Adventures in owning a Caterham... But what if your car had no purpose except to be a car? When the journey itself was the end not the means?
Cars have many purposes: as convenient tools from getting from A to B; as useful methods of transport for multiple people to school, work or some recreational activity; as competition machinery, etc. When its best journeys were from A to A, possibly via B, C, D and E but not really because of any need to visit any of them?
Company day off, so once I’d woken up properly, and ascertained the puddle in the garage was only a leaking screen wash bottle (phew!) and replaced a broken headlight bulb, it was off to test the new seats.
Happily, the promised intermittent showers held off too!
She’s back on all fours and running!
This can only mean one thing...
This weekend sees the arrival of the final nuts and bolts necessary to finish putting the rear suspension back together, as you can tell from this weather forecast after weeks of lovely hot sunshine.
I’m really sorry about this.
I don’t always get lower rear shock bolts to thread into the DeDion tube perfectly first time, but when I do...
..I’ve probably forgotten to add the rear washer.
Rats.
It’s taken a fair while, but during lockdown I thought I’d get the shocks serviced.
That led to taking the entire rear suspension apart because it was grotty as a grotty thing...
Massive thanks to Gemzoe Motorsport for helping remove the knackered old bushes, and also to Metal Magic of Barnsley for powder coating everything - amazing results, absolutely outstanding.
Ooh, a fourth front cover!
A slightly “damp around the edges” day out with the Lotus Seven Club’s Yorkshire Pie Run, but still a fun one.
Katie is filthy...
Thanks to Nick Henstock for this picture.
Cracking test / shakedown day at Curborough. I was questioning the sanity of driving down aeroscreened at 7am with frost in the fields (and on some roads...) but the sun came out again.
We even invented the Burcroissant!
Ha ha ha...
The Banner battery is on the verge of death, so I went to trusty supplier site tayna.co.uk and looked up Caterham... and got a whole slew of models, all referencing battery type / model / size code 53034 (the same code you see on the top of your Banner).
Except, they’re now Exide not Banner. Meh, so what, same code... there is a disclaimer you should check measurements, and when you do you find the maximal dimension front-to-back of the Banner is around the 130mm quoted for the Exide. Great.
Then it turns up and you realise that the Banner is 130mm at the protruding lip, which the Exide doesn’t have. At its base the Banner is more like 125mm, which is a nice snug fit in the tray. The Exide... well I think you can guess.
Arse.
I’m not looking for sympathy, just pointing out something of a pitfall for anyone else looking for a Banner replacement.
(Edit: To be clear, no blame attached to Tayna who provide the correct measurements. It’s just that the Banner has the same measurements as maximals, but not at its footprint)
New nose, finally fitted!
I suppose I ought to fit the new number plate as well...
MoT day, and a big up for the MXS7.0 battery conditioner. After three months of inaction in the cold the battery just about had enough power to light the ignition light (despite being on trickle). It has been dead once before.
Stuck it on the recondition cycle overnight, and this morning she fired up on the button, no hesitation. Now sat in the test bay...
Well this is amusing.
Apparently the mesh is sold to go outside the “7” grille because the grille has “sharp edges” that would fail an IVA. This is free information albeit utterly irrelevant because the curvature is more than sufficient prevent them from fitting together that way around either.
The relevant information is, Caterham Cars Ltd tell you to just bend the mesh until it fits.
Yes, really. Rather than sell you something that’s right to begin with, they sell you something that’s wrong and tell you to force it to fit.
Obviously if you damage it during this process that’s all on you and there’s no warranty cover, you’re just stuffed.
The only surprise is that when you buy a new bonnet it *doesn’t* arrive as a flat sheet of aluminium with instructions to just bend it to fit your car. Or maybe it does, I don’t know, I’ve never bought a new bonnet.
Utterly ridiculous.
Maybe I’ve missed something. New mesh and grille to go with the new nose (as the aperture changed size and shape a few years ago). Both marked as being for a post-2010 SV, “for two piece” (Caterham also do an integrated version).
The mesh has a gorgeous double-curved profile that blatantly isn’t going to sit with the flat grille...
🤷🏻♂️
Lovely sunny morning, bright, dry (from above...), not too cold, but wet underfoot after much rain.
Perfect window of opportunity to take Katie on a blat around the edges of Sheffield for her respray.
Very pleased to have got there before it rained again, having gone aeroscreen to make life easier for the painters...
Wow. Finally! Check the dates...
July 5th *2017*, someone accidentally reversed into the Caterham. The (mortified) driver immediately admitted full liability, as did the nice “first contact” lady at his insurers esure
After several months of their inaction and general incompetence, I instructed my insurers to take over. They subsequently paid out in the knowledge that esure had provided written confirmation of their liability.
Some months after that, TCS wrote to say esure still hadn’t coughed up and I was sent various legal paperwork to initiate a recovery claim against the individual (not the insurance company, although the individual would ultimately have involved esure and claimed against them).
Happily the threat of legal against their customer did the trick, and FIFTEEN MONTHS after the incident and after causing no small amount of stress to both us and their own paying customer, esure have ponied up the dough.
Phew.
However, this has left esure on the list of “companies I’ll never do business with, ever” - can you imagine how let down you’d feel if you made a mistake whilst driving and the company that you’d paid your premiums to, to cover you in case of just that eventuality, basically disappeared for over a year, neglected their legal and moral responsibilities, and left you facing court action through whatever mix of incompetence or just not liking paying out on claims?
The insurance industry isn’t always held in the highest possible regard and esure are certainly doing their bit to prevent that from changing, it seems - in cases like this only commercial pressure will get results, as people use decent companies and eschew the services of the dodgy and lax ones.
