Foxy Smith

I think I follow what you are saying. The main problem you'll find is holding the screwdriver(dolly) steady as you work the metal against it. If you can get the panel off the car and clamp the dolly to the metal with soft wood behind you'll get on much better. A hammer with as broad and flat a surface as possible would be good or make yourself a slapper with a heavy piece of wood. A bit of wood 2"x2" and say 8-10" long. Using this as a hammer ensures you get an even and straight curve around the former without the risk of dings from a hammer face edge. Hope this makes some sense

Alex, If you need a hand give us a ring 01444 892555 Alan PS Hope you enjoyed your New Year

It's possibly little use that contributes to failure as the seals adhere to the slave cylinder wall. If it's not gone it's going. Would make sure you carry your RAC card. Another indicator of impending failure would seem to be colour of fluid in reservoir, it tends to go black with bits in it. When it does eventually go make sure you replace the whole slave piston, not just the seals as I did first time. The new pistons have apparently been modified. Also recommended fluid is Dot 3 which is supposed to be more viscous.

BOSS, The brazing kits for acr welders as far as I know are consumable carbon rods from which an arc is struck heating the parent metal enought to melt the braze. With bronze welding I think, if I understnd this correctly, that one of the problems is feeding the flux into the brazing site. I know there is some fancy kit around to specifically do bronze welding but whether this is something that could be done as a manual process I don't know. I would have thought a gas torch would be a better bet, oxy fuel or MAPP. I do know the flux used is nasty stuff with I think a fluoride base.

Ammo, As I understand it it's not the engine that stalls as such but the air column. We're into pulse theory here and I'm on shaky ground but I have heard from a couple of sources that with flat slide throttles you can't just snap the throttle open but have to open progressively. As an aside I've sent you a couple of progress reports, I'm starting to wonder if I have your email address wrong??

Klaus, I have 41mm FCR's, kindly supplied by Ammo. He tells me they are jetted for a 2litre Nissan engine so I'm hoping not to have too much fiddling with jetting etc. As far as the design of the inlet manifold is concerned I'm going by the seat of my pants rather than any sound theoretical basis but this is what I've come up with:- Flat slide carbs are supposed to have a poor throttle response, this is because of stalling of the air column when the throttle is suddenly opened wide(Bernoulli theory). I figured that the closer I can get the carbs to the cylinder head the better in this respect. Any shortfall in inlet tract length I can make up for with the trumpets. The standard Caterham inlet manifold for the Vx is a horrible thing. It has a swan neck to get over the diagonal chassis rail, it's poorly finished and does not match the porting on the cylinder head. I'm trying to avoid these characteristics. You don't need to worry about flanges as the carbs are mounted with short lengths of rubber tube over spiggots so your manifold just needs to mirror this. A back plate with four corresponding spiggots. That's about it really. A friend has one of Bill Shurvington's Innovate wide band lambda meters which if I can get my head around I'm hoping will simplify the final set up. One last thing, don't expect to get too much help from the guys at PRIRACE, they play it very close to the chest.

Ammo, Bill didn't say pints of what, you could stick to your red Bull and coffee 😬 Bill, as your opinions are valued, would be interested in what you have to say re Keihins. As Ammo says above we are talking about the roller slide types.

I'm getting very close. On a Vauxhall Xe 2.0 not a crossflow. Have a nice new manifold coming along. A little bit of machining to do to sort out the interport spacing. Other than that it's looking good, fit nicely under the bonnet and will hopefully allow me to have some long trumpets in a new airbox. Will keep you posted.

Hope this helps 1. fuel pump 15A injection only 2. ECU 20A (should be uprated to 30A) injection only 3. brake reverse lights 15A 4. heater instruments 10A 5. wipers washers 15A 6. cooling fan 15A 7. heated screen 10A 8. horn 20A 9. indicators hazards 10A 10. foglights 5A 11. dip beam 15A 12. main beam 15A 13. lh side and tail lights 5A 14. rh side and tail lights 5A 15. ignition module relay post ,93 Vx on carbs only 16. horn relay 17. hazard relay 18.flasher unit 19. lights relay This is straight out of the owners manual and supposed to be good for all models. It is however not a very recent manual so might not be gospel. Where abouts in Scotland are you? Have you got snow? Best wishes, Alan

IRO £40 if I remember correctly, plus P+P if you can't deliver and collect yourself. Jill does a very good job.

Any mileage in using hydraulics to separate the components? Having removed thecirclip is there any way in which you could inject oil (syringe??) into the tappet to push the two halfs apart?

