Having placed the order with Caterham, the long wait is in progress (expected 6 months lead-time to the kit delivery). In addition to the usual work of getting a build space setup and organised, I set about researching the details of what it would take to build a Caterham.
There are a good number of Blogs and Video diaries available, some older, some more recent - but all with fantastic content. What quickly became apparent is that building a Caterham is not necessarily a simple process of bolting parts together. Much is left to the builder to figure out - take a look at the current build manual and the description of how to fit the engine into the chassis for example:
A little simplistic to say the least! However, it wouldn't be any fun without these challenges to ponder and solve. The problem is that mistakes are potentially very expensive to rectify - and I'd like to avoid rework at all costs.
I think there are two types of issue - the first are the regular ones (like the above) that everyone has to solve, and all builders going before me have successfully overcome - and then the second where new problems crop up as design modifications, out tolerance parts or new components have been introduced by Caterham. A classic example is the builder who received a new radiator design that was not fully compatible with the chassis that had been delivered. I wanted to learn as much as possible from the experience of others, and so set about going through the build manual page by page whilst reading how previous builders have completed each step. There were so many "nuggets" of information that cropped up, I am now documenting them as I go. Once complete, I'll make them available to others on the Tigger's Tips & Tricks page (see menu at the top of the page) in the hope that they are helpful to current builders.
The sites that I'm finding consistently helpful and rich in information are:
Name | Owner | Link |
Caterham 420 Build | John Martin | |
Team 420 Build | Obodiah | |
Caterham 7 420R Build blog | Anon | |
Caterham 7 diaries | Mark | |
Caterham 360 build | Rob Jones | |
Caterham 420 Detailed build blog | Chris Collins |
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