Mates

Yesterday 30 August 2008 we got the engine in. I say we meaning Hans-Peter, my neighbour Chrigel and myself.

Hans-Peter is the guy that helped me transporting the Caterham from the dealer to my place. (Which took from 3 to 11 PM.) He has a pallet lift which is used as engine hoist. It needed maintenance on the braking system but on Friday morning we put it on his trailer and got it to my garage.

On Friday afternoon I got an "emergency" call from work. So on the evening I prepared -almost- everything in order to fit the engine. Nuts, bolts, the fitting screen wiper tubing... The works.

On Saturday Hans-Peter arrived and after a getting-to-know-each-other-nod we set off. I explained the situation and sure enough we -well they- did find the vacuum system I could not. (As a word on my defence, I have a German manual for the CSR and my German is far from perfect.)

Anyway, after having struggled a bit with the improvised engine hoist we got cracking. As both Hans-Peter and Chrigel have much more experience at fitting engines then me, they did most of the work. The engine of a Caterham CSR fits rather tightly and there isn't too much room for manoeuvre. With a few ups, downs, lefts, rights, forwards and backwards everything went OK.

Without Hans-Peter and Chrigel building the Caterham would be so much more effort. More importantly without them it would be so much less fun. Thanks mates.