You may remember that, nearly 14 months ago, a somewhat inattentive gentleman reversed into Katie, causing an amount of damage. He admitted full liability immediately, as did his insurance company .
It then took esure five months to not arrange so much as a vehicle inspection, never mind a payout, so we got bored and referred the claim to our own insurers, who did pay out.
We’ve recently been contacted by our insurers who tell us that, 14 months on from an incident they have accepted full liability for, esure have yet to reimburse our insurers.
So, esure, welcome to the list of companies we will strongly urge everyone who asks, not to do business with, ever. It’s behaviour like yours that keeps the reputation of insurance companies down near that of politicians and tabloid journalists.
A fun few hours today, swapping the old leaking fuel tank for a shiny new one...
New tank, new gaskets, extraction pump...
I guess that’s a job for the weekend then!
New exhaust and radiator fitted by Dave Gemzoe (plus a new starter motor and various new cables to replace some life-expired ones).
👍
Finally, a new nose!
I haven’t dared pull it out of the massive box of quavers yet...
Had an excellent day out learning a little bit of roadcraft courtesy of three police driving instructors.
When was the last time you had a professional observe and analyse your driving?
Don’t often get to sit here!
Damn! Should have got there a mile sooner!
Went out to North Yorkshire for lunch, and to do a final recce for the Pie Run.
Technically we went to Whitby, but unsurprisingly it was full, so we progressed to The Lion instead.
Only had to clean the bugs off the screen three times (!).
£70 of V-power and some significant sunburn later...
Well now... what could *this* be?
471-and-a-bit miles done in four of the last five evenings. Fabulous, and topped off by seeing this fabulous Riley on the best road in Staffordshire, tonight.
😊
I think that’s something over 350 miles across the last three evenings. Quite liking this weather...
Tonight - Staffordshire! 9 Sevens in attendance, some Italian thing, and a slightly ageing Bentley with headlights somewhat less bright than the ones Caterham fit. Yes, really. Who knew such a thing was possible!
Lovely run out to the North & East Yorkshire meeting tonight - 2 hours on the first warm evening of the year. Only had to clean the flies off the screen once on the way and again on arrival...
Met with many of the regulars and two newcomers who definitely hadn’t come along to get talked out of purchasing.
First test of the Flare Audio ear plugs too - they are amazing. Almost all the wind noise is gone but you can still hear the engine note so they don’t mess with your gear changes or clutch control like normal ear plugs can.
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She’s back on all fours and running! This can only mean one thing...
Don’t often get to sit here!
#rover #prisoner
Always be wary of little cars pootling around slowly, as their drivers often seem to think "slow" is the same as "safe" and therefore no observation is required. There we were, travelling at the speed limit with our headlights on, when this Aygo approached along a side road at a constant bearing (always a concern) and with no brake lights lit. A warning toot on the horn made no difference. I should have got to it half a second or so earlier, but given it made no difference... You can see on the original video that the driver's face never appears at the window, i.e. they didn't even look to see whether the main road was clear, before or after this warning. A second, longer, blast on the horn also made no difference as we took avoiding action and they continued to sail out into our traffic lane, ignoring not only us but the bright yellow Seven following about 100 yards behind (he also successfully avoided the mobile chicane presenting itself in his path). After we'd avoided the collision (note how they're still moving into our lane as we pass the junction), they did at least find their headlight controls to give what appeared to be an angry flash of main beams, presumably at our audacity to have attempted to warn them about an imminent collision - or maybe just for our daring to be on the road. I get that the giveway lines have been mostly tarmaced over and haven't been repainted, but even without those there's enough signage and white lines to clearly indicate a junction with a major road. There may have been some expletives of disbelief shortly afterwards.
And here's the video (including slow-motion replay!)
You can stand reasonably close...
Superb Saturday at the BookaTrack Donington Caterham showroom opening; we even got to watch a little pre-season practice from the second-best seats in the house.
Little can be more relaxing than standing quietly in the peace and tranquility of a churchyard on a sunny summer evening, listening to the birdsong.
Guy Martin. On it. I gave up trying to pan after this, pretty much.
The other thing about the sidecars is, with a side-exit exhaust, you can quite literally* hear them from a mile (and a half) away. *Really you can. Over 30 seconds at maybe 150mph.
Sidecars may not be so quick as the bikes, but if you blink you'll still miss them. Watch the guys opposite doing a passable impression of a high-speed Wimbledon crowd.
Had a minor problem with an electronic flasher unit for the new LED lights... happily fixed by removing and replugging the flasher unit, flasher relay, flasher fuse and hazard switch, so probably just a grotty contact somewhere.
New rear lights project finished. I think it's fair to say they're rather a lot brighter than the factory-supplied ex-caravan lights.
Please watch it in HD, really... Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre's Lancaster, "Just Jane", closes the "Three Lancasters" show with a taxy up to the crowd, a period of full throttle and an opening of her bomb bay doors, before shutting down. The ground was shaking...
Please watch it in HD, really... Just Jane does a drive by on her final taxy run of the day.
Please watch it in HD, really... The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's "Thumper" and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's "Vera" make their second pass over Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre's "Just Jane". Still stunning.
Please watch it in HD, really... The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's "Thumper" and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's "Vera" make their first pass over Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre's "Just Jane". Stunning.
Please watch it in HD, really... Poor commentator was doing his best to tell us about the Canadian Lancaster, "Vera", during Just Jane's startup. I have no idea when he gave up competing, with the number 1 engine no more than 30 feet away.
Please watch it in HD, really... Pure luck that she pulled up with the props directly beside us. Turn it up loud, but even then it won't vibrate your ribs like being there!
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