MattWoking

Yes, I agree. Thanks to all for such a fantastic day. The Caterham which was for sale, is no longer for sale. Apologies for those who I didn't say bye to, you were all on the track and I was watching time tick down for my journey home. Hope you all enjoyed the last session. I ended up doing most of the M25 in the dark ... which I can confirm, was not a lot of fun. It was totally worth it though. Great day, great club. Matt (Yellow 310S, self built ...).

Thanks for replies - booked in at Brackenborough hotel in the end. No idea what is allowed / disallowed anymore so imagine will be no dinner / drinks the night before anywhere.

Morning folks - so am doing the drive from Surrey the night before - I see there is a camping request, but thats not my thing the day before a trackday! Anybody got any accomodation recommendations nearby? Preferably with covered / secure parking for the pride & joy? Thanks in advance, look forwards to seeing some (many?) of you next Thurs. Matt.

Resolved it. I did a bit of fiddling with the flap over the weekend and after some jiggling managed to get it off - had to push the silver flap down hard, then pulled it outa nd it turned. Managed to work out what the problem was too. Seems these petrol caps have a design flaw in that the wire which keeps it stuck the car when ou take it out, can push down and prevent you being able to turn the flap around. I basically just pulled it very tight which did something to lock it up in the mechanism and hence won't fall down preventing it from blocking the twisting mechanism. The joys of 7 ownership!!

Thats a great shout! I hadn't though of accessing via the boot .... Cheers for the thought!!!

I had thought of WD40, and then wondered what that may do if it gets into the petrol tank?

310S. Looks like this http://www.kitcardirect.co.uk/universal-3-aero-fuel-cap.html

Hi all, So, went to fill the car with fuel the other day, and I couldn't open the flap. It seems to be permanently locked. Can't turn the metal bit at all, and simply feels locked. I can turn the key around no problems but in both directions it feels the same. Did note that it was a bit tighter than usual to pull up the metal tab when I went to fill it. So I suspect something may be broke .... Anybody faced this before and have any simple solutions?

I'm surprised they aren't mandatory / law. I've driven with the roof on in the rain once, and it worked very well I thought.

Disappointed there are no online videos or pictures of my perfectly executed 720 degree spin.

Outstanding day. Four seasons unfortunately, although I don't think it took anything away from the overall experience. WEll, apart from going backwards for the first time :) I'll definitely be signing on for some more next year. Thanks to all. Caterhams really do come alive on the track.

have signed up for that already, and it will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks James. I'm all signed up. Debut (in the UK at least) so looking forward to it, with a bit of nerves of course! Cheer, Matt

Hi all - does anybody know when the deadline if too late to book to this now? I'm assuming it has, but I'll find out tonight if a last minute expected schedule change will give me a window of opportunity to attend. Any thoughts appreciated! Best, Matt

Back online again after a hiatus .... A long way down the track now. The updates 1. All the wiring stuff on the guages - I suspect Caterham ballsed it up when they supplied it. I'm fairly confident that the petrol, temp and oil pressure were wired to the wrong guages. 2. I paid Caterham to do the IVA and I'm glad as it failed first up - something wrong with the handbrake not applying equal pressure. 3. Grommets. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get some of the bastards in. 4. Headlights ... they weren't happy with my wiring. Which is a bit upsetting as I spent hours on that and thought it looked ok. Lots of other things were wrong which they replaced under warranty. Battery, brake master cylinder and clutch were all faulty and required replacement. I didn't have to pay (good) but it did take a while. I think it was close to 3 months from pick up at mine to me picking up at the factory. And then as soon as I got it home, I noticed oil everywhere. Turns out there was a "pinhole" in the sump which again was fixed under warranty. I didn't expect perfection, but I do feel that the list of things which were faulty was quite excessive. However ... I'm now 1000 miles in which means I'm past the running in stage (changing gear at 4k rpm got boring) and boy are we underway. Not taken on track yet, as I'm still learning to drive it. Each time I head out for a blat, I discover something else about the handling characteristics of the car. Learning very quickly where the edge is and how to drive as close as possible. Next steps ... finally make it to a club event, and then on a track day / learn to drift day. Seen quite a few other Caterhams on the road around me, unfortunately I'm usually in the family wagon, but on the times I'm the 7, there's always lights flashing and waves. Great little community we have here. In the meantime, if anybody in Surrey knows some good places to head out for a blast (which isn't overrun by lyrcra clad crazies) then let me know ... I think the people who live around Foxhills / Chobham are rather sick of the sight of me by now ...

