Day 6 - Engine Installation (Half Day)

Job 18 - Hoist Collection, Manual/Blog Study & Visitors

Following the collection of an engine hoist I borrowed from a friend of a friend, I spent the rest of the morning looking through the manual and other blogs, trying to figure out the best way of putting the engine and gearbox into the car! By that time my brother had arrived to assist with the installation of the engine. Shortly after I had a couple of visitors (Roger & Chris for our local Caterham Group) who were interested to see the car in the flesh and then another mate (Simon) in his TVR. This resulted in Alex going out for a passenger ride in his first TVR!


Job 19 - Top Radiator Hose & Earth Cable

Following delivery of the Earth Cable from Caterham I was able to fit this to the Left Hand Chassis Mount  before we moved on to fitting the Top Radiator Hose which we manoeuvred underneath the plenum chamber and out the front of the engine.

The Manual refers to a Water Rail (which is sometimes fitted), but I am not sure if I have one or require one, but there is nothing on the inventory list and nothing that looks like anything on the Caterham website. I have contacted a fellow Supersport R owner to get their opinion as Caterham are closed until the 6th I believe.

Job 20 - Bolting the Bell housing to the Gearbox

According to various blogs there are a number of different methods for fitting the engine to the car, but all involve bolting the Bell Housing to the gearbox. That said the manual is a little confusing at this point in the way that it talks about fitting the two together. After consulting with a fellow builder, he confirmed that the bolts on the 5 speed Duratec combination had to be inserted from inside the Bell Housing out and through the Gearbox. Once the Gasket had been coated both sides with silicone sealant with the two parts were bolted together and torqued up.

Job 21 - Mounting the Bell Housing to the Engine

In order to test the hoist and the tow rope we used the hoist to 'hover' the engine over my wheeled bucket trolley and mounted the front of the Gearbox onto another one using a jack to prop up the back of the Gearbox. This allowed us to butt the Bell Housing up to the Engine and we used the bolts to bring the two together and torqued them up according to the manual. At this point we re-bolted the starter motor that sits across the Engine and Bell Housing.

Mounting the Bell Housing/Gearbox to the Engine using the hoist

Job 22 - Installing the Engine

I covered the front of the car with cardboard and then Alex and I started to lift the engine up and manoeuvre towards the car when we hit our first problem, the moveable axle stands! It sits too wide to allow the hoist to move far enough over the engine bay. We back the engine away from the car and down on to the floor again and decided to replace the manoeuvrable axle stand with standard ones, which we also set lower. This meant the car was sat higher at the back than the front in the hope that it would allow easier installation of the engine.

Front of the car covered in cardboard before swapping axle stands

With the engine balanced over the front of the car we slowly shuffled the engine over the top of the engine bay and started the pull the Gearbox down so that we could keep the engine moving in towards the car. A combination of lowering and tilting allowed us to get the engine in to a point. We then opted to remove the engine mount (already attached to the engine) and this gave us just enough room to drop the engine in past the front top diagonals. We then re-attached the engine mount and alternator before we dropped the engine fully home.

Engine In :-)

Not a lot of room! Top Radiator Pipe extending out the front of the Engine

Once down in the engine bay we could only get one of the two engine mounts to line up with the rubber chassis mounts. Our solution was to fix the left hand side first and then loosen the right hand side (where it attaches to the engine) fix the mount to the rubber chassis mount and then tightened the mount to the engine which seemed to work very nicely. The mounts were meant to be torqued up to 41Nm, but in there lies the issue. The bolt is an imperial hex of which I had an allen key to do it up, but nothing to torque it up. Something I will have to revisit following an Ebay purchase.

Final job for the day was to position the back of the Gearbox in the centre of the mount and tighten it. A good days work. :-)

The Gearbox looking down through the transmission tunnel.