Silver Machine

No experience of the combined gauge. Length of tubing to oil pressure gauge is determined by the route you take. On my K series I routed from oil pressure sender connection round the front of engine then up the drivers side and into dash. Each car is individual and may/will determin the route. Run a piece of rope on proposed route to get approximate length for your instalation. You can always loose a bit with slght loop at dash end if a bit to long. I would presume the temp bit is easy in that you connect the wire from oil temp sender to the back of the gauge. Think my oil temp sender is on the appolo tank. Hope some of this may help.

Painting them yourself would cost almost as much when you factor in rubbing down, primer/filler, paint, lacquer plus several hours of labour.

Removed mine a few months ago. Given that the metal bits are sewn in did not fancy trashing the washing machine so went for the following. Bucket of water plus washing detergent. Old fashioned scrubbing brush. Plenty of rinsing water (hose pipe). Half decent weather to do this outside on old B and D Workmate. Hang out to dry.

I fitted a split boot as an emergency (Le Mans ) several years ago. Took my time and it lasted for over 12 months. I found it better to fit the split boot further down the shaft before you remove the original. Doing this keeps your gluing away from the CV joint grease. These boots get a lot of bad press but work well as a temp fix if you glue them up correctly. Found cable ties as good if not better than the metal clips that came with the boot.

On the advice of Red Line I replaced mine with 'stretchy boots' seems they work well on most Caterhams. The 'stretchy boot' goes on from the diff end of the shaft and stretches over the can so no need to remove can. Mine have covered 12000 miles with no problems. Some folk say the profile of the 'stretchy boot' means that it rubs against itself but on my 1997 Supersport this has not been an issue. It took me about 3 hours to do the first side and about 90 mins on the second side. By all means email me if you would like further details.

Rather than try to undo the plug at the base you could undo the two main hoses plus the air bleed hose and remove the tank. From personal experience I have found this to be more manageable than trying to remove the bung at the base. Incidentally I personally would not worry about the small amount of oil left in the base of the tank. I generally remove the tank when doing other jobs such as cam belts etc.

Have one in a 1997 1.6 Supper sport. Had one serious problem about 12 years ago. Arrived home after an enthusiastic drive and noticed an oil leek from the box. Kendricks and SPC sorted it out. It seems for some undefined reason one of the gear box shafts(they told me which one but I can't remember) had moved during a gear change. The box was then cracked by contact with moving gears. The innards settled themselves back down but I now had a nice crack in the box. SPC repaired and rebuilt the box. Think the total repair costs amounted to about the same as a weeks package holiday to Greece for two.

My 1997 Super sport has a carbon dash. It was already fitted when I bought the car in 03. It does not have the pointed down bits on the end. It appears to fit round the horizontal tube under the dash. I think it was a standard Caterham part at the time the car was built.

Many thanks for the relay of details folks. Sale has now been agreed.

Due to a house move we have a John Lewis washer tumbler dryer for sale. It is 5 years old and is in excellent working order. Initial cost was £550. But looking for £95 ono.

Removed sump and foam 12 months ago. The car is a 1997 supper sport. With the car level on front and rear axel stands then left to drain for an hour or so there was almost no oil left in the sump or foam.

Central heating pipe/hot water pipe insulation works well.

Frodsham Cheshire this morning.

It may be worth a phone call or email to Dave Andrews (DVA Power). Over the years he has removed several while upgrading the induction etc.

Yesterday in Farndon Cheshire. My wife gave you a wave.

As Bricol says, grease guns have an adjustable nozzle that you can open/close to suit the application. My 1997 supper sport has brass nipples that can snap easily if the adjustment is too tight or/and you put too much leverage on the nipple.

As promised the latest update. Engine has run well for the last couple of weeks and both coolant and oil levels have remained constant. engine oil seems to have lost its slightly emulsified look and is just appearing as slightly 'worn' oil with a touch of orange. In reply to Gt7th. My son finds that the torque/power are ok in the fiesta but nothing to write home about. Prior to this car he had a Vauxhall Corsa which by comparison with a similar type of engine had lots more torque. Handling of the fiesta does seem to have the edge on the Corsa though.

My son is away with work at the moment. Should see him for more specific details at the weekend and will post accordingly. From what I gather the dealership topped up the coolant and said the orange dye in oil was normal. They did say that he should keep an eye on engine temperature in that if it rose significantly within a short period of time he should stop and call for recovery. They seemed unable to explain why there was orange dye in the oil and why the coolant appeared to have gone down. In fact we didn't actually know if the coolant has gone down as we did not check it on delivery and just assumed it should have been at its max level. Will keep you posted even if we have no further developments.

Thank you John and Paul. Excellent advice from you both. He is going to drop the car at a local ford dealer tomorrow and let them have a look.

My son has just taken delivery a brand new Ford Fiesta 1.0 echoboost. It is a lease car through his work. With less than 1000 miles on the clock we were looking over the engine (just out of general interest) this morning. Checking the oil it seemed to be slightly emulsified and slightly orange. We then noticed the orange coolant in the expansion tank had gone down by about 500mls. Contacted the lease company, who said that with the car being new this is quite ok and my son is fine to carry on driving it. He spoke to one of their 'technicians' who reinforced that this is not a condition to worry about. As this is a new lease car my son is not over concerned as they will replace/repair etc at their expense. Would be interested on what you folk think about this as I think it looks like some kind of gasket failure. PS. There is no oil in the header tank.

My only experience is with a 1600 super sport which is a different engine in some ways but in other ways has some common ground. Had similar problems and it turned out to be a ball valve in the inlet manifold. It had seized up and needed releasing. To sort things out in my case involved: Remove tube from header tank to inlet manifold. Use a piece of stiff or twisted wire to poke into the hole in the manifold This released the seized ball valve. This may not be the issue with your engine but worth trying as it costs next to nothing and takes about 10 minutes in time I must give acknowledgment to Richard Price for pointing me in this direction before I started on a possible head gasket replacement.

Silicone sealant works if you need a sealant. Check that all bobbins etc if you have them, are intact. Had similar on a 4 into 1 collector and it turned out to be the bobbin starting to fail. was a quick and cheap thing to sort out.

Thank you Jonathan. I think that was the discussion I had in mind. Given the work I am currently carrying out bleeding the oil pipe would be a little messy but not a big job.

Thank you for the reply Pensioner. That's saved what could be a messy little task.

Think this has been mentioned before but do we need to bleed the system when first installed? I am currently fitting a mechanical gauge and wondered if the air in the pipe needs to be bled out.