My 170S Build

So, just over 13,000 miles on the clock. What have I learnt?

Weather

Obviously, driving with the roof down is the intention. But sometimes, the rain or cold precludes this. My experiences are:

• Its pretty warm with just the half hood and the heater. The openings in the hood seem to encourage air movement through the heater and over the occupants. Its certainly fine above 5 degrees.
• The full hood is pretty good for keeping the rain out. But if you are leaving the car overnight, point it into the wind (otherwise the rain gets around the door seals)
• Whilst the full hood is cosy for very low temperatures, it can result in the car steaming up. Unzipping the back window helps with this.
• I have had a couple of occasions where the draft around the car has pulled the sides of the hood off the poppers next to the door. Avoiding this is just a matter of making sure the flap on the training edge of the door is on the outside of the hood.
• Looking enviously out at a bright blue sky during the winter months can be tempting. The biggest issue for me was the dazzle you get from the combination of low sun angles and damp roads.

More Adventures

My big two trips to date have been epic (Wild Atlantic Way and North Coast 500). My plan is to head south this year into France and see how far I get.

There have been plenty of Club events to take part in. This year, I will be going on the Fish and Chip run as well as trips to various places of interest in this part of the world.

Servicing

The car has had two services this year. The first (occurring at 3000m interlude) is a simple oil change. The service book says that this does not need to include a change in oil filter so I thought this was definitely one I could do at home.   Having warmed up the engine by a short drive, I got the car onto the axle stands. 

I put a plastic sheet out under the car in case of accidents, put the waste oil can under the engine and removed the drain plug.  The oil came out and into the can without issue and it turned into a very easy job.  I was able to take the oil down to the local recycling centre without spilling a drop.  Job done – and for a lot less than it would cost to get it done at a dealership.

The following day, I spotted an electric oil pump in Lidl for £15 which I bought.  This will suck out the oil via the dip stick hole without the need to remove the drain plug (one less thing to go wrong).  That’s for next time.

I thought it better to have a skilled eye go over the car for the major service.  They did pick up that there was an oil leak around the rear axle (I did have some issues during the build getting the oil seal in so it was probably my fault).  There was also some cracking of the gaiters around the steering rods.  The car was safe to drive but it did mean a second visit to Caterham Silverstone (the closest dealer to where I now live) to get these replaced.  The car was just out of the two year warranty but Caterham did provide some of the parts for free.

Bodywork

Not surprisingly, the bodywork is not as pristine as it once was. There are a few scratches on the bonnet and some chafing around the bottom of the doors, as shown below. To protect these areas, I have bought some stick-on transparent patches from Amazon which are intended for bike frames. They are not as thick (or as expensive) as Helicopter Tape but will hopefully do the job for significantly less.

Rear View Mirror

This has been a bit of a pain because if falls off regularly. I have tried lots of ways to glue this in place but each time it seems to work its way loose and drops off at inopportune moments. I have bought a simple sucker-fixed mirror to see how that goes. No jokes about who is the biggest sucker please.

Dashboard

I don’t often drive at night, but when I have, I find the lights in the dashboard switches very distracting. A simple expedient of sticking masking tape on the switch did the job, but looked awful.

I am now trying with some more purpose-designed stickers that I found on Amazon. These glow in the dark and seem to do the job well.

In common with many owners, I find the high beam indicator light excessively bright interfering with my vision forward. As a simple fix, I used a hole punch to make some circular dots out of standard A4 paper and fit it to the speedo using a transparent patch.

The other upgrades are to put some clips on the charging cable for phone to route it over the dashboard neatly, and to fit a dashboard clock. Bizarrely, a replacement battery for the clock cost more than the actual clock (£7.50 vs £2.5 for the clock).