David aka Blue7

I had this problem with my previous CSR and CC fitted a special kit to overcome the issue.  As stated, the flap is the main problem but it could be handy when you are returning from France because it will prevent illegal immigrants crawling down your spout and stowing away in your petrol tank

There was a discussion about this problem on BCmk1 site, I still have the linky but since BCmk1 was retired the linky no worky :(  However, there was a good post by Andy / adcatman and his flickr pix showing step by step instructions are still out there here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/20184350@N05/sets/72157611953264019/

>>Luegonigel said: Maybe I should have quantified the weather by quoting a Hsig (significant wave height) for the amount of water on the road.

Nigel, your problem was that you probably didn't have surficient tread depth  

I suggest you fit Dunlop Puroforts here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dunlop-Purofort-Thermo-Safety-Wellies-Welly-Wellington-Boots-Insulated-5-12-/160791034834

and then you can give it as much welly as you like

Seriously, I suggest you swap your CR500's for water skis and if you do stray off the road then you can always go Monster hunting on Loch Ness

Has anyone fitted seats different to the standard seats, particularly leather and if so where did you source them?  I am thinking along the line of 2 tone but most seats available seem to be too wide or tillets

While searching around I came across heated seat pads here

http://www.interiorsseating.co.uk/worldclassseating/seatheaterhigh-low.html

Now they should improve winter motoring comfort

Thanks for the input, that's the problem ... trying before buying, they are too expensive to buy and then find that they are uncomfortable but they are ok for dodgy backs then they must have a degree of comfort.

Does anyone have the CC carbon fibre alcantara seats fitted to a 7 and if so how comfortable are they for normal / long distance use as opposed to track use?  The former adjustable leather GT style seats are no longer available and the cf alcantara seats look about as severe as the price.

http://www.caterhamparts.co.uk/product.php?id_product=3024

I fitted these the convex ones, they are really neat and good vision despite being quite small, you can see my comments in the product review.

Edited by - Blue7 on 28 Aug 2014 16:53:06

Thursday 24 July DSU *** Portmeirion Hotel, we had a short blether when you arrived, while you removed your "heavy" suitcase from rear luggage rack. Nice to see an original 7 with speedo on passenger side, no fuel gauge and fuel filler cap in the boot

You seemed to be with a Lotus Club of some kind because there was an assorted number of Lotus cars arriving including a few Espirits and Mk 1 Elans. You all left for a blat quite early on Friday, the day we left ... great weather for it 😬

Spotted on Monday 21 July, traveling north on A592 alongside Ullswater Lake, exchanged waves We had a great run through Kirkstone pass apart from a Range Rover that was prepared to run us off the road rather than let us overtake him ... but a short lapse in concentration ... and we were past 😬

Edited by - Blue7 on 27 Jul 2014 11:55:43

3 of them headed north west for cakes at Cawdor and then on to Bealach Na Ba. If SWMBO wasn't working today we would have joined them, it looked like great weather on the west coast. We had a very memorable day on Sunday, 11 se7ens and a Lotus GT3 all moving very rapidly in convoy through Glenshee

Edited by - Blue7 on 17 Jun 2014 12:47:34

You will be because the wind noise will be insufferable and spoil any videos unless you are content with visual only. I don't see any indication of how long the batteries stay charged but I may have missed it somewhere.

Get in touch with Dog Cam, they will give you some good unbiased advice about camera systems, they stock lots of different types at competitive prices.

I am a great believer in you get what you pay for and as others have said Go Pro is a good investment.

I didn't say it was undriveable 🤔 There are some big differences between German engineered Porka 911's and Caterham to mention a few wings don't fly off, they have decent lights that you don't have to upgrade, the dials all work and don't steam up, no leaks in the footwell, new diffs not reconditioned, windscreen washer bottles don't fall off, engine mountings that don't crack ... etc etc. 😬 😬

This is my second CSR both bought new and it is no different to the first one and to quote CC "it is the nature of the animal". If you have owned and driven them for a long time you don't notice it but it is the new owners who get a bit of a surprise (maybe Porka 911 owners ), and think there is a problem.

Back in the 70's you could achieve a similar "sensitivity" in SU carbs by fitting different needles and springs.

I ain't in Deepest Darkest West Sussex Mick, I am a wee bit further north in North East Scotland so a bit of a long journey to consult the two Steves and in any case I quite like my CSR as it is including it's Ozzy roodementary tenancies 😶‍🌫️

I don't wish to get into a tedious argument about it so this is my final contribution to the topic. Good luck and enjoy p1collectables

It is the nature of "the beast" It doesn't like town driving, doesn't like slow and in particular it doesn't like bumpy roads at slow speeds, which can cause exponential kangarooing Tuning to 280 bhp has probably exacerbated the problem but you soon learn how to cope with it. Great fun though 😬

Edited by - Blue7 on 7 Oct 2013 19:07:37

;-)

Glad it's fixed.

Jonathan

Thanks, so am I. One good thing to come out of all this has been discovering the dodgy spade connection at the brake switch. On closer inspection there are thankfully no broken wires but the spade terminal was broken so just a matter of removing it and fitting a replacement.

On closer inspection of the rear of the rain light I discovered that both black and red wire insulation sheathing does not extend fully up to the back of the light and I could just see minute pieces of bare wire. When the wires were fed through the rubber grommet and the rain light bolts tightened up the two bare parts of the wire must have come into contact causing the short. I have wrapped insulation tape around both wires and used a larger grommet to allow for increase thickness, wired it up again and all is now working well.

