Caterham 170 experience

  TL;DR how to replace a light bulb  It could have died before I removed the speedo to install the shift light. It chose to die on the next morning. How sweet. All you need is a T5  12V  2W light bulb.   The speedometer goes out by removing the 2 knurled nuts and the U-shaped bracket from behind the dashboard. The single 8 wires connector has a small clip to secure it in place. On the back of the speedo is a quite large black grommet. In the opening is a black bulb holder that is screwed to the printed circuit board by just a quarter turn (or even less). The bulb is secured pushed in the black plastic holder, like a Christmas light. Replace the bulb, screw the black holder back in place gently, enjoy the refitting of the grommet, connect the loom from the car, push the speedo in the dashboard, put the U-bracket and the 2 thumb-thingies back. I would personnaly try that the light is ok before fitting the speedo back to the car for good. Testing the bulb by i...

  TL;DR stop the wipers before opening the side screens "Losing", well, not literally. But it had to be replaced, that's for sure. So on the 24th of August we go to a birthday party about one hour from home. My friend is really into cars and we're just back from the yearly holidays far far away. That's a ton of reasons to go with the Caterham. My girldfriend warns me that thunderstoms are on our way, although the weather is still fine home. The hell with that, everybody knows you're fine in the Seven under the rain when cruising above 80 km/h. Let met tell you that while it's actually true, it has some limit. The limit being that at the moment you cannot see the road anymore, and only partly because of the water on the inside surface of the windscreen, you might not even acknowledge it, and for sure not care about that... but you're all wet and rather cold in there. So I turn on the crash lights and leave the motorway half-blind, manage t...

TL;DR the Caterham specs are correct There is some speculation around the actual weight of the 170.  Caterham advertisement announce 440kg for the 170R and 460kg for the 170S as it includes luxuries such as the windshield and heater. The doubt comes from the CoC that states "Mass of vehicle in working order" and "Actual mass of the vehicle" would both be 570kg . Some additional reading led me to believe this is with a full tank (36kg) and a 75kg driver. So what is it exactly ? Based on a simple calculation, 570 - 75 -36 = 459kg, that might work. On the way back from a Static Rally, I came accross a weighbridge located near a cereal warehouse of some sort. A good opportunity to put my Caterham on it and finally answer that weight question. The scale did read 480kg , the car had about a third of tank (~10kg) and has the spare wheel (10.5kg)+holder+jack, as well as a 2kg Black&Decker toolkit, the full roof and long shower cap as well as 2 bottles of mineral wate...

  I was just back from holidays, but couldn't stay put on that extra day off before the week-end Kelvin on the Caterham Suzuki Owners (160, 170 and SS600) Facebook group just shared how he added a shift light with very little tinkering.  And actually no change to the car loom, as the required wire is already there, waiting for us. The Caterham 170R is factory fitted with a shift light between the speedometer and tachometer. Us plebeians owners of the 170S flavor enjoy a seatbelt warning light instead. In my case that seatbelt light has never been lit, because the car has never had any seatbelt : only 4 points harnesses that are not connected to the wire left dangling on the floor near the driver seat. Behind the hole are 3 small female spade connectors : A connector with 2 green wires, that provides +12V when ignition is on A connector with 2 black wires, providing ground through the switch in the seatbelt buckle A connector with a single green+purple wire, that provides...