2021 Caterham 310R Racer

Day 13 was a great day with a lot of progress made. Having dad visit for the day really helped getting stuff bolted together and working around the problems. Two minds is better that one!

Rear suspension is virtually complete apart from the brake calipers. As are the rear wings.

The drivers seat is known for being a complete pain but I didn’t even bother trying to use the bolts provided. Skipped straight to the better solution I read about. Which is use bolts that get locked into the grooves of the runners and no messing around with hex keys. After two attempts it was in.

4 more evening in to the build and things are going well. The steering and exhaust system are in. Central tunnel cover is on and finishing touches like the gear lever are done.

Made a start on the rear suspension tonight and that is half done.

Had a few issues along the way which have slowed down the build.
The white inserts on the steering column that everyone warns you to be careful with and not knock them out I knocked out. The spring clips on the exhaust were as expected. Looked like they would never go on but eventual did using the universal tool that is the cable tie.

The eighth day was the first full day on the build and the first with extra help. Long and the short of it is the engine, gearbox, propshaft and diff are all in.
Had the typical mix of issues where stuff was a tight fit or didn’t quite line up. But nothing a little pushing and pulling and a mallet wouldn’t fix. First challenge was the car being in the wrong place in garage and too high to be able to get the crane in. Ended up putting the front wheels on so we could put it on the floor and move the back of car (Which has no wheels at the moment) around using the crane. Once in place it had to go back on the axle stands. The process of putting the engine and gearbox in went really smoothly with no major issues. Just a bit tight with both going in as one unit.

 

The diff was a bit more fiddly due to poor access and it’s heavy to get into place while trying to get bolts and washers in place.

 

Seventh day and managed to find a spare couple of hours to fit the roll cage. Which didn’t quite fit so had to widen some holes so the threads would line up. Also bolted in the passenger seat as I don’t think I’ll need to move it again.

Big day tomorrow for the build. Finally the engine will be going in along with the gearbox and the last of the heavy parts!

Sixth day and managed to spend a couple of hours on the car fixing some of the issues I was stuck on Sunday. The elusive handbrake parts were in the bag labelled ‘axle’ and putting that in was a quick job. The seats didn’t fit previously because I used the wrong set of seat belt mounting points on the inboard side. Totally missed the other holes because the interior of the car was not well lit. With a torch in the car it was easy to spot them. Won’t bolt the seat in yet as it would block me getting to the mounting points for the rear suspension which i’ve yet to start. At least with the seat in it is starting to look more like a car.

Also got around to drilling holes in the driver side floor pan so I could fit the 2 lower harness straps. The instructions don’t match up with the parts so made it up based on what made sense to me. Hopefully it’s correct.