AnkerB-S

Great and thanks Steve, I will see if I can find the Arlington Classic Car Club. I am about 1/2 hour away from there and a regular beer with fellow enthusiast sounds perfect! Anker

I should have mentioned that I made the mistake to check the compression with a cold engine. Will do a dry and wet compression test later on a hot engine. The fact that all cylinders show the same compression tells me that I don't have any broken rings, which would be my biggest worry.

I can't figure out whether the idle ignition advance on the 1700 Xflow should be 10 or 14 degrees. The Weale book is a bit confusing, it says 10 degrees Bosh 14 degrees Caterham. Does this refer to the distributor? If it does, how do I identify it? Mine has an orange cap. Does that help? It is really hard to examine it as it sits undet the carburetors. The other thing is a bit of a puzzle. When the engine is up to temperature I see a bit of smoke/steam come out from under the transmission tunnel. Initially I thought it came from the crankcase breather, but it definitely isn't coming from the engine block. It could, of course be exhaust that makes it under the car, but any ideas?

Progress! I finished, to the 99% level, the engine tuneup today. Yesterday I cleaned the air filters and let them dry overnight, and today I oiled them. After mounting them I started the engine. The carbs were out of sync, so one of the filters must have been a lot dirtier than the other. I also went over the carb mounting nuts and made them evenly tightened. When that was done the revs didn't change when pushing and pulling, gently, on the left carb. They changed, of course, when I did the same on the right carb because it is slaved to the left carb throttle. The idle mixture also needed to be richened because the dirty filers had a choking effect. Yesterday I also found the timing notches in the front crank pulley. They were almost impossible to see, but I used a screw driver to expose the metal in the notches. I broke out the timing light and checked the timing. It was set at 10 degrees at idle. The Weale book is a bit confusing on what the advance should be on the 1700 Supersprint. I interpret it as depending on the distributer, whether it is Bosh or Caterham. Correct? Decided to set it to 12 degrees at idle and then give it a test run. A marked improvement. Smoother running at medium revs, a bit of gentle popping out of the exhaust on throttle lift and next to no spitting out of the carburetors. Made the run a longer one. This could be the last warm (60's) day before late March/early April, so time to just enjoy the car. On the test run I took the side curtains off. Big mistake. From 60 MPH and up I get so much wind buffeting that I worry about losing my hearing aids and glasses. On my next run I'll see how well the plastic wind deflectors work, have heard not too well. I'll wear a beanie so I don't lose hearing aids and glasses. It is amazing how many admiring looks the Caterham gets. Our Porsches get some, but not nearly as many. After the drive today it is time to put the car up on axle stands and attach the suspension and body work.

