AR7E - Alcester Racing 7's Equipe
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Installing the Road Angel (RA) is pretty easy - but to make it work in a Caterham, you'll need some additional materials... First of all - where are you going to get your power from? A cigar lighter socket of course! This saves having to dissemble one of the RA power leads (you get two - one 'curly', one straight), fit an inline fuse etc. etc. In the words vs. pictures tradition - look for a slugfest here... Lighter Socket That's power sorted relatively easily - you'll probably have this already to feed your hungry phones etc... Physical MountingThis is the tricky bit in a 7. The mounting plate for the RA is designed to sucker onto the screen. In a tintop, the other end of the plate just rests on your dash. You can heat the plate and alter the sucker angle to accommodate the upright screen rake in the 7 - but in practice, the combination of weakish suckers and the physical demands of the 7 make this impracticable. And you won't be able to swap the RA to your tow-car after this modification either... So, enter DualLock (TM - a 3M corp. product).
<Click Image for Full Size> DualLock is a bit like Velcro (we call it Man's Velcro) - it is also known as 'golfball tape'. It consists of two identical male strips (as opposed to Velcro which has gender strips - the fuzz and the hooks). The strips have a very strong adhesive (again, unlike the standard Velcro cut-to-size products which don't bond well to paint/glass/metal/anything.) DualLock bonds together extremely rigidly and tightly - so a strip placed on the scuttle (see pic above) and on the underside of the RA mounting plate are all that is needed to mount the RA securely in the 7.
<Click Image for Full Size> The suckers remain on the mounting plate for use when transferring to the tow-car, but aren't actually used in the 7.
<Click Image for Full Size> So that's the physical installation sorted - apart from... Cable RoutingWith the RA, you are fortunate insofar as you get two power leads straight out of the box. At AR7E, we use the curly (telephone style) leads in the tin-top tow cars - and the straight lead in the 7. Unlike some other bits of kit, this means you can semi-permanently mount the RA power lead - which makes for a tidier solution. You can see in the pictures above how the straight power lead is sited along the base of the windscreen. It is held in place with tie-wraps and tie-wrap anchors - these consist of sticky foam pads (strong enough for the job - but removable at a later date) with a little square plastic platform into which loops are moulded to hold the tie-wraps. Neat. At the end of the windscreen, the power cord joins the other bundled leads which are held in place by cut-down Velcro straps secured to the car with the above tie-wraps and anchors. Follow this link for more about these cable systems. That's about it really. We've got power (Lighter socket), we've found a way to secure the unit in the harsh 7 environment (DualLock) and we've routed the cables out of the way, securely and reasonably neatly (tie-wraps, anchors and Velcro straps). Enjoy. |
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