Build time

[Mucus72]

Hi all,

like a giddy kipper, I placed an order for a new 420R kit today. I've been servicing my old K series car for the past 4 years and am no expert mechanic, but got stuck in and am not quite a numpty. 

With that in mind, how long realistically would it take to build a new one from scratch. I read somewhere about 70 hours, but that may be for a 'real' mechanic, not an 'every 10 minutes head scratch and cup of tea bloke' like me!

Thanks

marcus

[revilla]

You're backwards and forwards like a pendulum!

So decision made then, you're building. Good luck, and enjoy. By the way I can't add anything sensible in the way of an answer to your question, just wanted to wish you all the best with it :) Do you know when it is likely to be arriving?

[ChrisC]

Hi Marcus

Looks like your a year ahead of me ;-)  I wan't to build a 420R in the near future. 

Sorry can't help with your question, only done a few engine and suspension rebuilds myself, but wanted to wish you luck :-)

Chris.

[Mark w]

I would say 70 hours is sufficient if you plan and think about things in advance .

I have built 2 now , the first one was 80% complete after taking a week off work and not doing much else , it then took several weekends to finish , its things like fitting the poppers on the boot cover that take an age to do if you want to get it absolutely right .

Shortages add exponentially to the time as does things like IVA .

If you are meticulous and want to do things like adjust cable lengths then times not on your side . .....

I would say do it at your own pace , think and plan ahead and enjoy the process rather than worrying about how long its taking .

 

 

[CharlesElliott]

My first car took me 100 hours. I would think 80 hours is more than possible if you know your way round the car.

I'm about to strip mine and rebuild it on a new chassis, so we'll see how long that takes

[griffchris]

Just finished my 420R and mine came out at around 130 hours all in - complete novice, planned well in advance but I was in no rush - I'm not going to get much chance to use it until the spring!

[Mucus72]

Ok thank you all, I will budget around 100 hours and aim to take a week off work to get it moving properly. ChrisC nice to hear from you! We should get together on another track day next year - it was fun spinning in unison on a greasy Bedford circuit a few years back!!

andrew - I know in the end I thought 'it's never going to happen again', why not just go for it and attempt the build. I was talking to Steph about getting your whole family round for dinner to discuss (and as a thank you for all those hours of previous assistance you have gracefully given me). Checking the social calendar though, I think even that may have to be early next year!

Regarding delivery dates, I'm hoping for around April time. I was quite anti-Caterham until I found out the Jonny from BookaTrack is actually a Caterham dealership and will have a shiny flagship location finished for the New Year. I think if Caterham Midlands was still around, I would have bought a Zenos ;) I think I'm going to be his first customer, which is exciting!!

 

[revilla]

Marcus, that would be lovely :)

[Jonathan Kay]

... and aim to take a week off work to get it moving properly.

If you're starting with an intense session you'll need to put extra effort into checking you've got all the right bits well before it starts.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Jonathan

[TomB]

It would be very frustrating to take a week off work to find some key parts were missing! Apparently it can happen 

[NedK]

It can definitely happen. Once you've got the kit, my advice would be to make sure you've got next weekend's jobs planned by Wednesday, so that you can call Derek and he'll get you the parts by Friday... This happened several times to me.

N

[AndrewB]

I managed a staggeringly slow 148 hours, then again that equates to 148 hours of pure man cave heaven.   I think it was 156 days from delivery to getting it on the road (legally).  I was advised to take my time and enjoy it and I did exactly that.  I did record (very crudely) where I spent my time and I took the approach of : do a task : have a coffee : do a task : have a coffee.  

http://caterhamsevenbuild.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/build-diary-record-of-time.html

 

 

[Mucus72]

Thanks for the additional advice team BlatChat. I downloaded and read the build manual last night. Not the best written document in the world. Not great on the build order or photo quality side and then chunks of repeated document that seemed identical to me. Shouldn't they just pay the next idiot silly enough to build one to document properly for each major variant. Or say, take £5k off my bill to do so, hint, hint ;)

My plan is now, with your advice, is to chop manual sections into weeks and the right order, use my big white board to list missing items early and try and employ some project management skills!!

[Mucus72]

@AndrewB, I enjoyed reading your blog, thank you. Also, I think you are being unkind to yourslef regarding totting up build time! 

I would subtract cleaning the garage, the doubling up of man hours for engine in (becuase I would count elapsed time not man hours!), PBC and IVA. That saves you 26 hours on your 148, or 122 in total ;)

My cup is ALWAYS half full though.

One other thoguht I have. If you lot have built cars and everyone generally moans at the build manual, why hasnt one of us documented this fully and created a better build manual? I am going to mull over this thought - surely all I need is a dictatphone, a decent camera and a process oriented, project management writing style. I'm only missing the dictaphone... And with Andrew Revill round the corner, I bet that appeals to him too, I mean didnt he recently redraw the wiring loom for a K series for fun?!

[AndrewB]

Thanks Mucus72.  

I did have good intentions of using some pdf annotation software to mark up my thoughts, comments and clarifications on the build manual.  I guess once it's built though it becomes less important as you want to go out and drive instead.  Great if you can do it as you go as well as a blog.

[revilla]

Haha Marcus I'm only just awake and casually browsing through New and Updated and I find my name! You scare me when you threaten to drag me into your plans, you are one of those people who does everything to 120% and you have positively unhealthy levels of energy, optimism and enthusiasm :) Anyway I'm sure you've heard the one about the dictaphone? Secretary asks her boss "Can I use your dictaphone?", he replies "No, use your finger like everyone else."

