Post-Thanksgiving Update

Today’s a lazy post-Thanksgiving Saturday – turkey left overs & the Michigan / Ohio State game on the TV. Haven’t got the TV in the garage hooked up yet so rather than spend time on insulation and drywalling I’ve been doing some research on the ipad reclined on the couch; watching youtube vids of Ford Duratec builds, reading threads on USA7s.com, and searching ebay looking for a motor. Lots of progress:

  • Logged into caterham.co.uk and my profile was granted access to the owners manual, build manual, supplements, and price lists. I don’t think I mentioned it, but when I signed up several weeks ago it wanted me to provide owner information which I didn’t have. Someone at Caterham must have pushed a button which indicates I really do have a bunch of car parts being built and packaged over there (!!). Pulled down copies of the PDF’s; ver 05.2012 with 221 pages, and so far have been pretty impressed with it. Easy to follow directions, good pictures, and schematics for most of the major components. Feeling a little more comfortable with the “zomg I’m building a car” feeling.
  • Found an awesome black and white picture in the manual; copied and linked screenshot below.
  • Managed to locate a motor. There’s a used automotive parts distributor in Fairburn, about 30 miles south of me. Will have to find a weekday to head down there and see what they got in stock, but based on their ebay listings they’ve got a good supply of Ford 2.0L Duratecs with the right 8th digit VIN (“N”).
  • Pulled down a tool list off britishspeed.com. Copy and pasted into a Excel sheet – will need to go through the list this week and start acquiring tools. I know I’ve got most, but some things I don’t and will need to acquire (rivet gun, 200lb torque wrench, engine hoist, etc.). Good thing Christmas is coming up… (mom, hint, hint).
  • Got a reply from Jon at Caterham USA regarding the gearbox. I’d sent him an email on Friday trying to find out if they had gearboxes in the US already he could sell me since Caterham UK seemed to have them on back order. Unfortunately, I have to order through the UK apparatus, but the good news is they are always listed as being on back order on the Caterham UK parts website. Jon gave me the number for a contact there; will call the UK on Monday to get the gearbox ordered.

Unrelated news, I spent an hour and a half in my office this morning organizing a 5-year old stack of paperwork on my shelf and found my original Lotus invoices for the Elise and the Exige. Once I get the Caterham paperwork may need to frame all three and put them up somewhere.

Now the picture I mentioned above:

Unboxing of a Caterham Super 7

Daniel