2016 prep part one

A bit of a boring post, that is only if you thought some of others were of any interest!  So on with the 'prep', some more essential than others, but in all honesty all of what I'm doing over the next month or two is clearly a 'necessity'!

1. Flat Battery
I tried to fire the car up when it returned, but it wouldn't turn over, so thought I'd give the CTEK battery conditioner I got for Xmas 2014 a try.

It comes supplied with some eye connectors that I fitted to the battery a while back, and have the connector neatly tie wrapped in place for ease of use.  Plugged it in, and the first orange light (l/r) was on, but after just an evening all the lights were illuminated meaning the battery was back in good condition.

CTEK Battery Conditioner.

The car turned over quickly and instantly, and the rumble of the exhaust was a great noise to hear again!

2. Headlight Glass Replacement

I think this happened on track at Snetteron last year, but strangely enough it's on the same side as the first cracked headlight and almost in the same position.

My 2nd cracked headlight, on the same side and almost the same position as the first one

The fix is pretty straight forward, but as the design of the carbon headlights is to adhere the glass to the outer part of the headlight using silicone, it makes it somewhat more time consuming than changing the glass on the original Caterham lights.

I simply unscrewed the three grub screws, unclipped the connection blocks and removed the lights.  Then cut through the silicone until the glass was free from the carbon outer.  After removing any excess silicone, it was time to fit the new glass.

I ran a decent bead of black silicone on the inside of the carbon, and lined up the top hole of the carbon shell with the top of the glass.  Checked the front to ensure it was level, and left it to cure overnight.

New headlight glass siliconed into carbon headlight, left to cure overnight.

First thing this morning, and the silicone had hardened as expected  Fitting the headlight glass section back, is just a case of pushing the headlight into place, the sidelight, covering with he rubber mount and attaching the connector block.  Then screwing the three grub screws in secures it in place.

New glass fitted to Caterham Carbon front Headlights

Two jobs done.  Now time to get cracking with some more 'juicy' mods.  First up, removing the hoodsticks and fitting a new boot cover.

It's Arrived

Happy New Year to everyone, this is my first post of 2016 and of course the post you've all been waiting for; I know...  Well I'm pleased to say... It's arrived - the delivery of the Blue, Orange and White.... Tamiya polycarbonate paints! I need to spray up the body shells for my 1/18th scale RC car!  The plan is to spray the shells blue, with an orange triple stripe down the centre and sides also spraying the model designation into the sides, so hopefully a decent replication of the Caterham's colour scheme - more on that when they're finished.


Tamiya Polycarbonate paints, Blue, Orange and White.

Not only did I receive my blue, orange and white Tamiya paints yesterday, but the Caterham was delivered back as promised!  Now that is something that is blue, orange and white too - but seeing it again was a 'special moment'!  I really cannot wait to drive it again, it feels like I've not seen it for months (I think that's because it's been gone for months)... but there are a few things to do first...


The Caterham R500 is back!

With a lot of help from Simon Lambert, Mick Atree and the guys at the factory Caterham have replaced the gearbox seal with a genuine Ford seal, sorted out the leak from the diff and also fixed the issue with the ignition part of the loom.  I'm very, very happy, borderline ecstatic to see the car again and have a whole heap of things that I want to get stuck into so I'm  'ready' for the 2016 season.  I'll bullet everything below and go into a little more detail with some pics where possible.

