Completion Kit - big stuff

Here are pictures of all the items in the completion kit I didn't post earlier:

Diff mounting - spacer tube (DO THIS)

Mike took the spacer and removed the burr on a lathe.

This time I got properly prepared for fitting the spacer.

I put the spacer in the freezer for a few hours and put the diff in front of a radiator. I’d got a threaded bar with nuts/washers and the copper grease ready. I gave the holes in the diff a really good clean with emery paper wrapped round foam attached to the electric drill.

In the end it was very easy to push the spacer in using my hand:

Diff mounting - spacer tube (DON'T DO THIS)

The diff has to have a spacer tube fitted. (Why only one rather than in both mounting holes I don't know!)

It has to be fitted in a similar way to the bushes with constant force. The vice/G clamps weren't large enough so foolishly I tried knocking it in. DON'T DO THIS!!! When they say use constant force they are saying it for a reason. The end of the tube started to splay out as it was going in.

To save further embarrassment I didn't take a picture.

Fuel Lines - LHS adjustment

I wasn't happy with the LHS pipe after I'd fixed it.

Firstly, I had riveted from the outside of the chassis. This meant there was a rivet "bulge" on the inside. I decided to drill out the rivets and rivet from the inside so the flat rivet head would be on the inside and so let the carpets lie flat (note the chassis is the other way up fro the previous photos):


I used a M4 washer to protect the P clip. Here is a close up:

Secondly, the pipe was very close (maybe touching) the edge of the aluminum panel as it transitioned from the under front floor panel to the lowered part of the chassis. Whilst I had removed the rivets I managed to bend out slightly to improve the clearance:

Fuel Pipes - LHS

The LH side is a lot simpler that the RH side as there is only one fuel pipe to run.

The front:


The mid-section:


The rear (I bent the pipe out from the chassis slightly to allow for the flexible hose to attach later):

Propshaft Shortening

I wasn't sure where to go to get the propshaft shortened so I asked around. Propshaft Services Ltd seemed to come up as the best recomendation (someone said they make the propshaft for Caterham). They have sites in Cambridge and Feltham just outside London. My friend Mike goes into London from the west side on a regular basis so he offered to drop it off. Also, he knows a lot more about these kind of things so would be able to hold a more meaningful conversation! It was going to cost £112.70 (£98 + VAT).

A couple of weeks later Mike picked up a very much shorter propshaft:
They seem to have done a good job (according to Mike!) and they'd even painted it.

Fuel Pipes - P Clips

The completion kit has 18 x 8mm P clips for attaching the fuel lines. The manual says attach the fuel lines every 20mm. The fuel lines are 1830mm long. After an astounding mathematical formula I worked out they don't provide enough clips.

I wasn't sure if the SVA requirements mean you need to attach the lines that close together so rather than risking it I got some from eBay for £2.20:
Item title: 20 x 8mm 5/16" Nylon P Clips Routing Wiring Cars Bikes

Fuel Pipes - Bending

I should have said something about fuel pipe bending earlier but didn't so here it is... (I'll probably move this to an earleir date later!)

All the recommendations I've seen say you need a proper tool for bending the fuel pipes. They are a lot more difficult to bend than the brake lines which you can easily bend with your hands. (Or utilising a ring spanner.)
I picked up one of the following for £12.91 from Machine Mart (they are cheeper now the VAT has gone down):


When I collected the original starter kit I spoke to a really helpful guy at Westfield who does all the brake & fuel pipe bending and he gave me a demonstration. By holding the bending tool in a vice, marking the spot with a permanent marker it's (fairly) easy to get good clean bends.


To get a tight bend round a 90deg corner he advised putting a "swan neck". i.e. bend the pipe more than 90deg then bend back. In the end I didn’t need to worry about this as I used the little blocks to hold the pipes away from the front panels.

Fuel Pipes - RHS outer

Added the 2nd fuel pipe that runs alongside the 1st. This one is slight trickier as the bends aren't simple like the 1st. I tried to make a bit of a gap as it changes from the lowered part of the floor to under the footwell panel. This was so that I could run the front to rear brake pipe between.

The picture below show as I was starting to fit the brake pipe:



At this stage I was still using the Ikea M4 bolts to temporarily hold the P clips in place. I wasn't sure if I would need to remove the fuel pipes to drill the holes for the brake pipe fixings.




I also straightened out the bends on the 1st pipe so it ran along the edge of the chassis strut.