Are you sitting comfortably?

My Dad finally got to help me today and I know he's been itching to get involved.  Firstly, I put the extinguisher back in but the real reason for getting to work on the car today was fit a new seat.

In order to satisfy the regulations which dictate my helmet should be 50mm lower than the top of the roll-cage, I need to fit a special seat.  The composite Tillet seat I originally fitted made me sit too high.  Even if it had been OK, the HANS device I now have isn't recommended with the Tillet.

Therefore, I had a choice of a foam seat or a resin-bead seat.  Ultimately, they do the same job: they mould to the shape of the driver.  The foam is cheaper but is less reliable - and you get one go at getting it right.  Therefore, and with significant help from my parents, I went for the resin-bead seat.  This is basically a bean-bag that you pour a resin into.  The bean-bag is attached to a vacuum and when you remove the air from the bag, you can move the polystyrene 'beans' or 'beads' around to form a shape.  When you're happy, you add the resin, re-form to the shape you want and wait for the resin to harden - about an hour after you apply the resin.

That's the theory...

The bag looks like this when you're trying to get the shape...

We got this far OK but when pouring the resin in, the valve came clean away from the bag.  Once the air paled from it's blue hue, we had to press on because the resin needed to be worked into the beads.  The valve taped, we got the now resin-charged bag into the car.  Sadly, because the valve had come off, the vacuum necessary to shape the seat was impossible to keep - and the shape couldn't be held.  An added problem was that the garage was really cold - and it should be room temperature for the resin to harden.  After getting more frustrated with not getting the best shape, we were forced to give up...

The next day, I found the seat had hardened and I squeezed myself into the car.  Surprisingly, the shape was pretty good but far from perfect - additionally, the surface was in poor condition as the bag couldn't be stretched over the beads properly (another function of the vacuum).

Wind the clock on 24 hours and having contacted the manufacturer (http://www.realessential.co.uk/) about the problem we had and they have generously offered to replace my seat.  Further to this, they'll help me fit the new one when they visit Rockingham soon (and it's only down the road from me!).  Despite the set-back, Vaughan at Real Essential has been very helpful and I look forward to getting this fixed.

As a footnote, I really enjoyed working on the car with my Dad  and despite my foul mood, I really hope he enjoyed it too.  Thanks to my Mum for keeping us full of tea.  Love to you both.xxx

Registered and Road Tested

Got my registration documents through last week and promptly got my registration plates made. Having donned them to the front and rear of the car, I made the most of the dry, sunny weather on Friday to put the first road miles on the car.

What a great experience. Here was a car that I had built myself, stopping, accelerating and steering without a problem.

When the clouds came in, I returned home and only managed a short trip of about 8 miles. But I'm on the road.

Front Suspension going in

I wish I could show you some pictures to go with this post but the site seems to be crashing at the point where I upload them so I'll put them up another day.

After a few frustrating moments, several post-watershed utterances and less grazed knuckles than I thought, the front suspension is nearing completion. I've just got to attach the roll bar, and tighten the braided brake hoses to the calipers. Then the female brake unions need doing and that's it.

A few difficulties along the way: I think the upper wishbone is best to attach after you've fitted the spring/damper unit as it gives you a but more space to manoeuvre it in. Then the top bolt to attach the spring/damper unit is an absolute nightmare to remove and re-install. This was easily the most frustrating thing - the only way I found to accomplish the task was to screw it millimetre by millimetre. It took ages.

Apart from that, I learnt to make sure I read the instructions properly - particularly when fitting the 'upright' (screw the plain nut fully home before undoing it again) - and I'm just waiting for my steering rack before feeling like the front is done.

On that subject, the rack should be here on Friday. Caterham now have them but they're waiting for brake pads (which I hadn't realised were missing) to arrive tomorrow before sending them all out to me.

One last bit of chat for this post: I asked my wife to help so that she could be part of the process and I couldn't have built the front without her assistance. It was certainly a two person job on occasion.