Simon, it's an inexact science. The theory goes, take off the oil cap on the bell housing and with the engine running at a fast idle the oil should come up to the bottom of the sloping ramp on which it splashes as it comes from the scavenge pump. At the end of the day it does'nt really matter, if you're worried just make sure you have an empty catch tank, overfill and the have a blat, the car will reject what it does not want! Easy!

Been researching this subject myself. As above specialised epoxy resin looks best. Most important esp with aluminium is rapid prep of the bonding surface to remove oxide layer, use stainless steel "toothbrush" or rotary brush in drill. DO NOT USE A STEEL BRUSH. Having done this immediately apply resin to prepped surface this will cut down the formation of AlOX which is one of the things that interferes with a good bond. There are chemical means of prepping the aluminium surface but generally invole nasty acids and are not recommended for home use.

Thanks guys, You've confirmed what I suspected.

I've been asked to turn up a batch of wooden gear knobs. Any knowledgable person happen to know what the thread is? and , as I suspect, if there is more than one thread type used in the various gearboxes used in the Caterham?? Thanks Alan

Sorry have'nt read the whole thread but I think that this does sound like an earthing problem. Did you check the earth lead from the battery where it bonds to the engine bellhousing??.

From the Manual. "Start the engine and with the engine running (re)check the oil level which should reach the top of the slave cylinder housing or the bottom of the ramp behind the clutch cover. Top up as necessary. The nominal capacity is 4 litres." You will find the cover you need to remove on top of the bell housing, round like an old fashioned radiator cover. Also important to make sure car is on reasonably level ground whn doing this. If unsure always err on too much oil, the car will get rid of it by blowing it out into the catch tank which you will probably find behind your exhaust headers on the passenger footwell.

HAve a look at http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/Forum3/HTML/001712.html more information than you need here but it looks as if someone knows what they are talking about.

Yes you can run a single phase motor backwards but it depends on the type of motor. If you can get hold of Tubal Cains workshop practice or whatever his book is called there is a diagram in there on wiring a reversing switch. Remember there may be an issue with how your chucks are mounted, they can unscrew with nasty effects when going backwards.

If we're talking about the 2.0Xe manifold then there are several problems inherent. First and most important is the fact that to clear the diagonal chassis rail and to keep the carburetors level the manifold has a swan neck profile. This is bad, straight would be good. Secondly the quality of the castings seems to vary this leads to two separate issues. Firstly changes in diameter of the inlet tract lead to uncertain behaviour of the fuel charge. Secondly and certainly in the case of my own manifold there was a huge amount of casting flash left inside the manifold. This can obviously be dealt with. Currently I am working on a "Cunning Plan" which involves straightening the manifold, repositioning the diagonal chassis rail and dumping the Webers for something a lot more sophisticated but not fuel injection. Alan Edited by - Foxy Smith on 17 Oct 2004 21:03:07

Second the ratchet strap. Safest if you anly compress the spring to where you roughly want it because when you let the ratchet go it goes.

Agree with the above. The hydraulic clutch is nice, when it works. There is a new slave piston and seals availiable which is supposed to have solved the problem, also using older DOT3 type hydraulic fluid is supposed to be helpful. However having said and done all that I still climb into the car half expecting the clutch peddle to sink to the floor and stay there. I reckon if you are happy with the clutch set up you have stick with it. The other disadvantage of the bell housing is, I feel, a relatively small volume of oil compared to what you can get in a well designed external tank. Alan

Don't think they knew what crank sensors were when they built cross flows.

Like the flywheel 😬

New Cat, The C/F seats I have are MOG ones, but I understand these are more or less direct copies of the Tillets. What I did was to remove the sliding runners from the steel bearers because I wanted the new seats as low as possible and was not worried about adjustability. You will find that steel bearers are fixed too closely together to line up with the holes in the seats so I made up outriggers in 8mm birch ply which fix down onto the bearers and up into the seats. This is all bolted together as one unit and the rearmost bolts that fasten the bearers to the chassis were welded to the bearers so that I did not need to get an Allen key in behind the seat when fitting. The best of all this is that the seats are as low as the can possibly go i.e. the lowest point of the seat is in contact with the ally floor panel. You can adjust rake by putting spacers between the outriggers and the seats and you can put the seats anywhere you like along the length of the steel bearers. My wifes seat is quite far forward, my seat is far back. In theory we can swap seats around but fortunately she can just reach the pedals with my seat. If you want some photos let me know. Birch ply, by the way, is very strong and gives a degree of compliance.