Temple Cloud

I'm changing (hopefully) from 6" to 7" rear 13" (95.25 PCD) wheels but need to know what the offset is. I've been told it probably is ET24 but wondered if anyone knows if this holds for this aged Crossflow with a live axle. I've been told how to measure it but thought I'd ask the forum first to circumvent me removing wheels etc Thanks in advance

I'm looking for one of these in vinyl or leather but can't seem to find one anywhere. Any suggestions or offers would be appreciated

Still looking for a pair of 7 x 13" Minilite or Minilite copy wheels in silver for my Live Axle crossflow. Surely someone out there has a surplus pair ?

Have you spoken to Jon at Millwoods in Dursley ? Millwoods are great fans of this spec and they're currently low on stock. I'm going to be after one of these next spring if you can wait lol....

Looks great value. Best of luck

Wow, she looks fabulous and what a bargain. I'd certainly buy if I hadn't recently bought mine - a crossflow that shares the same exhaust which I can corroborate does sound fantastic - well, so everyone tells me. I can only hear the induction from the Webers, which also sounds great. I suspect you'll find a buyer fairly easily, especially if you put up on ebay too....BOL

Well, I'm actually looking for a mechanical one as that is what I have at the moment. I'd prefer just to remove and replace rather than take the rather more circuitous route and go electric which necessitates new fuel lines and cabling. Hopefully the Millwood route will do the trick

It looks as though I'm just going to get a replacement pump fitted for me by Millwoods. I suspect mine has deteriorated over the years (the car is 27 years old) and has been abused by the E10 the previous owner may have put in it.

A quick update. As an ethanol resistant fuel pump appears to be really difficult to get hold of, those good guys at Millwood have told me they can fit a new one pretty quickly so as soon as I return from the south of France in a couple of weeks I'll book her in for a new pump...

I drive a 1995 1700 Supersprint crossflow that's just had the engine rebuilt and my tuner says I really need a mechanical fuel pump that isn't affected by ethanol. He knows Burton is developing one but its not ready yet and there's a company in the US that has one, so he's investigating that route but does anyone know of any others that are available ? For those who have converted to an electric fuel pump on this model, any advice if I go down that path ? Thanks

So, today I finally managed to get my 7 onto the rolling road at Interpro. It was one of the hottest days of the year and for some reason the roads were chock a block, mainly lorries and white van men. There comes a point when the temperature is so high it's better to have closed car with good air conditioning than an open one, particularly one with a transmission tunnel you could cook a meal on. Nonetheless it was a nice drive up to Thornbury in South Gloucestershire and Dave Griffiths greeted me with his usual smiling self. He's going through an exceptionally busy time at the moment so it's been almost a month since I booked myself in and the car has now done around 1400 miles since the rebuild and boy have they been great. I've done a couple of blats with local club members and got around five others to join me at the Haynes Motor Museum for a Sunday breakfast club which they have on the first Sunday of every month. Plenty variety of cars to see there and it was a great morning. And overall my rebuilt 7 has been totally transformed. A big thanks to GP Sevens and Boss engineering who did the head. Anyway, Dave first did a compression test, which showed that things had obviously changed considerably. They were now 190,190,185,190 which is much better than the original 185,180,175,135. After checking the carbs and timing Dave got on with the power test which showed she's producing 143bhp at around 5900 and 129ftlbs of torque at around 5800. The original spec of the car shows she should produce 135bhp and 123ftlbs so my figures top them both. He was slightly concerned about the torque figure as the max figure should really be seen at much lower revs, more like 4500 to 5000. Torque delivery relates to acceleration and bhp relates to top speed. So he decided the carbs may benefit from slightly different jets in order to create the max torque a little earlier. However my twin Weber 40s didn't want to play ball and whilst the max torque did indeed arrive earlier it was at the cost of the max bhp. Dave felt this was possibly due to low fuel pressure and on measuring it it appeared it indeed was a little lower than he would have preferred. So back came the original jets which restored the original curve (which you can see in the image below). Whilst we're both pleased with the success of the rebuild Dave has suggested that I get a new mechanical fuel pump (that I currently have) but one that is not affected by the ethanol that current fuels have. These engines were designed prior to our current range of ethanol fuels and the ethanol creates havoc with anything rubber. The problem is finding such a pump. Burton power are developing one but it's not ready yet and there is a company in the US that have one, as the Americans have a longer history of ethanol fuels than us. So Dave is sourcing such a pump for me and if he doesn't turn up trumps he suggests I convert the car to an electric fuel pump which involves slightly more work. Either of these solutions Dave considers necessary for all crossflows as the current fuels, especially E10, can create issues which I'm sure many crossflow owners already know better than me. And he does suggest I only run on 99 or 97 octane fuel, or even the 102 BP Ultimate. So, it's reassuring to see that all is well and I now look forward to getting the icing on the cake with a new fuel pump. Watch this space

Looks like a lovely car. Should sell easily...

