What should I do with my 1400 Supersport?

[djmhall]

I bought my 7 from CC in 1997. Apparently "L7RSS" has a history in that it appears in some of the CC literature, was used in shows and has what I believe is a unique remote control 7 speaker CD multichanger stereo by Sony. It has now covered c 35K miles, (about half in my ownership) and I have enjoyed almost every mile. I decided recently that it needed both some greater TLC and some extra performance as my tintop Alfa V6 is so fast that it has comparatively dulled the experience. The car has been religiously maintained as far as the basics are concerned, but is begining to need some refurbishment. Reading through this forum under the heading of "corrosion" has scared me off to some extent however. The car has visible bubbles below the cockpit mainly on the N/S although they have been there for some years. Once I put the car on axle stands and had a good look, it clearly needs to be seen to at some point as more bubbles have appeared.

 

I have now come to a bit of a halt. I would love to put the time in, take the skins off and repair the chassis corrosion. Then I would get the suspension re powder coated, get a 6 speed gearbox, get hold of an 1800 block etc etc etc.

 

Trouble is I really do not have the time!

 

I have seen several 1400 supersports for sale in this forum at plus or minus £10k as well as some really well specced 1600 cars for what seems like not a lot more i.e. £13k or so. It strikes me that this differential is small compared with the cost of getting the work done to my car.

 

The first question is therefore:

What would it really cost me to get the chassis professionaly sorted, suspension refinished, a close ratio box (6 speed ideally but in reality a BGH 5 speed) and the 1800 engine "on the cheap" mod I have read about in this forum?

 

The second question is therefore:

What sort of money is my car worth and is anybody interested?

 

Spec as follows:

Reg: "L7RSS"

1400 Supersport built 94

5 speed gearbox

"Tahiti" metalic blue

Clam shell wings

14" Minilites (could do with refinishing) with Yokahamas

Mileage aprox 34k

Stainless 4:1 competition exhaust

S type leather interior.

Unique SONY remote control stereo (I believe fitted by SONY for a show, but reasonably discrete)

All weather gear including tonneau.

Momo wheel

4 point on drivers side, inertia passenger

Heater (currently out of car)

No competition use.

Condition:

Mechanicals: Very good; always used fully synthetic and drives as well as it ever did.

Paintwork: reasonably good - some cracking on wings and stone chips on rear guards as inevitable.

Chrome: A bit tired.

Front suspension: A tad rusty

Chassis: I would have said good until I read about the footwell issue - should be done at some point.

MOT to I think next June and taxed to Feb.

 

Any ideas or offers?

 

More specifically, any ideas of value of my car or any interest in it would be gratefully received.

 

01722 780575

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by - Dominic Hall on 1 Jan 2005 17:08:53

[Wahey]

Dominic, from a performance point of view, if you put a lightened flywheel and 6 speed box in it you would not believe the difference. So long as you are happy to use the revs this set up is nearly as quick as a standard superlight.

 

I would try that before deciding on new engines etc. After that, even if you do change the engine then the box will still be the best mod you could have made.

 

Value wise, I have seen a couple of 1400's sell for around the £9k mark. If you put a 1600 engine in and left everything else the same I would expect it to be worth over £10k.

 

I hope this helps and I am ready for others to disagree but this would be a useful thread for me too as I will be selling a 1400 ss in the next few months. I may pop a 1600 engine in it though to ad a bit more desirability.

 

Cheers

 

[Peter Lydford]

Swap for a S1 Elise ?

 

[fordy]

I was in exactly the same situation 1 year ago. I sold the car in the end as the upgdrade option was not economically viable for me. In the end it sold for about £8500 in the middle of summer.

 

So upgrade costs would be thus

 

budget approx £3000 for chassis repowdercoating, re skinning and repainting with you doing all the strip and rebuild your self.

 

about £1500 for an 1800 conversion the 'Stu Foreshaw' way

 

£1500 for a s/h 6 spd.

 

not worth it. Sell it and build a new one.

[djmhall]

Thanks for the replies:

 

Wahey:

I agree that the gearbox is the most important mod. I have experience from the old days of Road Rallying of what the right and wrong gearbox can do for a car. Trouble is the 6 speed is hardly cheap and unless I am mistaken, somwhat rare to find in a decent state second hand. This means getting a BGH 5 speed box for about £800 as the next best thing to do. What concerns me is that I need to settle the question of the chassis first if I am to spend the money on the upgrades.

 

Peter:

Thanks for the intriguing suggestion. Had me thinking a bit, but I think I would hate to be without a 7. Thanks though.

 

Fordy:

Thanks for the hard dose of reality! I think I am in no mans land here. Your numbers come to £6000 budget. If the car is worth say £9k, then I would be better off selling it, adding say £5000 and going shopping perhaps.

