bjw

Presumably (if added) a voltage sense wire from "S" ought to go to a fused permanent 12v supply, as close to the battery +ve as possible, rather than direct to the battery +ve? Not necessarily fused (- note that the adjacent 'IG' terminal feed is unfused), but if the car is fitted with a battery master switch the sense wire should clearly be downstream of that and not directly to battery +ve Cheers

PS, where should I find the connector as mentioned earlier... From your post #45 I took it that you were referring to that 14 way connector pair, and it was fitted with 9 wires on the main loom side and 7 wires on the engine loom side ? (The term '14 way connector' refers to the housing, no matter how many ways are actually populated.) Cheers

#46 (bjw): If the black wire from white goes to 'IG' as in the Brise diagram (types 2 and 3), and the one from brown/yellow goes to the middle terminal 'S' (type 2) or 'D' (type 3) then it seems the 'brown/yellow' black wire is fitted incorrectly. (We know the warning lamp is on brown/yellow.) #49 (AMBO): The black wires are as you have stated. #52(bjw): It seems you're confirming that the 'brown/yellow' black wire has been put onto the 'S' or 'D' terminal? If so it should be moved to the 'L' terminal. As it appears the alternator is indeed of the type which does use the 'middle' terminal for sensing, it's uncertain what happens if it is left unconnected with the warning lamp connected to 'L'. Perhaps this was done originally and the regulated output was too high or too low. Moving the ignition lamp wire onto the sense terminal 'temporarily' might have provided a better result and was left in place. Who knows what went on...? It might be worth simply moving the warning wire to 'L', running the engine and seeing what voltage the alternator puts out. If it's o.k. then the sense wire might not actually be necessary, but... Cheers

Blue/green not connected - does the water temp gauge function? It seems you're confirming that the 'brown/yellow' black wire has been put onto the 'S' or 'D' terminal? If so it should be moved to the 'L' terminal. However, that would leave an empty terminal, which may or may not be a battery voltage sense connection. If there is no way of identifying the model of alternator to determine its function I think it would be advisable to connect this to the battery +ve terminal. Cheers

Can you determine which black wire goes to which alternator terminal? If the black wire from white goes to 'IG' as in the Brise diagram (types 2 and 3), and the one from brown/yellow goes to the middle terminal 'S' (type 2) or 'D' (type 3) then it seems the 'brown/yellow' black wire is fitted incorrectly. Cheers

"That's confused things...connections completely different to the Brise tag... Clearly not as standardised as I thought!" However, just noticed the text following the diagram:- "This did not work on my alternator, the ignition light did not work but it was outputting charge to the battery, it may work on your alternator." !!! I think I'd trust the Brise tag version... Cheers

From John's link:- That's confused things...connections completely different to the Brise tag... Clearly not as standardised as I thought! Cheers

I suppose you could say so - petrol in a pump or an underground tank isn't very dangerous - it's just when it gets out ! Cheers

The range of petrol vapour concentrations that will burn is very limited - from ~1.5% by volume (LEL - lower explosive limit) to ~8% (UEL - upper). A closed tank with even a small amount of liquid petrol will have a very much higher vapour concentration than the UEL. It simply can't be ignited - by sparking from a motor or the wiper of a fuel gauge sender or anything else. It's different to an open container of petrol where a flammable concentration will exist at some point between the liquid surface and the air above. If that ignites the liquid itself doesn't burn - the heat of combustion vapourises the liquid which in turn reaches a combustible concentration, again at some small distance from the surface. Cheers

The alternator connector looks like #2 or #3, and the existing connections suggest #3. That would seem to confirm that the alternator will charge ok with or without a warning light connected to the unused terminal. It would be worth locating the 14 pin plug/socket that connects to the main vehicle loom. It may be the case that the brown/yellow doesn't make it to the other side... Cheers

From: "Owner's Handbook - Classic, Roadsport, Superlight, R500" Cheers

Post #5 contains a pdf which won't be visible to many/most readers: https://apracing.com/cdn/drawings/886-cp3550-13cd.pdf - which is a drawing of this:- Stated on the AP website to be for "strictly for competition use only". (Why not suitable for road use?...Who'll be upset? MoT tester - unlikely, insurers?)... Cheers

Here's a diagram of the headlight wiring:- Note that the flasher switch bypasses the relay and dip switch so will still work with faults present in the primary path. The main lighting rocker switch energises the headlamp relay, which in turn feeds unfused +12v to the dip/main switch. As you're able to hear the relay operate, the main switch is almost certainly o.k. and the fault lies somewhere in the path from +12v through the relay contacts and the dip switch. Possible faults include:- Relay not making good contact in its socket because the terminals have been pushed out of position in the plastic base. Relay contacts burnt out. Dip switch failed internally or loose connections (- even with all wires disconnected the flash will still work...)Cheers

Yes, they're 4 B.A. x 1.5". Cheers

Here's a YouTube video demonstration:- Cheers

Yes, but Tony Weale's book doesn't actually show the Ital version. The return spring next to the cylinder in the Standard layout is shown behind the shoes, not in front as per the Ital and there's no support plate fitted in the leading shoe. Cheers

Some extracts from a Haynes Ital manual:- https://sites.google.com/view/bjw-caterham-seven/ital-live-axle-drum-brakes Cheers, Barry

Shout if you need more and I'll scan the whole section. Cheers

The rate of cooling is not significant in the case of copper, but quenching in cold water will make the oxidation very easy to wipe off. Cheers

