Build 18. Heater

The heater is an optional extra which I decided to go for, as much as I want this car to be light weight and track ready, I am still not ready to give up those in car comforts (I've even gone for the heated seats too!)

The first part of the job was to split the heater into two parts and attach the IVA wiring grommet. I ended up using a grommet from my own pack as I find I have a better size and thickness than the generic Caterham ones that came with the kit. It is faily simple to split the grommet and superglue it around the existing heat shrink wiring.

You will also need to remove the battery in order to complete this step.

Once this is done, I offered up the heater inside the cockpit and pushed through the 4 bolts so they poked out inside the engine bay. Once the 4 bolts are loosely in place, you need to offer up the heater in the engine bay and then slot the wiring loom through into the cockpit and secure the grommet in the hole made for it. Once you have done this, you can then push all the bolts from the cockpit into the engine bay, and then tighten them all up (no too tight because you are tightening onto plastic and not metal!) This was actually quite a tight fit and I needed to use the nylon hammer to knock a few bolts into place. Be careful not to hit the plastic and break it!

Next up was to get the control cable in place (this is the part which manages the "temperature" of the heater). This was also fairly straight forward however I did need to file the hole slightly through to the engine bay to allow the bolt to slot into place as it was just too small. The manual also calls for a rivet to be installed to secure the heater control cable to the heater but I've been reassured that this is not necessary and production cars don't have it, so I have left it out of this build.

I have chosen not to install the heater pipes now as I will do this when I complete all the plumbing of the build. I've also been told that they no longer user the standalone heater hose 5/8" pipe, and now use parts of the silicone hose that match the engine pipework. Again more to follow on that in the plumbing section, I have left the jubilee clips ready in place for the plumbing too.

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