After all this I never would have suspected the problem to be with the rain light wiring so if anyone is fitting one of these lights inspect the wire sheathing where it enters the back of the light and make sure there are no bare wires visible.

Can't believe this weather, I can hardly feel my finger tips it is so cold ... almost June and the Cockbridge / Tomintoul road is closed with snow

I bought a Draper multimeter, not exactly a comprehensive instruction book extending to one page but interesting results. My old HL brake light which works ok when connected seems to use 3.3 amps and yet the new one which is blowing fuses is using 1.5 amps. However, these are readings from connection to a spare battery not the one in the car so the test results are based on just a direct circuit with the spare battery alone.

This makes me suspect that the new rain light is shorting somehow. It is attached to the car by two steel bolts so I wondered if one or both are earthing the current somehow? So I have removed the securing nuts from the bolts and isolated them from the body of the car and low and behold the rain light is now working alongside the brake lights without blowing a fuse. I haven't tried inserting the fixing bolts back into the body yet because it is so cold I can hardly feel my finger tips and I thought I would end the day on a positive note.

FFS. If you don't own a £5 multimeter, stop messing around with electrics. Order one of these and come back when it's arrived.

Roger

I'll see if I can get one locally tomorrow at Autoparts, it would certainly be interesting to discover the amount of current going through the rain light.

Meantime I have wired the rainlight through a relay using the spur from the brake light circuit to operate the relay and as a temporary set up taken power for the relay 87 / 30 terminals from a spare battery to power the rainlight ... and it works Stepping back to look at it, the rainlight is incredibly bright and puts my normal led brake lights in the shade so it is obviously taking a large current. Incidentally, I have gone back to the standard 15a fuse, which is not blowing.

I will get the multimeter tomorrow and report back on my findings but meantime here is a photo of the rainlight, it doesn't really do it justice but pales the standard lights into insignificance and they are fitted with led bulbs and the reflective lens enhancements

http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc428/Blu-7/Rainlightsm_zpsa5cf328e.jpg

To rule out the possibility of defective switch I have connected the 2 brake light spade connections to a toggle switch, strangely one spade connector has insulation tape wrapped around it? There are 3 green and maybe purple wires attached to this spade terminal and on closer inspection if I move the wires around a bit the brake lights are flickering on and off, which suggests to me that it is a broken or damaged connection to the spade terminal and whoever wired it up at CC wrapped insulation tape around it to keep it as rigid as possible thereby maintaining a connection. I assume this connection must be breaking down with the extra load?

Re bad earth I have already tried just connecting the rain light to the positive feed and earthing the rain light's negative wire direct to the chassis but still the same problem.

There isn't much cable to play with at the dodgy spade terminal so I will have to decide whether to just revert back to normal brake lights or attempt a repair with connections to a new spade terminal.

The led brake light bulbs have a sticker behind them indicating P521 / 5w. I don't have any instrumentation to measure the rain light amps.

Yes sorry close circuit by switching on completing the circuit to supply power to brake lights.

If it's a wiring fault I can't understand why my old HL brake light operates ok when connected up to the same terminals?

Well I have fitted the new CC brake light switch and now when I open the circuit it blows the standard 15 amp fuse. So I have increased the fuse rating to 20 amp and it blows that fuse also.

I am a bit reluctant to go the a 30 amp fuse so I removed one of the led brake light bulbs and replaced it with a standard brake light bulb, connected up the rain light and result is no blown fuse but no brake or rain light either. So disconnect rain light try again and nothing until I push the brake light plunger in and out and then brake lights operate again.

I have connected the rain light direct to the battery with a 10 amp fuse and it doesn't blow the fuse.

Seems to me that the switch can't cope with the additional load so I could either take another power supply for the rain light and fit a relay operated by the brake light switch ... or remove the rain light and fit another HL break light similar to my old one (which works ok), which uses less load.

Probably should have just left well alone 😔

Ring RAC 630

here

Roger / Jonathan

Conventional fuses for CSR Duratec and I agree, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either I have connected up another HL led brake light, which I had fitted to my last 7 seen here This operates ok, comes on with the brake lights and the brake lights stay on. This has 48 leds compared to present one which has 72.

I carry a spare CC brake switch so I have just wired that up to the new 72 led light and it operates the light ok. I was just going to fit this in place of the existing switch but I can't remove the spade connectors because they are hard up against the bulkhead so I will have to remove the switch first and it looks like I will have to bend the bracket it is attached to in order to remove it. It also looks like the new CC switch is too long for a straight forward swap and looks like it has to have the plunger and casing cut down to size?

My brake lights are CC supplied red led bulbs to compliment the clear lenses.

Having just fitted one of these and ensured it was working, I discovered yesterday that both brake lights and new led light were not working. I thought it might be the fuse at first but that was still intact.

I removed the cover to expose the brake light switch, disconnected the new led light and flicked the brake light switch plunger a few times and eventually the brake lights operated again. However, as soon as I try to reconnect the new led light both brake lights go out again. So back to flicking the brake light switch plunger in and out and brake lights operate again ... until I reconnect the led light and off they go again 😔

This car is only a year old so it is not exactly an old switch in need of replacement. It suggests to me that switch contacts are faulty and not able to take the added load of the led light ... unless I am missing something?

Edited by - Blue7 on 20 May 2013 14:14:48

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