel the collection and eat humble pie, but otherwise the car be back in the Midlands Caterham branch at the end of next week.

1 comment:

  1. Why not get a second opinion from one of the approved race teams such as Fauldsport, Bookatrack, DPR, Spy, Mcmillan etc...? I'm sure you'll find one near you and they have vast experience of these cars/gearboxes.

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