FIA bar fitting

[Mr Locust]

Has anyone else had problems wtith the 'underneath' bolts on an FIA bar fouling the tops of the dampers?

 

The bolts supplied are aready smaller diameter (3/8" rather than 7/16") than the instruction book says and have slimmed down heads. Holes in the chassis cups are more than generous for the larger bolts so thick (ish) washers are required to stop the bolt pulling straight through.

 

It all looks a bit poor unless I've missed something.

[Colin Grundy]

The only problem I found was that the bolts were found in the misc. pack rather than where you would expect to find them ( in the fixings for the FIA bar), are you sure your fitting the right bolts?

The heads of the bolts are in fact half the thickness of a normal bolt and they fitted perfectly without fouling the tops of the s/absorber, even with a spring washer.

Perhaps a call to Caterham tommorow could be in order.

Good luck.

[Tiff]

I noticed the same thing. The manual does not mention washers but I also reckoned they were needed, and the damper still fits OK. I found the the narrowness of the slim bolt head made it more difficult to torque up.

[fordy]

I don't even seem to have a hole in the chassis cups to bolt through! (95 de dion chassis)

 

Fitting new dampers this week so will investigate from underneath. I don't have the bolts either, are these a special type?

[darren f]

Had one nightmare of a job finding the special bolts when fitting the bar on my R300- scoured all the fixing packs to no avail.

 

Found them expertly concealed in the bubble wrap around the bar itself. Oh, how I laughed

[Mr Locust]

Cheers chaps!

 

Phoned the factory today - the answer was fit bolts with no washers.

 

Both 7/16" and 3/8" bolt sizes are used on different rollover bar variants but the hole in the car is the same (big) in all cases. Apparently there is a requirement for 3 fixings each side (L/R) to comply with regs - this must mean fixings not shared with the top harness mount as there is already 3 bolts on the top side of the plate (2x7/16" + 1x5/16").

 

For a comparatively large hole/small bolt this seems a bit crap but there you go the plug socket arrangement will be pretty strong in shear and there are plenty of other bolts.

 

Aparently a lot get 'missed out' and it is pretty hard to check under normal scrutineering. Again, not a wholly satisfactory answer if you want to fit it as per the homlogated FIA design for your own safety.

 

Just one of those little contrary things that you seem to get to hate/accept. Will probably a clean up & loctite bottom pins as if they were to unscrew at all I could envisage it leading to one mightily annoying/hard to find noise when the damper eye moves about and hits it!

 

By the way - the special 3/8" bolts with turned down heads were cunningly hidden in an auxiliary bag taped to the FIA bar fastener bag. What confused me was the manual said use 7/16" pins (in the bag) and the bar had 3/8" inserts I found this out once the bar was on the car.

 

Edited by - Mr Locust on 6 Jan 2003 20:40:55

[scooby dooby doo]

that the FIA bar fixing kit has only 2 of the 12 bolts required is my greatest with Caterham.

 

HOOPY 500 kg R706KGU