 

Looks like unless I can find a cheaper way of getting the chassis done, I should put the car on the market on a more formal footing. Great time of year to sell a 7!!

 

 

 

Edited by - Dominic Hall on 2 Jan 2005 16:34:19

[Mark Piper]

Bottom line is that your car is a 5 speed, flared wing 1400 Supersport. Not the best combination for resale. I looked at several 5 speed cycle winged high mileage 1400 Supersports about a year ago. These ranged from £7500 to £9,000 with a 6 speed one at £8600. Ian (Tiptree) sold his 6 speed car for about £9k IIRC this summer and that was a nice clean car.

 

One might therefore value your car at the lower end of this spectrum - circa £8k? Had you thought of trading the car with a dealer? Their stock doesn't shift that fast at this time of year and they may have some stock that has been around for too long....

[Nifty]

Dominic,

 

I had a similar debate with myself 12 months ago.

I decided to rebuild mine.

It sounds as if your car is in a similar condition to how mine was and therefore will be at the lower end of the price spectrum.

 

I decided that sorting my existing car was preferable because I'd then have a car whose history I knew and I could modify the car to my personal preference. I spent about £2500 with Arch but I then had a repowdercoated chassis, new outer panels with powdercoated engine bay, strengthened floor and I also had various other bits repowdercoated too. I then set about waxoyling everything before assembling the car again and thus I know it has had a good start which I can now maintain.

 

BGH reconditioned and fitted the close ratios to my 'box for around £450...I think £800 is for buying a 'box from them, rather than converting your existing box.

This modification makes a big difference to the cars performance.

 

I also took the opportunity to convert to widetrack suspension and a quicker rack (my old one was fairly worn and needed attention anyway).

 

I'm very happy with what I have and have certainly increased the value of the car, though not by the amount I spent but that goes without saying.

A horsepower increase will no doubt be on the cards but I plan to build an engine overtime and then replace the 1400 with it.

 

You will also have a wider appeal when selling if you fit cycle wings, which is easily done if you reskin the car.

 

Knowing what I do now I would not have paid as much as I did for Molly in the first place.

With regards to Wahey's figures I'd have to disagree..if the sides are starting to show bubbling then I think you'd be lucky to get £9,000 and if you're going to put a 1600 in then why not an 1800?

 

The only disadvantage to keeping my existing chassis was that the cost to modify the chassis to antidive geometry was prohibitively expensive and thus I don't have this setup. However, I'm not sure that I'd notice the difference if I did for what is predominantly (at the moment) a road car.

 

 

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬

[Mark Adderley]

Nifty

 

Very interested to hear your views on the refurb/replace issue, as I also have a 1400SS and have been wondering what to do next.....

Mine's done about 37k (it's a 1994 model) and covers between 10k-12k annually (used for most of the year, with a 40 mile daily commute).

 

Don't think I could face the prospect of spending twice the current value of my current car, then using it in all weathers and watch it slowly decay! At the end of the day, I bought the car to use, not sit in a garage for 6 months, so I'm coming to the conclusion I'd be better off taking your approach: - spend less upgrading & continue to enjoy the daily use.

 

Two questions: -

- did the £2500 Arch job cover the cost of a respray? (Well, you have to ask..!!)

- what was the change in drivability using the BGH box?

 

Cheers

Mark

 

 

 

[Nifty]

No, the £2500 didn't include a respray, that was £600 more but I do have expensive paint (Audi metallic dark green).

 

The gearbox modification makes it much better to drive with one exception. Raising first gear means that it trundles a little faster at cold idle which caught me out on a couple of occassions when edging around the close confines of the garage. This was only lack of familiarity and just meant I had to slip/dip the clutch slightly if I wasn't sure I had enough room to complete the manoeuvre without hitting the brickwork.

The intermediate gear changes are much closer so the engine is always in the powerband when going.

I opted to have a halfway house 5th gear ratio, so it was lowered a little but still gave a reasonable cruising speed at lower revs for long hauls.

The other thing that the BGH modification does is fix the balking gearchange between second and first, which I am told is commonplace due to a design fault. I have no trouble changing between any gears now.

 

I'd recommend this change before any engine adjustments.

 

My car was corroding when I bought it .. I just didn't realise to what extent until the money had changed hands(1995 car bought in 2001).

Having had it repowdercoated, with the updated superior process and learning from Ernie Panks, I don't expect to have to do this again for some long time. As Ernie has proved it is possible to use the car all year round and in all weathers and still keep the corrosion at bay..it just takes a little time and effort.

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬

[The_ASH]

Keep the car, Nifty is right, I had a 1400SS, sold it Sept '03 due to looming redundancy clouds, I really miss it like hell (and you will too), never got made redundant either ! Do the work or get it done and maybe vector in some small upgrades along the line too.