About a week ago I bought a 1987 Caterham 1700 Super Sprint from a friend of mine. I first saw at a summer party at his home a couple of years ago and thought that would be a fantastic car to own. We had just bought two Porsche Boxsters, so the time wasn't right, but I kept lusting for it. A year ago my friend brought it to our local autocross venue, a closed military airport, and saw it in action. More lust. I did notice that it emitted a cloud of smoke whenever he lifted the throttle, so I knew something was worn. The car has pretty much sat for the last decade and needs work. My first priority is the engine. Make sure that it gets a good tuneup, and then evaluate whether any kind of rebuild is needed. Finally all the pieces fell into place. I was able to get spousal approval and my friend realized that the car needed to go to someone who would use it. Pricing was a little tricky. We finally left it as he would decide how much he was willing to sell it to be for and I would pay him that amount if I could afford it. No dickering. He worked out a price and I accepted it, so the deal was done. A week ago I drove it home. The temperature was right around 40 degrees F and it was a bit hard to start and needed both starting fluid and choke, a two person job since the car didn't have a choke cable. First time I drove it in traffic. Pretty rough in the 1000 to 3000 RPM range. Lots of farting out the exhaust and popping out the carburetors. As soon as it hits 3000 RPM it smooths out and pulls like a champ. My plan is to give it a thorough tune-up ASAP and then decide whether there is a need to rebuild any component. This weekend proved ideal to get the project going. Yesterday was in the 40s, today and tomorrow in the mid 60s. Terrific for Massachusetts in January. Yesterday I started out having the car inspected. I registered it earlier in the week and got the license plates Friday. The state inspection is similar to the UK MOT. It was a hoot. Everybody was really interested in what it was and took a lot of pictures. The inspector insisted on driving it in and needed instruction on how to get in. Once in, I had to show him how to test all of the controls. Everything worked as it should and the car passed and got its sticker. After I got home I started by installing a choke cable. Once I get it tuned right I suspect it won't be needed, but right now it is. My plan was to tune the Webers, but as soon as I started I noticed that any push on the carbs make the idle speed change and the manifold mounting nuts seemed really loose. Tightened them a bit and then decided it was prudent to get some expert advice. Glad I did. Didn't realize that the manifold mounting is flexible to reduce frothing in the carbs. End result was that I ordered the parts to replace all of the mounting hardware. Today started with a carburetor tune after replacing the spark plugs. The carbs turned out to be balanced perfectly. The idle mixture was not right with the air filters off. I did set them as described and it ran fairly well, but after putting the air filers on it was clearly off. That prompted me to get a K&N filter cleaning kit. Used it, and now have the filters drying inside the house, so no more carb work. Next was a compression test. I did it dry and found that the cylinders all are very close to 150 PSI. Cylinder 4 is a tiny bit lower. I need to find out whether this is good. I was relieved, however, to find them so close. Tomorrow I'll put some oil in the cylinders and do a wet compression test. That should tell me if there is any piston blow-by. I will also do a road test and see how it feels. At this stage I suspect that both carbs would benefit from service at a specialist and also that the head also should be given a rebuild. The valves seem to seat well by the compression test, but the smoke at lifting indicate that the valve guides and/or the valve seals may be worn.

I have a funny Redex story. In the early 70's my brother in law owned a Wartburg, an east German DKW derivative, with a two stroke engine. They tend to get a lot of carbon build up, which Redex can take care of. We ran the car up to temperature, removed the spark plugs and poured some Redex into the cylinders to soak the carbon on top of the pistons. After it soaked for a short while i leaned forward to take a peek through the spark plug hole and see how it was doing. Just before I got my head over the engine the mixture in the cylinder I was going to check exploded and blasted the underside of the hood (bonnet) with a mixture of Redex and carbon. Taught me a valuable lesson!

Thanks Roger, I think I'll go with the Misab, inexpensive and easy to procure. The choke cable is necessary until I get the engine set up right. It takes full choke to get the engine to fire here in January. I'll follow your suggestions tomorrow, get the carbs balanced and the idle mixsture set right according to the tuning instructions. I definitely tightened them too much earlier today. Tomorrow we are having a record warm January day. I put a can of Sea Spray in the tank and will give the car a good run in the afternoon and see how that affects the running. When I get home from the run I'll do the carb tune. Thanks for the post. I have been anxiously waiting for someone to chime in! Anker

I was getting ready to balance the carburetors, removed the air filters and warmed the engine up to operating temperature. Barely touched the carbs and noticed that this immediately caused the engine revs to go up and down. I think I made a mistake believing that this had to be caused by an air leak and took a look at the manifold nuts. As soon as I put a bit of pressure on the carbs I could see that they moved against the manifold and though they were too loose. Tightened the top four a little bit (the engine was hot so I didn't want to put my hands underneath the manifold) and thought I heard and saw some improvement. Ran the car up to a service station to have it inspected (the Massachusetts equivalent of the MOT) and thought it ran a bit better. Only after this did I decide that I better check here and the various books and e-books I have and then realized that there is a thick, flexible gasket that provides vibration isolation. See the picture below. I did a search on this site and found a thread from 2001 on the same topic and saw two different instruction posts. One specified, as far as I remember, 8 ft lbs, the other said something like 1 1/2 turn of the bolt after everything just touches. Of course I can't find this post any more. I checked the assembly guide and the Weale book and didn't find anything there. I should know better Any help and/or pointers will be appreciated. Thanks/Anker

Doesn't look like a Mass license plate. Not sure what state it is. Now that I have one I know I'll start noticing them!