jmaz

Your Spitfire's got a carburetor, not fuel injection, right? I'm trying to remember all the things that would go off on my former carbureted cars - TR4 and BMW 2002. Clogged jets and fuel filters weren't unusual. You note that the car had been sitting for a few years. Had the old gas been drained? The other common failure source was burnt or out-of-gap ignition points. Thing about the old technology is it was usually possible to get the cars to run, even if poorly. My newer (former) fun cars (Alfa Spider and Ferrari 328) were more of the "either runs or doesn't" mode. I'm hoping that my Caterham will be more predictable and easier to diagnose/fix.

Was it the pins that weren't fully seated in the connector body, or was it a problem with the connectors themselves?

What 3D print model did you use for the Spa mirrors? Is it one that you can and are willing to share? What type of print filament did you use? I figured I'd try to get the Eccles version mounts from somewhere, but no idea how long that might take. Ordering anything from the UK these days seems to be a crap shoot, what with tariffs, backlogs, etc.

A black stripe + nose band like the old Lotus would look very slick. Wasp-like.

I really like how your car looks in solid yellow/gold with no stripes. I didn't notice if you're planning on adding any, but it's a cool look as-is

The build continues to progress at a very gradual (comfortable for me) pace. No problems so far. Steps completed to date include front suspension, engine+trans, roll bar, steering, heater, throttle cable, front lights (although not yet connected to the Econoseal connectors), other engine electrical connections, 4-point belts (will install crutch straps when I get them from Josh at RMC as part of my original order), Next on the list is radiator+fan install and engine plumbing. Here are a few things I've noted with some of the recent work: Headlight Wiring: I could have done a much better job of making the wires a more even length prior to heat-shrinking everything. At some point, I'll probably re-do the pins to shorten and even out the wiring into the Econoseal connectors. I'm debating whether to put the stock headlights in place or spend the money now for LED upgrades before final headlight assembly (I'm considering the Morimoto Sealed6 lights, wired for turn signal + DRL function). Steering Centering: Trying to center the steering (in the process of installing the steering column) by counting steering U-joint rotations between full left and right lock didn't seem precise enough, so I used the method shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEPW0Zz8qoU which involved sliding the boot(s) off the steering rack, and then measuring the distance between the steering rack stops. It might be enough to measure the distance at full stop in one direction and then just divide by two, but I measured both sides of the steering rack to play it safe. The maximum travel was 10 cm on each side, so I set a distance of 5 cm per side to center the steering. U-joint and Steering Column Alignment: It's recommended that, if necessary, the steering rack be rotated on its long axis to get as straight as an alignment as possible along the steering rack U-joint and the lower steering column. Even with the rack mounting brackets very loose, I was having trouble rotating the rack until I realized that I also needed to loosen the lock nuts at the tie-rod ends so that the rods could rotate along with the rack. Probably should have been obvious, but I'm finding that, for me at least, I'm saying "duh" to myself quite a bit during this build. Upper Steering Column Bush: Most people note that it takes some force to push the rubber bush with its white insert into the dashboard opening for the upper steering column. I struggled with this for awhile until I noticed that there were some small spikes of powder coat in the dashboard's bush housing. After lightly sanding those off using a Dremel with a drum sander bit, and also using the suggestion of inserting a 1/2" ratchet extension through the bush to provide something to push against, the bush went into place with moderate force applied (https://caterham420detailedbuildblog.co.uk/2020/01/29/steering-column/) Battery Cables: the kit came with two black (ground) battery cables of different lengths. I wasn't sure which was meant for which grounding point, but only one of the cables (the longer one) has a fitting with a big enough hole to fit one of the transmission tunnel bolts through if you decide to use that as a grounding location.

A good thing to keep in mind is that on most types of pins, the rear "wings" on the pin are intended to grip the wire insulation and serve to anchor the pin, while the front wings should grip just bare wire. This helps when looking at how much insulation you want to strip off, and how you want to position the wire in the pin when the pin's being held by the crimping tool.

