As much as I enjoy messing about with the Caterham, I can well do without repeating the previous three weekends for a year. At least in theory that's how long it should be from now. I've just had the gearbox and differential serviced by Road & Race Transmissions. It's not normally a big deal; take it all out (two days work at a casual pace), leave the important bits with R&R for a week, and put it all back together again the following weekend.
Unfortunately the diff was missing its breather outlet, to which I would normally have connected a catch can (or suitable tight-git substitute, pictured below), so it breathed oil all over the back of the car. I wish I'd taken a picture, it was such a mess; every single component had a messy, dirty oily gunk attached to it. So I took the opportunity to completely strip the rear of the car and clean, fix/replace and re-paint anything that needed it.
On the one hand I did quite enjoy doing this. I learned quite a bit about how it all fits together and the best sequence in which to put everything back. It was rewarding to see all the clean shiny parts go back onto the car and see it all come together. I even discovered the Caterham build manual is actually pretty good when it's used for its intended purpose, rather than trying to work backwards to decipher how something works.
No, the only downside to doing all of this is how exhausting the process is, both physically and mentally. The good news is as the sun beamed down today I finished the last few bits off and gave it a quick wash, and headed out to see if it was worth the trouble (and to see if everything still worked). As part of the gearbox service which includes replacing a number of 'wear and tear' items (most of which I can only assume are made of chocolate, such is the durability of the damn thing), R&R also replaced the 3rd gear syncro. I wasn't at all surprised by this since my ham-fisted approach to changing gear does occasionally end up in a crunch between 2nd and 3rd. But it's much better now, and so is the diff. It was a bit noisy before and felt a little rough and when they showed me the state of the main bearings that came out, I wasn't surprised!
So it's a happy little yellow shouty car again, which is good since the whole process set me back a grand, give or take a few pennies. These big boys toys are all well and good, but...
Actually, to hell with the cost. I spent the afternoon carefully 'running it in' (and by afternoon, I mean the first half hour of the trip) and had an absolute blast. I can't imagine a better car to blow away the cobwebs and generate such a buzz. Fifty years old and essentially unchanged, it's brilliant and if it cost a grand every month, I'd still love it.