• Road Wheels Re-spray
  I'm going to get my 'road' wheels repainted in the same 'Skoda black' :-) as per the track wheels (in the picture above)  I'm not sure if I want to get the orange stripe painted in as this was quite pricey, but looks cool - I'll probably be left with 'no option' in my mind, but to bite the bullet and get the orange rims painted too!
• Polishing the Exhausts (again!)
  Staying true to my 'polisher' status, the manifold, downpipes and cat bypass pipe(s) will be removed and polished up, using my buffing wheels and compounds.
• Rear Wheel Arch Repair
  One of the rear carbon wheel arches has a very small crack in it where Lee (my business partner) clipped it with his X5, so I'll get that repaired, and also where I made the carbon battery housing, a bit of carbon epoxy got stuck to the other rear wing, so I'll get that rubbed out too.
• Replace ANOTHER headlight that's cracked
• Just before the car went off to Caterham,  I noticed another headlight glass has cracked - and strangely enough it's pretty much the same area as the last one that broke and the same side... Fortunately I bought a two of the headlight lenses when I replaced my last broken headlight, so I'll be fixing that.

Another cracked headlight glass

• Fit my lovely new carbon interior panels!
  With a view to reducing weight, and getting a 'cooler' look, I badgered Caterham enough to let them sell me the interior panel set that comes in the 620R and Seven 20 edition!  I think I'm the first to have this set of panels and I'm really looking forward to getting these fitted... I'll create a full detailed fitting guide and so on...  There are five panels in total, and this will be a good project to get stuck into over the next few weekends.

  

  A couple of the new Caterham carbon interior panels and rivets

• Remove the hoodsticks and replace boot cover
  Carrying on the weight saving theme, I'm going to remove the hood sticks (as since change to aero screen - there's no going back!) and I'll also be fitting a new boot cover designed for cars without hood sticks.

I'm sure there's a few other bits that'll crop up, but there's certainly plenty to keep me occupied for a few weeks!  Watch this space...

Santa's Been!

With the R500 having been at Dartford for the past few weeks, I've not had any real content to write about.  I've been in regular contact with Simon Lambert over the last four or five weeks and he has been extremely patient with me and has kept the information coming about my car... And, on that note, the gearbox leak is fixed (TBC! :-)), the diff leak is fixed and also the issue with the wiring loom is sorted... Unfortunately everyone who ordered their kits wanted them before Xmas (how dare they :-)) , so I'm having to wait until 5th Jan to get my car back - which is fine by me as I'm a little 'short of space' in my garage, but more on that later...

Now that most of the festivities (and meeting up with the outlaws) are out of the way, I feel a little more 'enthused' to write a post...

Santa was extremely good to me this year, and in typical 'petrol head' fashion I thought I'd share my latest goodies... So with the on topic items first...

An ELF beard hat!  Now I like a blat, but in an ELF beard hat, with ears... hmmm, not too sure this'll get used!  I'll vouch for the beard hats though, the beard part obviously fits under your chin and as a result they're great at stopping the hat flying of your head!

An ELF beard hat

A couple of Caterham 13" wheel centre caps (as I lost one and wanted a spare) along with five centre cap badges as I'm feeling the need to change my 'road' wheels to a different colour... More on that in the next few weeks.

Caterham 13" Wheel Centre Caps and Cap Badges

Now slightly off the 'Caterham' topic, but hopefully still enjoyable to those fellow petrol heads...  I don't think Christmas could be Christmas without a decent sized LEGO Technic to build - this year I got the 42039 Le-Mans Racer which took around five hours to build and was a good way to fill an otherwise boring boxing day.

LEGO Technic 42039 Le-Mans Race Car

On the small scale car theme, I was also lucky enough to receive an RC18B2 / T2 kit... This is quite an old kit (in terms of release date and now is only available in a ready-to-run format, which is a shame) but I was given the kit form to build - which is great, and will help me get through these last few days until the Caterham returns home!  I'm also aiming to replicate my Caterham's colour scheme of light blue, orange triple stripes and using a friends vinyl cutter I'll also try and get the model derivative masked and sprayed into the shell in white too - should look good once finished, and will post pics of them when completed.

Team Associated RC18B2 and RC18T2 kit

As an avid EVO reader, my girlfriends mother always buys me a six month subscription for xmas and the same for my birthday (which is great!), but rather than a picture of the magazine, I found these little gems towards the back of the advertisers section.... A bluetooth tyre pressure (and temperature) monitoring kit... Should be great for track day action, and I think these will be making an appearance on my birthday list - gotta try em out!