Yep, your blog's definitely a help. The level of detail (including obscure stuff such as the part numbers for the Econoseal pins) is spot-on, and there aren't many blogs on LHD cars. I also found that the 5 wires wrapped in flexible, tight heat shrink to be pretty easy to get through the bracket. Shouldn't be hard to re-do if desired.

I wasn't aware that you've got a new blog going. You're doing a very nice job with it! The option of leaving off the indicator pods entirely hadn't occurred to me. It's definitely something to consider.

The wire bundle is routed into the headlight mount through the mount's opening+grommet, then down through the mount and into and through the bracket on the forward upper wishbone mounting point (also with a grommet in that opening), and then into the chassis.

Horns I installed PIAA Sport horns, based on online recommendations. They're noticeably louder than the stock horns. They wouldn't fit in the standard mounting location for the 310, so I used the mounting arrangement for the 420. The Encore uses a 420 radiator with the fan mounted in front, so I figure the horns won't get in the way of anything. I initially thought there might be other good candidate locations on frame rails but nothing looked ideal. The PIAA horns require using separate ground wires (provided). The existing purple power wire set was just slightly too short so I had to add a short extension

Headlight wiring Finally managed to finish the headlight wiring. I'm not sure I'm happy with the results - the wiring looks pretty bulky. I decided to go with using a "Y" heat shrink piece when routing the indicator/turn-signal wire up into the headlight bowl. I'd also spliced in another wire to the indicator's power wire, and routed that into the headlight bowl as well. My thought is that when I install LED headlights, I hopefully can use that wire to operate the headlight's "switchback" capability to operate the headlight's daytime running light as a turn signal. Unlike the wiring diagrams and in other blogs I've seen, my indicator pods have red power wires rather than green. That now gives me two red wires at the end of the headlight wiring bundle - the sidelight/parking light wire and the indicator wire. The indicator's wire is a darker red, but I'll need to double check which is which when connecting to the econoseal connector. I tried to arrange the wires so that they'd be close to the same length once inside the chassis, but they're off quite a bit. I might decide to trim the lengths and crimp on new pins. One thing I'm wondering about is whether it would be better to send the indicator's ground wire out through the headlight mount and into the chassis along with the other headlight wires and the indicator power wire. That might neaten up the headlight wiring underneath the indicator pod. It would add extra difficulty in pushing the wire bundle through the headlight mount, but that went pretty easily for me. I've found that with heat shrink, the flexibility of the wrap can vary some between different brands. I ordered "flexible" HS from Digikey, along with the Y HS piece. I also used heat shrink fabric from Digikey. I tried some cheaper non shrink fabric from Amazon but I couldn't keep it from getting ragged looking.

In hindsight, I'm thinking that I should have included the master battery cut-off switch. The extra $250 would have been minimal. I can add a battery isolator switch but that's a bit of a kludge, and not trivial if I want to put in a switch that's accessible without removing the bonnet. hood. What do we call it here in Caterham world?

I found mine (NAPA Evercraft) https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/BK_7761236 on Facebook Marketplace. I bought it for $250, still in its box. I figure I should be able to sell it for $100 or so, later on. Renting is certainly a reasonable option but having one of my own allows me to work at my own (slow) pace. I thought I'd be able to easily rent one from Autozone or O'Reilly's or the like, but when I checked, none of those places actually had any available to rent.

Yep. As I noted, 1-ton may have struggled to provide the necessary height. Lowering the chassis a lot might have worked but then it's hard to work under the car. Plus there's the concern of having a lot of weight potentially extending out past the ends of the hoist's legs. My hoist was on the higher-priced side, even as a Facebook Marketplace purchase, but the design, including the action of this hoist's hydraulics was very smooth, which helped with positioning. Another feature that's useful is to have the built-in T-handle on the frame. This helps with making slight adjustments to the lift's position and angle - important for getting the engine+trans in the right place

