Time spent: 6h
Cumulative time: 62h
Main activities:  propshaft, turbo solenoid, handbrake, gear lever, engine mount, steering

First job was to try and rectify the fixing for the LHS engine mount. The problem was getting the spring washer into the hole in which the bolt sits.  The hole is only just wider than the hold-down bolt and the spring washer was too wide to fit in there.  In the end, I decided to file the washer down so that it would fit.

Overnight my P clips have arrived so I pressed on to fix the solenoid onto the chassis cross-member. I decided to put in two p-clips for this.  After treble checking which if the pipes go to where I put these in place and tightend everything up.  I then noticed that there are some small spring steel hose clips which look like they ought to go on these so I undid everything and added them on.  There is nothing in the Assembly Guide about these.

There are some electrical connections to be made on the underside of the solenoid.

I then thought that as I am about to install the prop shaft and rear axle, it might make sense to get the handbrake done.  Good thing I did – it was a sod of a job (and therefore pretty well impossible with the prop shaft in place). 

In the end, my wife helped by holding an adjustable spanner in place from above on one side of the fixing whilst I was underneath with another spanner doing the other side up from below.  The two brackets on the chassis were quite a lot wider than the handbrake but came together when the bolts were done up.  I think the diagram for the installation of the connector plate into the handbrake is incorrect – I could only get two washers on the inside of the brake and put the other two on the outside which seemed to make more sense.

I have left all the handbrake cables loose for the time being.  I hope I have got them around the right way (they have to cross over the back axle).  I think I have but its not really very clear and they are ‘handed’ so there is a right and wrong way. [well, I was wrong and had to swap them once I had the rear brakes in place]

I then had a go at getting the propshaft in, which was really simple.  Took no effort to slide it along with splines of the gearbox (once I had taken the protective cap out of the back of the gearbox).

The gear lever fitted in easily and works nicely.  I found two short bolts in the pack which seem to fit the gear lever fixing plate so have put these in.  They are not caphead as indicated in the Assembly Guide but that was all there was. [checked with Caterham and these were correct]

On a bit of a roll so decided to see if I could get the steering sorted. Didn’t take too long to fix.