my first caterham

[fondelli]

I've just jumped from an elise to a caterham. I'm really pleased with my purchase. The 7 seems quite cosmetically vunerable, so I'm wondering what I can do to keep it tip top. I've heard that stones can craze the gel coat on the wings, so can you stick something on the undersides to dissipate the energy? Also what about paint film? Does anyone do sheets that can be cut to fit? My car is yellow. Are the wings gel coat or are they painted like the rest of the car?

That's it for now

[Eugene7]

I'm on my fist Caterham - have been for 23+ years

You can put rubberised under seal on the winds to prevent star crazing - but it adds weight...

Wings are usually painted too - only way to get a good match.

And I have seen some pre-shaped stone guard transparency stuff, bit I use coloured sticky-back plastic of the right colour (but then I got the plastic first and then got paint to match )

[Chris71]

I guess the open wheelers won't help with stone chips and the like, but I think part of its psychological. It's the only car I've owned where you can hear stones richoceting off the rear mud guards just a foot down from your ear.

[Scotty996T]

We have a yellow Supersport that was mint when we picked it up from Caterham Mids, only 4k miles.

We run Yokohama A021R's and they seem to get so warm that they fire stones up into the arches. Net result is that we have spider cracks on the nearside rearch arch. The Armour fend is no use as the stones come from the underside.

I think the armour fend on the rear arches above the carbon guards works well. I'm sure you could get the nose done if you wanted.

Apart from that the yellow car's holding up well. When we give it a refurb next year I think I will do the matting in the inside of the arch.

Our SV runs CR500's and so far no similar problems.

[Scotty996T]

Just realised that's you Alastair. I know which car you got now - nice one!

[Sevdoc]

You can buy paint protection film from here;
http://www.premierpaintguard.co.uk/caterham_paint_...

Most who have tried it agree that the flat sections are easy to fit, an the curved parts less so...............cue SOH failure

As for star-cracks, rubber paint or simple underseal applied to the inside of the wings does the job quite effectively and cheaply.

Enjoy your car!

Neil

[fondelli]

I've got a solution. I've ordered some self adhesive 3mm thick rubber sheet from trim suppliers. This is light and should stop any problems. I'm still going to armourfend the front half of the rear wings too- like your SV Scott

[jackal]

fondelli said:

I've just jumped from an elise to a caterham. I'm really pleased with my purchase. The 7 seems quite cosmetically vunerable, so I'm wondering what I can do to keep it tip top. I've heard that stones can craze the gel coat on the wings, so can you stick something on the undersides to dissipate the energy? Also what about paint film? Does anyone do sheets that can be cut to fit? My car is yellow. Are the wings gel coat or are they painted like the rest of the car?

That's it for now

Just drive it

in 23 years time when you come to sell it it'll be under a grand to fully respray for the next owner

[fondelli]

Believe me I will drive it! I suppose I just want to keep it as good as I can for as long as I can, so if it means a bit of up front work I'll do it.

[fergus]

fondelli said:

Believe me I will drive it! I suppose I just want to keep it as good as I can for as long as I can, so if it means a bit of up front work I'll do it.

Main thing you can do is to protect the powdercoat on the wishbones and also get some waxoyl or ACF50, etc down inside the inner panels inside the engine bay to prevent corrosion.

As Rich says, a full respray is not a lot of cash on these cars.