Snooper / Tyre Pilot Tyre Pressure Monitoring Set

Oh yeah, and I nearly forgot... Santa (well I) also treated me to a new car... Along with a new blog domain, but no dry weather to get any good pics / post anything interesting... yet......  

The domain is www.ferrari458.co.uk and I am hoping to get some nice pics, write some informative posts, get some interesting videos yadda, yadda, - perhaps a back to back track day comparison with the R500 would be good?!? - I just hope the gearbox doesn't leak on this one :-)

Ferrari 458 italia in Grigio Silverstone grey with black roof

The R500 should be back with me on Tuesday the 5th Jan, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again!  Not only that, there are a number of upgrades I've got planned, so 2016 is looking like it will be a great year!

Thanks once again to all the blog readers - I'm hoping to reach the 250k+ reads next year... Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016. 

The Final Collection? and First Update - Already!

Ian from Caterham arrived around midday on Monday to collect the car, after he'd dropped off 'someone' else's kit!  Hopefully this will be the final collection for my issue, as I'd really like to have the car back and be leak free once and for all!

The Caterham collection van - my R500's second home!

Simon Lambert has come back to me today to say that Mick Atree and James have been working on my car already and their eagle eyes have been hard at work - which is very reassuring to hear.

They found an obvious issue straight away... Apparently the seal that CC Midlands had sourced was not an OE Ford part, now this would be normal for them to do with a service item as it's something they don't hold stock of and would naturally have been given the assurance by their supplier that it was the right part to use... and now comes the big however... Once the removed seal was compared with the genuine Ford part it proved quite different.

So the seal has been changed to a genuine Ford seal, the prop shaft has been balanced and according to Simon the static running is also proving positive too!  Happy days...  I would sign off there, but...

...Mick and James have noticed the diff is leaking! So that's their next job... Now I can sign off!  Will post with more updates as and when I get them...

The overall feeling is we're getting there, so I'm happy!

What Shall I do Poll Results and 'THE decision'

Thanks (once again) to all those that voted in my poll about what to do next, and I'm pleased to announce I've made a decision about what to do!

Below are the poll results... and this is where we're at, results (based on todays date) are as follows:-

There have been lots of comments of (as always) varied opinions, a few emails and so on, but... and thankfully the majority of the voters went with what I'd already 'pre-chosen' to go with.  I'll go into a little more detail below about my reasoning.

Starting with the lowest scored option first:-

Last: 46 votes / 20% - upgrade to a 620R

• For:- Faster, extra bhp, torque, newer and hopefully a non leaking gearbox :-)
• Against:- Couldn't build it, probably another ten or fifteen grand!

Third: 52 votes / 22% - to ask for a refund

• As the car is eighteen months old, I think this was a bit ambitious and perhaps more a 'cry for help' than a genuine desire to get rid of the car... After all I built it, it's my first car build and I feel somehow 'connected' with it... It's special (to me), and I want it to be the best it can be, hence losing the plot when the box was leaking again.

A close second: 66 votes / 28% - upgrade to a Sadev Sequential

• This was the closest 'next option' for me too... I seem to get the most pleasure out of the car on track, and why not go for the sequential gearbox?  Well there's a few good reasons, firstly it was in the thousands to upgrade, secondly it wouldn't have been the spec I built, and thirdly this would no doubt take away some of the 'analogue fun' of blatting on the roads and general hooning around.

Number one: 69 votes / 30% - Stick with it and get the gearbox re-worked

• THANKFULLY... the majority were thinking the same as me, and this is what I'm going to do! I'm extremely grateful for everyone that voted, as this has helped back up my decision as the right thing to do....

