Upgrades 31. Black Bonnet Catches

I specified the so called "black pack" when ordering the Caterham. This consists of black headlights, black windscreen and a black exhaust cover. This does not include black catches or even a black badge as standard. The bonnet catches and the badge particularly stand out against the other black on the car so I decided I would change them.

I gave Chris at Redline Components a call, initially to buy 2 more seat runners so I could move the passenger seat a bit, but I ended up also ordering his black catch pack for the bonnet when I was on the phone.

You get everything you need in the pack, but you will need a 4mm drill bit to drill out the existing rivets to replace them.

It's a fairly trivial job to complete but does involve drilling so I made sure to mask up the areas where appropriate. I started by changing the spring catch first which is just a nut and bolt.

Next up I changed the catches on the bonnet, I made sure to reuse the small backing plate as well to give the bonnet extra strength. I used a dead car battery on the floor to stop the bonnet moving from any pressure I applied, but generally I used little pressure and let the drill do the work.

Once the bonnet catches were done, I moved onto the final ones on the chassis itself. I didn't know if these had an extra blanking plate behind from when it was manufactured, and as you cannot get behind it you won't be able to find out. With this in mind I drilled out 1 of the holes fully, and only drilled the top of the other two, then I could place the catch over the existing rivets, which "might" be holding a backing plate in place. I chose to rivet in one of the new rivets, and then drill out the last two after doing this. This would then mean any backing plate would still be in place behind the aluminium.

Of course this is a bit over kill and probably not needed but it did the job for me.

The final results are great.