[John Vine]

why hasnt one of us documented this fully and created a better build manual?

That's a good question. 

During both my builds (1999 and 2008), I noted down all the little errors and ambiguities I found.  Later, I turned these into a document and sent it to CC for their consideration in future editions of the Guide.  I'm pleased to say that most of my comments were indeed reflected in later versions.

In a previous incarnation, I spent many years as a technical author and editor (initially for a big multinational, and later as a freelance).  You may think that CC's Assembly Guide is pretty rough in places, but believe me, compared to some of the stuff I had to deal with, it's not bad at all, and has improved greatly since the 1999 version. 

The big problem for CC's tech author(s) is having to cater for so many variants in the one volume (although I see the 160 has merited its own AG).  Achieving a good balance between repetition and relevance is quite tricky to pull off, while at the same time trying to explain in clear, unambiguous English how to accomplish each task.  That's a lot more difficult to do well than many people realize.

It would be tempting to offer to do the job -- but then, of course, I'd need CC to provide me with a shiny new kit (several different ones, in fact) to work on!

JV

 

 

[Mucus72]

Maybe now is the right time to offer yours skills again John? Maybe Caterham are more serious about growing their business - 600 cars a year, 100 more than normal, and a newly created bunch of dealers who actually know what they are doing? I bet these dealers are not sitting back and wondering why Caterham are planning manufacturing from an excel spreadsheet, or have a parts website so woefully inaccurate and confusing from a part code perspective. 

Even my car and options selection process involved printing out a PDF document, writing on it, typing my spec back up into a spreadsheet, handing it over, and praying that it can be translated back into the exact spec when it hits Dartford, via a few telephone calls!!

What does every other car company do, including the small volume manufacturers like Radical? Click on boxes on screen, see the car image and price update dynamically, print a copy for your records, save the config, send to manufacturer. Bish, bash, bosh. 

[Mucus72]

And John, they just need you on the Dartford site and you can photo, write up, validate every step whilst the Caterham mechanics do the work on each model variant. Wouldn't that be an awesome job for you? A few months of pure fun and joy. 

[John Vine]

they just need you on the Dartford site and you can photo, write up, validate every step whilst the Caterham mechanics do the work on each model variant. Wouldn't that be an awesome job for you? A few months of pure fun and joy. 

Ah yes, what a prospect!  If I were 15 years younger, I'd give it serious consideration.  In fact, back in 1999, I almost did approach CC with a proposal but had to drop the idea as I was in the middle of a big freelance contract, expected to run for several years (which it did).  

As of today, however, there are a few snags:  I'm retired, I spend six months per year out of the country, and much as I love 7s, the prospect of working for months in Dartford takes a bit of the shine off.

I don't know whether CC employ a professional tech author for its AG.  Looking at the result, I'd say they don't.  But they could improve things a lot with a comprehensive and professional edit.  That would deal with things like style, duplication, ambiguity, illogical sequencing, cross-referencing, multiple variants and so on.  I think the end result would be a reasonable compromise -- after all, the basic input material exists already.

JV

[Jonathan Kay]

I'm up for this, but my ideal plan would be:

1. We get multiauthor wikis running on the site.
2. We build those for some topics that are under own control, and when that's working...
3. ... we ask Caterham for permission to build an annotated wiki version of the Assembly Guide.

Jonathan

[Mucus72]

Brilliant Jonathan. We use Confluence at work and its an awesome (and easy) wiki solution. After comparing the build manual with, for example, Andrew B's blog build diary, some of what John Vine talks about (colour photos, build sequnecing etc.) are locked in these 3rd party sites. The great thing about wikis are that they are managed by a group, and geneuinely become (over time) the defacto standard. In effect, the perfect build manual builds itself...

 

Shame on you John for not wanting to spend time in lovely Dartford!

[John Vine]

Well done, JK!  I thought you might come up with a suggestion like that. 

A couple of comments:

• Presumably full wiki access (that is, for edits and updates) would be limited to the L7C membership.
• The idea of kit-builders being able to annotate a central copy of the AG has enormous appeal, but I think CC will require some persuading to play along.  After all, they turned down our request to load up Workshop Notices on our website -- even those that were already in circulation amongst the membership. 

JV

[BigCol]

In reply to the original query, my build was circa 120 hours...  compared to some this was a long one but I'd rather do things properly than quickly (though my wife would disagree with this with respect to some activities!)

Also the old 80/20 rule was well in effect - I had a rolling chassis surprisingly quickly but things like the weather gear, tonneau etc took ages as I wanted then spot on - measure thrice, cut once!

[Jonathan Kay]

• Presumably full wiki access (that is, for edits and updates) would be limited to the L7C membership.
• The idea of kit-builders being able to annotate a central copy of the AG has enormous appeal, but I think CC will require some persuading to play along.  After all, they turned down our request to load up Workshop Notices on our website -- even those that were already in circulation amongst the membership. 

I think it needs to be multi-author to keep it up to date. Without that it will be just another fragment to join the numerous existing threads and blogs.

What do others think about who should be able to write and read? (My own view may not be representative as I think that the forums should be restricted to Members except for a few exposed tasters.)

It would clearly be better to link from the factory Assembly Guide. I'd hope we could convince Caterham by demonstrating the quality and value of our work on something to which they don't have rights, eg choice of tyres. But if they don't agree I have a cunning plan...

Jonathan