First Service - 2250 miles

I've now notched up 2250 miles and over the last few weeks I've tracked the car at Bedford Autodrome and also completed a huge round trip of Wales as part of the Fish and Chip run. I probably did about 200 miles on the track and about 500+ miles on the Wales trip.

I had a first initial (3 month service) at the Caterham dealer just to check everything was OK still, which it was, so now I'm deciding to do it all myself. I'm following the service guidelines from Caterham which is normally to complete the next service at 6000 miles/ 12 months. I'm told that each track day mile is equivalent to 10 road miles so I think it is time to service the car properly and change the oil.

The first job is to change the oil, and at the same time I'll be installing a few more upgrades. So to change the oil:

• Warm up car for about 5 minutes, make sure the oil is warm to allow it to flow (it won't melt the plastic tray/suction pipes!).
• Jack up the car (I chose to put it on 4 axle stands so I can give it a good clean underneath at the same time) and suck oil out of the dry sump tank (I used a Sealey pump for this).
• Remove the dry sump protection plate to stop any leaks going into the bell housing.
• Remove the gauze finger filter from the the sump, this is behind a small, black, egg/tear shaped cover towards the rear of the sump. Drain oil from finger filter hole, wash filter with a good spray of WD40 and replace. I then sucked the oil out of my oil tray into the Sealey pump so I know exactly how much oil I have removed.
• Change the oil filter, you'll need an oil socket wrench for this, I actually installed a spacer with some takeoffs for new oil pressure and temp gauges at the same time.
• Replace sump protection plate.
• Add about 6.5 litres of new oil (however much you drained), 4 in the dry sump tank 2.5 via the engine oil filler cap.
• Start the engine (no need to remove the Interia plug and fuel injector and crank), check you have oil pressure on the gauge and no leaks!

The coolant also had a slow leak at the radiator so I took the time to empty out a bit of coolant and remove the top/bottom pipes. I then cleaned the inside parts of the pipe that joined the radiator, and the metal parts of the radiator that these pipes connect to. I also replaced the jubilee clips and then topped up the coolant back up.

The next job on my list was to clean the air filter as per the manufacturers instructions.

Other than the above, I then checked all the other parts of the car that are listed in the service schedule to make sure it was all in tip top condition still.