Chassis protection and engine in I went whole hog on trying to protect the chassis, but I found that the transmission bell was so tight in the front of the tunnel that I had to remove all of the protection in that area. Mainly cardboard. In hindsight, it might have been better to just tape some plastic sheeting over the heat shielding in that area. As the blogs recommend, I'd also wrapped the entire transmission and gearbox in plastic. The install was easier than I expected. Blogs and guides suggest keeping all of the bolts loose (the engine-attached mounts, the rubber frame mounts, and transmission bracket), and then gradually shifting the assembly around until things line up. I had a really good helper who grasped the need to take work very slowly and carefully. It took us about 3 hours total, including final torquing of the bolts. The load leveler I've got is longer than most. That extra length gave me more leeway for adjusting the tilt of the assembly. The lift is a 2-ton version. I don't know if a 1-ton lift would have provided enough lifting height in this case. The only extra prep work I'd found necessary was to run a thread tap through the frame bolt holes at the rubber mount locations. In the end, everything was a very tight fit. How do people fit a Duratec into an S3?

I added an adel clamp attached to the battery tray bolt to help anchor the heater cable. I also wrapped some silicone tape around the portion of the heater valve, where it looked like it might rub against the back of the battery.

Engine prep I'd seen different recommendations about what peripherals to remove from the Sigma engine to make it easier to fit into the chassis (belt tensioner, alternator, starter). In my case, the only item I removed was the belt tensioner. That turned out to be enough. The combination of the engine hoist and the cart for the transmission worked out well. I'd considered just renting the hoist for the engine-install day, but I decided to buy a very lightly used one. I'm glad I did. I've now used it for multiple tasks in addition to the engine install, such as lifting the chassis out of its crate, repositioning in on the jack stands and assisting with the engine prep.

Upper ball joint removal When I installed the uprights, I'd forgotten to first assure that I had the same number of threads showing on both the RHS and LHS upper rod ends so that camber would be roughly in the right ball park. That meant that I had to pop the ball joint out of its socket. When searching for good ways to do that, folks mentioned using a tie rod fork, or hitting the socket with a hammer, or hitting the socket simultaneously with two hammers, or using a special tool, or using a combination of a bolt and nut to provide some upward force on the ball joint stud. I went with the latter option, as shown here. By turning the nut or bolt just slightly, it applied enough upward pressure to release the joint from its taper. Pretty easy.

This is a big help. With the control cable coming at the valve from the opposite side compared to a RHD car (and compared to the assembly guides), I'd been trying to decide if I needed to install the valve upside down in order to have the valve operate in the correct direction. It didn't occur to me to just have to cable loop back on itself to mimic the direction of a RHD setup.

As you did, I plan to route the ground wire from the pod into the headlight bowl anyway, so adding the second wire wouldn't be hard. I'm trying to keep the wiring as neat as possible so doing it now would make sense since I can tweak the heat-shrink arrangement, etc. easily, at this stage of the build. I'd likely replace the indicator bulbs with LED versions as well, at some point. (Which LED headlight options to go with is a whole different topic - but I'm leaning toward Morimoto Sealed6. Expensive but get good reviews)

There's been some discussion in another thread, "What you wish you knew before ordering your car?", regarding headlight+indicator pod options. One of those is to not install the indicator pods at all (to achieve a more simple, stream-lined look), and instead use the internal turn-signal capability of some types of replacement LED headlights. If I go with the standard look and install the pods, I'm wondering if there's any reason to not extend the indicator-circuit wire into the headlight pod so that there's a connection available for an LED headlight turn signal, if (when) I install LED headlight upgrades.

No tall, gray-bearded person has scratched any dwarf-runes on it yet, as far as I can tell

Thanks. Josh Robbins at RMC just confirmed that it's indeed unused. (Its intended for an exhaust solenoid that only fitted to EU models). To be fair to CC, the assembly guide does mention that some connectors might be extra. They just don't say which ones...

Thanks. The 2 wires are brown/black and orange/white. I'm not seeing any connector in the diagram with that combination. AI suggests perhaps a wiper motor/motor parking role, or a brake reservoir fluid-level sensor role. I'm not seeing any compatible plug within range of it though. The plug is close to the reservoir but the reservoir already has two spade connectors attached. I've read that there can be unused connectors, so I'll just move on and see if something crops up later