Cool. Thx for the heads up

I'm after either a leather, vinyl or carpet tunnel cover. Thx

I first tried Autosol which is really good but then found Mothers Mag and Aluminium Polish which I think is much better. It's also in a tub and much easier to use. The results are great and worth the effort. I think well polished ali gives a Caterham a real classic look and I love mine.

Any news ?

Great, thanks

Sadly they've just sold their last set so I'm still looking.

Thanks. I'll give him a ring

Would also consider Superlite and would also consider 7.5" rather than 7". Thanks

I've finally got the car back after the rebuild and I'm now doing 500 miles to run her in. She goes very well, sounds much healthier, indicating there was obviously something wrong before and now I've polished the ali with Mother's Mag and Ali paste she looks stonking. Mother's looks similar to Autosol and does a similar job but it's certainly better and comes in a nice pot, so there's much more to go round. I've also added a smaller front number plate which I think looks a little more discreet. I'm off to the Goodwood FOS on Saturday 25th so the run down and back will see the 500 miles done. It'll be interesting to see how she fits in with all the other hypercars that she'll be sharing the Performance Car Park with. Should be quite funny. Then it'll be off to Interpro to their rolling road and get her tuned properly. GP Sevens and Boss Racing did a great job on the rebuild but inevitably after an extensive rebuild there are a couple of flat spots that can be tuned out quite simply by a bit of timing and carburettor tuning. After Interpro she'll be off to Millwoods to have two new rear wing protectors fitted together with either a respray of the wings or some new ones fitted depending on whether or not they're actually available. Apparently Millwoods tell me Caterham have real supply issues for almost everything at the moment. This seems to be a recurring theme.

SOLD

Sadly my son in law won't be able to join me this Saturday as planned, so I have his ticket for sale at £55 inc next day delivery in the UK.

I bought some Puma's last year from new and also hated them. So I sold them immediately. I didn't get on with the low cut heel and found that Puma appear to over estimate their size by 0.5 to 1.0 which pissed me off. I then bought some Puma Vedano which are a fantastic design but which were at least a full size too small. I'm selling those on ebay now and doubt I'll ever buy Puma again. I now wear Sparco Imola which suit me perfectly.

Well, the rolling road session at Interpro wasn't quite as successful as I'd hoped. In fact a rolling road session never really got underway at all. Dave always likes to do a compression and leakdown test prior to putting the engine under strain but the results weren't quite what were expected. Three of the cylinders were fine but number four was quite a bit down on pressure at 135. The rest were in the correct ball park at around 185. After the leakdown test it appeared to Dave that I had a leaking inlet valve on number four and therefore a rolling road session was probably not a great idea. What a bummer, especially with the best of the summer months fast approaching. As the car was still under warranty I sent her back to GP Sevens who agreed to take a look and do the remedial work. They removed the head and sent it to another Dave, this time at Boss Racing. This Dave, just like the one at Interpro, has a vast history of working on these engines and so I was confident that once he had renovated the head all would be well. I decided to install stronger exhaust valve seats at the same time to accommodate for unleaded petrol. Boss Racing were under pressure at the time so the work wasn't carried out for a couple of weeks but once completed GP Sevens tried to re-install the head only to notice that it wasn't going to be as simple as they'd hoped. Apparently I also had a cracked piston in cylinder four. I gather this is a well known issue with cross flows as the cast pistons weren't really designed for the high compression ratios Caterhams were built with. So the decision then was forged or cast replacements ? The big issue with forged replacements is that they're not made for the Supersprint 1700 as these crossflows were over bored by 90 thou but they were available at +100. However, talking to Dave at Interpro he advised me that overboring by another ten thou could potentially cause issues with the water jacket which, if badly rusted, could burst through with dramatic effect. I therefore decided to stick with the Hepolite cast pistons which Dave assured me were really good, underrated pistons. In the end I've decided to renew a few other bits and bobs in the block to lighten and strengthen the engine and effectively rebuild it. So I'm now waiting for it all to be put together and hopefully get the car back by the 18th June. Touch wood....as I miss her a lot....