DJ.

Caterham are quite up front about charging for labour for warranty work on kits. On the order form there is a box you can tick for "Kit labour warranty package" as they charged £750 for this I didn't tick it. However, not going for this does mean that I accepted that the warranty only covers parts and not their labour charge to fit it. As a kit builder, it seemed to me that if I'd fitted it once I could do it again, but it is still very annoying when a part fails. Duncan

Sorry to hear that, it's a real pain when you get these sort of drips. With an Elan I owned, I rebuilt the engine curing several leaks, and assumed the gearbox was OK. Put it all back together and it was still dripping a little from the gearbox input shaft. I must say, assuming the gearbox and diff both sound OK, I would be inclined to leave it. As long as you regularly top up the gearbox there won't be any harm done, and it's a very cheap part to replace as and when you have to disturb the gearbox or diff in the future. I finished my Roadsport 125 in March, and have been lucky with oil seals, but I've been considering going back over diff noise as it does whine rather a lot. At the moment, I think I'm going to just wear ear plugs, as I don't fancy £1000 plus for the BMW and don't want to return my Ford diff only to get one that's worse! Duncan

It only takes 2 minutes to disconnect the negative lead from the battery. At least with a Seven, there's no clock or radio to reset Duncan

Imperial chassis is phosphor bronze welded and has imperial threads made by Arch. Metric chassis has Mig (?) welding and metric threads/dimensions I suppose. When advertising roll bars everyone specifies Imperial or Metric, so I'm pretty sure they are different. I'm pretty sure it will be Imperial as I think the metric chassis came in around the time the sigma engine was introduced. However, I'm sure to be corrected when the experts arrive Duncan Edited by - DJ. on 28 May 2011 21:12:30

OK thanks, I've found this T piece: here Does anyone know if this is the correct thread for a Sigma? This switch looks OK to me: here What do you think?

Having googled and searched on here several times, I'm looking for some advice on fitting an oil pressure warning light. The car is a Roadsport 125 (sigma), and currently there is only the gauge. I know from past experience that I'm unlikely to spot the needle dropping during cornering on track, so it's got to be a good idea to fit a warning light. I'm assuming I need to fit some sort of T piece to use both the gauge and add a pressure switch. Can anyone tell me where to get a suitable T piece and suggest a good pressure switch. As for the light, what do most people use and where do you fit them? Thanks in advance Duncan

Thanks, it seemed a bit OTT to me

Having read this thread, I was about to buy the Maplin parts, but tried ebay first. Several sellers sell the Maplin buzzer apparently fitted with diodes with neat mountings and wiring for about £8. I then saw a company that do two buzzers and wiring for £4.80. This is what they say about using two buzzers: Q: Why do we supply two sounders rather than one sounder with a diode ? A: Diodes can fail and as a result may damage the vehicle engine Management system, ours have been tested by a local BMW trained engineer Here is the ebay page: here I'd be interested on your thoughts about this. Duncan

I tightened the bolts fully first (14Nm as Matthew said) and then just used an Allen key to tighten the grub screw. I think tightening the bolts after the grub screw would be likely to put far too much pressure on it. Just my opinion though Duncan

It's definitely a good idea to get up to temperature to check the fan and make sure there aren't any airlocks. You'll need to tighten all the hose clips at least a couple of times after the first few runs. I would let it run at idle, after all the Mototune technique only works when the engine is under load, and even he says the engine needs to be thoroughly warmed before the breaking in begins. Have fun. Duncan

Thanks for posting, I'm sure this will help a lot of owners in the future. Duncan

Sorry I didn't have the knowledge to contribute to this thread earlier, but I'm very pleased you got it sorted! Have a good day at Dunsfold Duncan

When I owned an elan, it had a little engine trouble, mainly leaks, so my father and I took the engine out. I didn't have any previous experience of engine rebuilding, but we followed Miles Wilkin's book (mentioned by skeetsy) The book gave a step by step guide to stripping the engine. I then took all the parts that we felt needed checking to QED who were very helpful. Their expert measured the bores, crank journals etc and he gave lots of good advice. I left the head and block with QED, and they re-bored it and sourced an over sized set of pistons to match. I also had unleaded valve guides fitted and new valve seats as the old ones had been butchered by someone who thought they were gas flowing the head. I picked up the parts, once again followed the book, and it started first time and ran perfectly until I sold the car about 5 years later. So if you can get a copy of that book and some help from an expert who is going to make money selling the parts, it is quite possible to rebuild a twin cam without any prior experience. Edited by - DJ. on 16 May 2011 23:03:29

I'm no expert, but have you checked the A frame bush on the Dedion tube almost under the diff? Duncan Edited by - DJ. on 9 May 2011 18:54:45

Thanks Jason, you've made my mind up. I'll order some Castrol from ebay now. All the best Duncan

Thanks for giving us the benefits of your research. I think I'll skip the redline in view of the heat issues. After all, increased heat surely can't be a good sign. Do you think the Castrol 75w140 would reduce a whine as well as reducing the clunking? Duncan

What didn't you like about it Jason? I'm following this thread as I've recently ordered some of the shock proof oil having heard good reports previously. Duncan

My wife said she thought it might be you. My Dad bought me that plate as it was going very cheaply, I'm thinking of transferring it to my Seven. I quite like having a private plate on the cheapest (almost) car you can buy though.

Hi, had a look at your car after we'd been round Buckleys Yesterdays World. Then you came up behind us in our red C1, so I let you past Duncan

Hi, sorry I didn't see you and I'm late spotting this too! I was very lucky with the weather for my run home from Dartford Duncan

I wondered what was causing that noise! Thanks you've saved me lots of head scratching, but I think I'll just live with it for now. Duncan

That's reassuring

I'm no expert, but I have experienced popping and banging due to lean mixture. I had a Strada Abarth in the eighties and it suddenly started banging on the over run, and it was split rubber inlet manifolds allowing air in when the throttles closed. I changed the manifolds and it was cured completely. Duncan

Or get it set up properly by someone like Road & Race ? I'm sure that's a good idea, but I'm going to wait until the club meet and see if people think the whine is excessive. When I fitted the diff it seemed a bit tight to my admittedly inexperienced hands, and I wonder whether it might bed in a bit while I'm running in. I've only done 220mile so far/ Duncan

Careful ...... apparently the BMW diff isn't serviceable. In the event of problems, discard and replace This just gets better and better 😬 I was lucky (?) enough to buy one of the last Seven kits sold with the Ford diff. The tales on here about noisy diffs almost put me off buying the car having been through this with an old kit car. Anyway, mine whines between about 50 and 60 mph. Backlash is Ok and otherwise it behaves well with no horrible grinding noises on the over run. When I saw the pictures of that cast iron diff and all the angle iron bolted to it to get it to fit the chassis, I decided my diff would have to be pretty bad to make me want to spend £1000 to swap! Now you say it has to be binned if there are any problems- I think ear plugs are the way to go :) Duncan Edited by - DJ. on 22 Apr 2011 20:21:48