 

Ashley Webster.

Looking for the Summer.....

[djmhall]

So thats at least 3 votes for the keep it and upgrade it route and 1 or 2 votes for the flog it and buy another route. Clearly I am not mad to be undecided as there are widely different opinions out there.

 

If I did opt for the upgrade it route and take the plunge with Arch, how far would I have to strip the car down? Are we talking about removing everything including the loom as I have to say that would scare me a bit. I can see the advantage of keeping the car in the sence that I know it pretty well after 7 or 8 years. Sounds like a budget of £3k and a great deal of time would see the car given a new lease of life with a BGH 5 speed to replace the horrid original.

 

I suppose there is no right and wrong here. It probably comes down to how much time/work I am prepared to put in against other demands (i.e. 2 year old son).

 

Mark suggests it could be worth approaching a trader. Would I be right in thinking that CC are probably the most expensive? Who else is out there that might have an appetite for my car as well as decent upgrade options?

 

 

 

 

[Mark Piper]

Dominic, options include Millwood, UK Sports Cars, Paul Stephens (he sometimes has stock hanging around for ages) Woodcote. CC will usually give a price on anything for PX but it is low.

 

 

[SLR No.77]

Dominic,

 

You can do a great deal to the car for relatively little outlay

 

1. How bad is the chassis really 🤔 My cars a '95 and excepting one small bubble on the skin adjoining the drivers footwell, anything else is due to gravel rash - easily rectified without a full chassis strip. The car's ten years old so are you looking for concours condition or just very-good? Your search in the archives will also have come up with the suggestion that giving the chassis a really good clean out (especially to the sides of the footwells) and then treating with waxoil or similar can be very productive.

 

2. If you want to rectify the wishbones and tatty chrome, have them all powder coated. This'll cost less than £50 for the lot and will bring the cars appearance more up-to-date. At the same time swap all the poppers on the soft bits to black ones - makes a big difference to the appearance.

 

3. A careful conversion to 1800SS can be done for less than £1000 Do that and keep the 5 speed gearbox - but try to source a 1400 lightweight flywheel.

 

I recon you could do the lot on a budget of £1000, which is less than the difference in pricing of 1400s anyway

 

Stu.

[Nifty]

Considering what Stu has written and then rereading the initial post it may appear I was a little hasty and your car isn't in quite such bad shape as mine was. The corrosion had broken the paint and after going through some standing water it blasted several areas of paint off, the size of (old)fifty penny pieces. The chassis itself had flaking powdercoating and rust all over it.

 

Interestingly, when I pulled it apart the powdercoating on the chassis behind the sideskin corrosion wasn't that bad at all, the corrosion being due to the amalgamation of crud between the sideskin and chassis rails.

 

I know the car was little used by it's first owner after Caterham and I suspect that it sat unused in a poorly ventilated, damp garage.

 

If the chassis doesn't look too bad underneath and you can live with the bubbled paint then I'd either offer it for sale and see what you're offered or chuck in an 1800 conversion.

 

The prices for Arch suggested are for a chassis completely stripped of old bodywork, silicon etc. ready for blasting. I supplied Bruce with the rear suspension turrets and transmission tunnel (old scuttle and bonnet were retained too), all other panels being replaced including all the interior panels. You may decide to reuse some more panels, which will reduce the cost, but they obviously have to come off for the chassis to be blasted and repowdercoated. I decided to replace all visible panels because the old interior panels suffer a little marking when removed and the footwells etc were to be powdercoated along with the new sideskins. Once you've pulled the car apart and spent £2000 you might as well complete the job for £2500.....it's a slippery expensive slope!!

 

The actual stripping of the car is surprisingly quick...see Angus's account of stripping Mark (F355)'s car. Marc Hicks and I did mine in a weekend too.

So long as you have the space to do it, and box/label all parts clearly, it is readily done. Perhaps enlisting a friend with confidence and knowledge may help..I don't think I'd have got on anywhere near as well as I did without Marc's help.

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬

[Nifty]

P.S. If you do decide to strip and rebuild (which was part of the fun for me) don't forget to put a film in your camera before snapping away ❗ ❗ 😳

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬

[Nifty]

Dominic,

 

I've sent you mail.

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬

[Casbar]

Dominic,

I also live in Salisbury, and there are several guys around that have 7's. One of the guys owns his own body shop and has done several re-sprays etc on 7's and is bloody good.

 

Drop me a mail if you need any contacts etc.

 

Vroom Vroom, time for a blast

[Mark Adderley]

Nifty - Just wanted to say thanks for your reply re respray and BGH g-box.

Although it will be a while before I'm able to start anything, it's at least helped me to decided which option I'm going to take

Thanks a lot.!