Caterham will collect the car on the 23rd November, and take it back to the factory in Dartford.  They will give it a full inspection, get the gearbox out, re-work it (or replace if deemed necessary) and seeing as I don't have plans to use the car over the next few months, they can take their time....

...Having said that... I've had my eye on a set of carbon interior panels that from Westermann Motorsport which I'd love to get fitted during my time off over Christmas.......  Hmmm, and I might get my 'road wheels' repainted... Anyway.............

I'd like to say a big thanks to Simon Lambert for coming back to me with a lot of answers to my questions, and helping to (hopefully) get the show back on the road...

I'll post again when the car is collected next week - watch this space...

What To Do Next? Over to you

Firstly I'd like to apologise for not posting anything sooner after my end of the road post...  I've been in-undated with well wishers (which has been very nice to hear, so thank you to all those people who have contacted me) and others wanting an update, so now I have a little free time I can write up what's happened since I saw oil on my garage floor for a fourth time and freaked out!

Quite a lot has happened since that date, so I've bulleted as much as possible below:-

• I sent a ranting email over the Graham MacDonald (CEO) of Caterham cars asking for my money back.
• Graham responded, was sorry for the way I felt, said he wanted to get all the facts from CC Midlands and would call me the next day.
• Graham called the next day, he apologised the for problems I've encountered and I agreed to having a further discussion with a view to Caterham Cars (CC) getting the car back in Dartford and giving it a thorough inspection.
• Simon Lambert contacted me to arrange a convenient time to meet up and talk things through, I said I was going away for a break and would contact him on my return.
• Got back a week ago (21st October 2015) and sent Simon Lambert a text to arrange our meeting.
• Nicely chilled from my holiday I met up with Simon Lambert at the North Star pub in Welwyn on Friday night (23rd October 2015) - perhaps a bit too chilled, but...
• We had a good long discussion about the situation and he came up with some options for me...

So the options are:-

1. CC will collect the car, take it back to Dartford, give it a thorough inspection, get the gearbox out and either replace it or send it off for a full re-work
2. Get CC to remove the h-pattern box, and pay the extra for the Sadev sequential (it's not just a gearbox change, there's about an A4 sheet of parts that are needed, clutch, fly-wheel, new prop tons of different washers etc etc)
3. Consider my options for upgrading to a 620R which would mean trading in my car and basically buying a new car (which I wouldn't have built)
4. Chuck the towel in and get a refund.

So over to you... I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do, but I'm a firm believer it's always good to ask for others' opinions, so what do you think?

Please select one of the four options below and hit the vote button, or if you have any alternate ideas I should be considering please use the comment form below.

What Shall I do?

Stick with it and get the gearbox re-worked

Upgrade to a Sadev Sequential

Upgrade to a 620R

Chuck in the towel and ask for a refund

Free Poll creator

The end of the road?

A little over a month ago, the car was returned from having it's third gearbox seal and service. I've used the car three times since then, and after the Snetterton track day I thought there was a little bit of gearbox fluid on my garage floor, putting it down to paranoia I ignored it.  Now a week after my Rockingham track day the gearbox is leaking again for a FOURTH TIME! 


The fourth gearbox leak

Not only that, after lunch at Rockingham I turned the 12v power switch on and some white smoke exuded from my bonnet... Thinking the car had caught fire (which I guess it had), I switched the power off, hastily removed the bonnet to see the white smoke coming from the coil cover. I quickly prised the cover off and could see that a part of the HT lead wiring had somehow shorted on the inside of the coil cover and was melting it, causing the white smoke.  As the coil cover is made from Carbon it made some serious looking white smoke, but nothing was actually damaged.

With the coil cover removed, I tie wrapped the dubious HT lead in place.


The shorted HT lead

I think it's time to call an end to this on going story of hassle, so I've emailed the MD of Caterham requesting a full refund.  I'm sick of this.

The follow on from this post is here:-
http://www.caterhamr500.co.uk/2015/10/what-to-do-next-over-to-you.html