Yeah, I did cheers. I got the idea of using this one from another blog where said it had worked out really well. I think I may need to just do a full "start again" as the right wing seems perfectly fine.

I didn't remove all of it, perhaps closer to half of it. It looks to have failed on the connection to the cycle wing - as there is a fair bit of glue on the wingstay, but not on the wing it self.

I used Sikaflex 521. It was only the left one which came off, the right one still feels stuck fast. Both surfaces were sanded to make a roughish surface. I intitally put on a long length on top of the stays then once I had them in position I filled up the sides to make a more thorough job of it. It's been around 3-8 degrees where I live. As the right one still feels stuck fast, I may just try and reglue it, but obviously the worst thing that could happen is that one or both fail during IVA.

I went through and checked all earths and all look fine. It's only the petrol guage which isn't moving at all, so thats the only one I think may potentially have these issues. I fired her up again and took her for a quick blast around the private road I live on -which is fair to say was interesting! The guages didn't change at all, so I'm at a loss now, and think it's probably best for the PBC to look at these. The car blew white smoke for a while which I think was just steam as it didn't hang around, and had a really strong hydrocarbon odour too. I noticed this morning though when I dropped the kids off to school, my 1 series BMW had the same odour (it's pretty new) so I'm unduly botheredabout that. Worst thing was though, the bloody cycle wing fell off! I attached using Sikaflex, and gave it 72 hours to dry, but for some reason it just hasn't bonded. So I'm thinking aout going down the bighead fastener route - currently messaging them about buying some in low volume. Fantastic to get it out on the road though - the speedo / rev guages worked fine and all the other electrics are working as expected. Although I never went over about 15 mph and 2k RPM, could already feel the rawness of the car and the connection between driver and road which I experienced on the test. Can't wait to get it through PBC / IVA / DVLA and take it for the first proper blat.

Thanks for the tips - will check them out. Latest update .. I think the current seems consistent and strong. I've hooked up the rear lights and they work as expected. The dash lights work fine as well. So overall, I think the electrics on the whole are ok, but is something a bit dodgy on these guages. The heater works as expected. So tomorrow, will go through all the fuses to makes sure they are ok, tighten and check earthing points, look at submarine, and the oil pressure sender. I suspect the temperature maybe related to an air bubble. When I filled up the coolant and it took much less than expected and then this morning the coolant tank was the same. However when I Came back in the afternoon, it had dropped drmatically - so I suspect a large air pocked may have come out. Thanks as always for the help!

The rev counter is ok. IT's quite jumpy, not as smooth as a production car, but does work. The water temp goes to 80 as soon as soon as it has power - i.e before the engine starts. The pressure guage moved from the red to 0.8b or so when I was cranking with the inertia switch off. However, once I started it, it didn't move. Blips on the throttle does nothing.

Definitely want suggestions ... ! I don't have a multimeter, but logic tells me the only one not getting any current is likely to be the petrol guage. As the others do actually move. I'll look at adjusting the throttle for the idle issue - thanks for the tip.

Boom, she fired up! Went through all the motions as suggested in teh guidebook (both old and new) and then once all go, the engine turned over for about 6-7 seconds then caught and off she went! Exhilirating, thrilling, exciting and incredibly joyous occasion! Short lived though, as a plethora of issues developed over the next 5 mins. Clearly something is up with the wiring as none of the guages moved. The oil pressure never increased above about 0.5 bar, the tempoerature (Which was showing 80 degrees before I even turned it over) never moved from 80, the fuel tank never even got about an inch below empty .... Oh, and yeah the car doesn't idle either, needed to keep foot on the gas to keep her running ... all points sent off to Derek, as I'm sure I must have missed something very simple. But hey, who cares - the yellow Cat is alive!!

And we're done ... bleeding brakes is quite straight forward, but is more time consuming than I was expecting. The clutch was a bit of an arse, as the manual is compltely different to reality. It feels quite soft at the moment and only on startup will I really know if I've cocked it up good and proper. Just oil, coolant, connect the batter, put it on it's paws and I'm ready to give it a start ...

SM25T - thanks. So I think that means I'm good to go. Fingers crissed! Thanks to all for due input