Mark

 

PS Thanks also to Dominic for raising the thread!

[Sheds Moderator]

Don't forget also that you don't have to go "full house" while reconditioning if it hasn't gone too far. While I agree that the best restoration involves body off plus reskin, you can stave off the fatal day with a bit of judicious rubbing down and painting and a good going over with Dinitrol/Waxoyl afterwards. Even if the ally skin has gone a bit frilly here and there it can be patched pending a respray. While this will not last another 10 years it will certainly keep the car on the road, keep it looking good and stabilise its condition for a couple of years.

[djmhall]

 

Glad I started the thread - thanks for all the good input everyone.

 

I have sent out some photos of the offending areas of my car to several of you who clearly had similar experiences. I would be greatful for any "What are you worrying about" or "Call Arch tomorrow" advice.

 

Also, Casbar, I would be very interested to hear of any 7 owners in and around Salisbury.

 

I did hear of a group who met at the pub in Coombe Bisset during the summer when I could'nt make it. Who is the guy with the body shop?

 

I suppose I had better sign up for the club now! Don't know why I didn't stumble onto this forum years ago - where have I been all my 7 driving life?

 

 

 

 

[Nifty]

Dominic,

 

I thought I'd post here rather than reply to the E-mail so everyone can read and those who have also seen the pictures may agree/disagree and all others will perhaps find it of benefit.

 

The picture which is really telling for me is FootwellNS1.

The corrosion appears to be more extensive than mine was and all those paint blisters probably won't take a lot of pursuading to "burst", creating a large "scar" of corroded panel. The larger patches may well have a complete hole in the bodywork.

The chassis triangulation coming back to the chassis side has quite obviously got peeling powdercoating and the rust is evident (and dry..waxoyled at all?). I should imagine that the sideskin/chassis union is absolutely chocker with crap.

 

The offside sideskin picture only appears to show pebble rash.

 

There are not enough pictures of the rest of the chassis rails to make an assessment, though the rear suspension shot doesn't appear to show the powdercoating on the A frame and chassis to be as bad as mine.

Other places to look at are the bottom tubes at the front of the chassis where they cross diagonally (and often get used as a jacking point), the gearbox mounting plate and transmission tunnel area and rear chassis rails.

 

I would strongly advocate trying to have a look at it on a four post lift to get a true view of the chassis condition. If the previously mentioned chassis triangulation is the only flaking powder-coating then you could think about skipping the recoating and just cleaning and hammeriting this section...however, I'd put a lot of money on the fact there is considerably more, especially behind that corroding sideskin.

When I pulled mine apart I was surprised at the areas where the powdercoating had failed, eg the dash rails.

 

My conclusion from the pictures is that your visible chassis appears to be no worse, if a little better than mine, but the sideskin blistering/corrosion is worse. However, I must emphasis that I haven't seen enough of the chassis.

 

My personal feeling is that you need to bite the bullet and strip the car.

It is very difficult to remove the sideskin without damaging the rear panel (which is welded to the sides at Arch) but the cost of the materials to replace both sides and rear isn't too bad. Bruce told me it would be cheaper to have complete new sideskins and back panel than ask him to salvage and reuse the old back panel (far less labour)..just as well since I creased the rear panel getting the complete sides/rear off.

 

Guessing the state of the chassis to be worthy of repowdercoating I'd say that a rebuild was the way ahead and get it specced with cycle wings, unless you are definitely going to keep it and desire clams.

I don't mean to be too disheartening but I don't think the car is worth a great deal in the condition those photographs show. If it were me looking at the car, thinking of buying my first 7 with a limited budget (which is the most likely purchaser of a 1400 - like myself) then I wouldn't want to part with all that money for something that looked tatty.

 

If this sounds harsh please remember that I'm talking from personal experience, my heart sank when I realised how bad mine really was. Given my time again I would have examined the car a lot closer than I did before purchase and either wouldn't have had it or would have bargained down considerably.

However, having done the work I very pleased I did it both for aestetics/longevity and value but personal satisfaction from doing much of the work.

 

The bright side is that you don't need to do it now, because the car isn't going to disintegrate in 10 months. I'd start considering embarking on the work next autumn, after the summer blatting season is over.

Consider what you wish to do, establish the budget (then add 50% ) consult with all others and get the finances ready. And whilst you're doing all this drive the socks off it in the knowledge that any scuffs, knocks or breakages don't matter because it's going to be totally rebuilt next winter anyway. (If you're really "enthusiastic" in your driving you might be unlucky enough that the insurance company foots most of the rebuild bill 😳).

 

Every cloud has a silver lining *thumbup*

 

If you want anymore info on my rebuild or indepth costs please ask.

 

Keep off the straight and narrow 😬