Build 7. Uprights
So when you read the instructions for fitting these in the manual, if you are building an SV, you might find that the manual really does not match the parts used in the final construction of the upright. I have the SV chassis (Widetrack) which means different spacers are used for the upright to sit on. this was also the first part of the build which was a bit more time consuming as some of the parts just didn't fit as they should.
Firstly for the SV build, you are going to need to find these additional spacers, they were in the same bag as the parts that go with the suspension setup, these will look like the following image:
The tophat spacer will be placed in the underside of the lower wishbone ball joint, and the ring spacer will be placed over the bolt on the lower part of the actual upright. You will also need parts from bag A, of which it will ask for two full height 1/2" nyloc nuts (which for the SV build you will not use). Instead you will need to find the half height version of these two nuts in the same bag you found the spacers above in (or at least that's where I found mine!)
Once again I found the best source of the installation instruction for this on the 310 Build website. However I has an issue with my spacers on the second upright so they didn't just "fit on" like everyone said they would.
The first upright went on easily, however the first top hat spacer I tried didn't quite fit so I used the second one available, it slid on quite nicely after using the the "freezing" technique, and the second ring spacer I had just slotted on easily too. Of course now I had two spacers which didn't quite fit the first upright, and I was hoping that they would slip on the second upright instead... That didn't happen.
Basically both of the spacers required some force and grinding to get them to fit. I tried every technique on offer to try and get them to fit (freezing, copper lube, silicone lube), but in reality the pieces were just not quite the right size. I was nervous about doing this at first, but as the parts that needed filing were going to be bolted hard to the upright, and didn't need to move, it seemed like a safe thing to do.
N.B. An email to Caterham at this point was sent and they offered to send out replacements, but by the point I got the reply, I had used the technique below to get them to fit!
On the ring spacer I simply used some high grit sandpaper on the inside of the ring, and persisted trying it over and over again, it took about 9-10 attempts, but eventually it was filed down enough to be a snug fit, each time I tried it, I was sure to give it a spray with some silicone lubricant to help!
With the top hat spacer, I ended up putting it in my vice and using the dremel with a metal grinding attachment on the outside of the smaller ring, this did make a bit of a mess of the metal, but was easy to polish out with another attachment or some super high grit hand sand paper. Again with a bit of persistence this eventually fitted in the lower wishbone nice and snug.
This is how the spacers should look when the upright is fitted correctly on the SV chassis.
I found it easier to fix the lower wishbone nut first (hand tight) and then the steering arm fixing next (hand tight) This will then take the weight of the uprights for you, freeing up your hands to work on the rest.
Once you get to this point, the rest is quite trivial. The next thing to do is to get the upper wishbone connected loosely to the upright (this helps get the force required to remove the main axle nut after this step). For this I removed the nut which is already attached to the upper wishbone, and then jacked up the lower wish bone until I could get a nut on the upper wishbone, I then turned this on a few turns simply to steady the upright.
Next is to remove the nut and washer on the back of the upright main axle nut. This was on very tight, and needed a socket on the end of a long breaker bar to get the leverage to loosen the nut. Here having a stable upright that doesn't move much is a great help (hence the loosely attaching to the upper wishbone above, and jacking up) The nut you have just removed and the washer will not be used so they can be put out of the way (for me I have a box with all the unused/spare parts which I can keep in case they are required at a later date!)
Now remove the upper wishbone nut, and attempt to fit the wingstay on this and the main axle nut. This needed a bit of force to get on. Now secure the wingstay in place at the axle nut with the 1/2" nut, and tighten it finger tight. After this you can use the "temporary" nut to pull the upper wishbone tightly into place, and then swap out the temporary nut, with the proper nyloc once you are happy with everything.
Once you are at this point you can tighten the nuts to the correct torque settings. The manual doesn't have a setting for the track end rod, but I went for 34Nm based on other blogs and the 2015 manual.
The End Product
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