Firstly, no, there's no need for two earths to the fuel sender. The two wires before 'butchering' were originally simply a 'via' between two other earth points. The E1 and E2 symbols are labels showing the routing to another part of the diagram, not earth connections themselves. For comparison, on a 1999 Classic, the frankly bizarre earthing arrangement is as follows:- Starting at a chassis connection in the engine compartment a long wire goes to a soldered and crimped junction in the loom near the rear end of the tunnel. From that junction the earth connections are 'starred' out to the right hand light cluster, the fog lamp, the reverse lamp*, and the fuel sender. (*By 1999 the reverse lamp switch is no longer a short to ground type.) A second wire from the fuel sender earth then goes to the left light cluster...There's no separate earth for the tank itself - the sender ground is sufficient. >>The earth is attached to a wing bolt, as is normal.<< I'm quite surprised Caterham would ever have used a wing fixing as an earth ? Cheers

>>Circuit is live feed to lamp unit, through bulb and onto reverse switch which goes to earth when reverse selected.<< Older cars yes, later cars no. A 2004 car should switch the live with the bulb grounded. I don't know when the changeover was, but judging by the guides I have, somewhere between 1996 and 1999 Cheers

When the unpowered fan is blown in the same direction as it operates under power then the +ve input terminal will become the 'generator' +ve output. (Hence why the LED lights and a diode in series with it won't work.) 1: The current through the motor however will be in the opposite direction to the running current, so a diode in series with the motor would prevent that getting back the LED. The problem is then that the diode would need to be fairly substantial - at 20 amp one to be on the safe side, but the dissipation might be heading toward 10 watts - rather inconvenient and probably needing a heatsink... Or - 2: Another way of discriminating between the two states would be the lower voltage when freewheeling. Assuming the fan isn't going to be freewheeling more than (say) 2/3 of it's powered speed the then the maximum voltage it produces will be 7 or 8 volts. A 6v zener diode in series with a replacement* 6v LED would pass no current until the voltage reached that, i.e. with the motor powered. (*The existing 12v LED may well be bright enough at 6v.) Or - 3: Separate the motor and LED by wiring the switches to a relay and power just the the fan from the relay. (An LED indicator across the relay coil will need a reverse diode (or resistor) in parallel to protect the LED from switch-off transients.) Cheers

Also, I would suggest that if a headlamp can be moved by hand then it's a sign it's not tightened properly and will soon go out of alignment again. Two factors work against effective tightening - difficulty of access and dry/dirty threads. It's hard to find a spanner to suit - any typical open ended spanner fouls the indicator housing at some point and/or the other end hits some other part of the car. Even when it feels as though you've tightened as much as you dare, dry threads can severely limit the amount of clamping force. A ring spanner clears the housing nicely but obviously requires a gap to get around the wiring. I tried cutting one down to suit, but it was still very awkward to use even after I shortened it to a barely useable length. In the end I welded the end of an offset ring spanner to an old 3/8" socket:- I wouldn't be at all surprised if something similar were commercially available, but I've not found it. That completely solved the access problem, but the ease of tightening just made it very obvious that the threads were the main factor. A bit of cleaning and lubrication made an enormous difference. If you can move the headlamp without bending something, it's not tight enough! Cheers

One way of doing it properly:- On a flat surface, park a few metres away from, and facing square on, a plain light coloured wall or garage door etc. Mark a line horizontally on the wall at the same height as the centres of the headlamps. (Or use a piece of string and blu-tac.) Take a length of string and tie it to the exact middle of the top of the rollbar. Pull it taught forward just above the middle fastener on the windscreen and mark where it meets the wall. Drop a vertical to the horizontal line and mark there. This is then on the centreline of the car, midway betweeen the headllamps. Measure the distance between centres of the headlamps and transfer the measurement to the wall, with marks equally spaced each side of the centre previously marked. Mark vertical lines through those points. You now have a cross on the wall directly in front of each headlamp. Measure the distance from the headlamps to the wall and divide by 100. This gives the distance for a 1% drop at the wall, which is comfortably clear of the minimum of 0.5% to be safe for an MoT, but still gives good range. (The maximum is a rather extreme 2.75%, relaxed from 2.0% in 2016 because testers were apparently making too many mistakes...)Assuming the lamps are right hand drive, Euro type with a horizontal cutoff and left hand upward kink:- 6. Adjust dipped headlamps vertically so that the horizontal cutoff is at the calculated distance below the horizontal mark, and horizontally so that the corner of the kink is a similar distance to the left of the mark. (Again comfortably clear of the '0%' MoT limit, and well within the frankly bizarre maximum of 'anywhere on the left of the screen'!) Maybe not very simple but really not too hard and guaranteed to give a result as good as, or better than, a typical garage will achieve. Cheers

I don't think 270 ohms is plausible as it's far too large a value to allow a sensible current for a 'high intensity' lamp. (100-200mA?) 27 ohms seems more likely, which would imply the band that now appears to be black/blue has discoloured and was originally gold. (The metal content in the lacquer can corrode in damp/hot conditions.) The picture below (not a Racetech branded unit) shows two 15 ohm resistors to be wired in series (i.e. 30 ohms - suspiciously close to 27.) http://www.autosport.com.au/autosport-50-led-rain-light I would think they've used two resistors to keep the dissipation down - the ones pictured look like 1/4W ones to me, so a single one would be struggling (..and perhaps discolouring through overheating?) The Racetech light comes in two versions - a 12v and a 9v one, and I'm wondering if some suppliers are selling 9v units with added external resistors as 12v units... (30 ohms drops 3v at 100ma...) Cheers