Lotus Boy

I had to pay £81 for mine a couple of months ago - the price of lead has gone up quite a bit. There was a place in Bedford doing them for about £60 but would've had to deliver dry which I couldn't be bothered with and couldn't wait. Dave

MacP - pics of the car please!!! Quite interested to see what it looks like on the minilites! Dave

Roger - shame to hear you didn't get straight forward answers before. I have a 94 HPC that wears 15" Prisoners for touring and 13" minilites for summer hooning. Currently they have A048's, far too twitchy so am switching to R888's for this year. My 13"'s are 6 & 7 and yes the rears did foul the de dion ears but as mentioned it is very easy to grind off a couple of mm where it touches. Not had any probs since. When Caterham introduced the 8.5" rear SLR wheels they started making smaller ears for clearance reasons, not sure when this happened but suspect mid to late 90's(?). I haven't adjusted the ride height yet and although it does noticably sit lower on 13"'s I've not encountered any problems to date. As the car will wear the 13"'s more of the time I am going to get it flat floored for these so it is properly set up. Oh yeah and I have flares too so you'll have no issues there...and yes I am a fan of them too and don't care what others think! To finish my ramblings - you won't regret fitting the 13"'s and sticking better rubber (185/60 and 205/60 is what you need to fit) will transform the car. Keep the 16"s as spare or do what I do. I have Yoko A539 on the Prisoners which are ideal (well I think) for long distance touring such as the Swiss Trip as you will be prepared for all weathers, you won't wear them out quickly and switching back to 16"'s will give you a bit of useful ground clearance should you need it. Hope all or some of this helps Dave

Brucey - do you have any pics of your mods? Cheers Dave

Selling on behalf of my Mum... 1998 Peugeot 106 1.6 XR AUTOMATIC 5dr 38,500 miles FSH 3 owners MOT Nov 2008 Sunroof, PAS, Elec Front Windows, Radio Cassette, Remote Central Locking Just a really nice clean car that drives great. £1300 Some pics here 1. here 2. here 3. here 4. here If you're interested, please drop me an e-mail to davidcbateman (at) aol (dot) com Cheers Dave

If you do go for R888's then give Steve at Simply Tyres a call. Can't recommend him enough and I know that thought is shared by many on here.

I used to run A048's on 13"s but found them far too twitchy on the road due to the stiffer sidewalls. I now have a set of R888's to go on when the weather gets better, many people say these are more compliant on the road and take away some of the nervousness, doubt they are much if any better in the wet though. My current wheel/tyre solution set up is this: 13" minilites with R888 which stay on the car throughout summer unless I am doing a big trip or euro jaunt in which case I put on my 15" Prisoners shod with Yoko A539. On big trips I don't drive the car necessarily hard and its no problem when I get caught out in the rain. Best of both worlds imo!! Dave

Think you will find many people, including me, run this tyre set up. I have 7" rear wheels but I am sure my two Fireblade Seven friends run 205 on the rear with 6" wheels and are happy with the set up. You'll be fine and it's a sensible move if you have a decent amount of power. Dave

Alan - yes possible to adjust whilst in the car but don't read that as 'simple'. Easy to slacken but more difficult to tighten. If you read my first post on this topic on page one you will see my preferred technique to adjust. It works well. I do all my major adjustments i.e. slackening the shoulders and tightening the laps out of the car, then it is easy to fit the shoulders into the buckle and lightly adjust the laps once you are in. Bertie - 3" shoulder 2" lap all the way!!!! Dave Edited by - Lotus Boy on 4 Dec 2007 20:28:45

and it reads like mav is having a particular problem with the pc keyboard right now...after a bottle of wine tonight! 😬 edit to say you missed a bit mav Edited by - Lotus Boy on 3 Dec 2007 22:06:25

Then it's the Willans alu alloy adjusters for you Bertie. I'm sure there must be someone out there local to you or at your area meet that will have them that you can have a ahem...tug on. Dave

Looking at this shot of the Luke ones here I think I understand better what you are saying. The Luke lap adjusters are further away from the buckle and so more buried down between your thigh and the side of the car whereas the reverse adjusters on the Willans are in a much easier to 'get hold of' position on the strap. Willans is your answer! ...until someone comes along in a minute and tells otherwise 😬 Dave Edited by - Lotus Boy on 3 Dec 2007 18:03:17

When you say adjustment, do you mean loosening the shoulder belts when getting out or the laps when your sitting in? Only ask like that because if it is the former then the Willans Aluminium Alloy adjusters are the best - See pic here Simply lift the flap and push up a bit with your body and they free up. Of course when I bought mine I went with standard steel shoulder adjusters as you can see fitted on the lap belt in the pic on the above link but I never have any probs with mine. Think the major difference between Willans and Luke is the lap adjusters, in that the Willans are what they call reverse adjusters whereby you have to pull the strap away from the centre buckle to tighten, the problem is that because there this so little space in a 7 you don't have much room to 'pull into' if you see what I mean. the trick is simply to shorten the straps so they are tighter than you can do them up, then flick the lever once or twice to get them about right then BREATH IN and belt up! Sounds a phaff but it isn't really. If I understand correctly with the Luke ones you pull the strap back towards the buckle to tighten which has to be a bit easier I suppose and you probably get a bit more leverage so to speak. I just prefer the look and feel of the Willans ones but it's all personal. Dave

Simon, I have a set of very clean 6 and 7 minilites (KN Minators) with 048's (fronts shot but the rears have approx 4mm I think on them). If you don't get your exact offer I would appreciate it if you could consider mine, you could keep your ACB10's, fronts at least, as I wouldn't want them plus a bit of cash your way I guess. Cheers Dave

Face it Bryn, no one wants your car. You're just going to have to keep it! ☹️ 😬 Oh what a shame...

Thank you Paul, that's just the ticket. Of course I had planned to remove it today but forgot to factor in the blinder of a house party a went to last night resulting in my writing the whole day off in bed! 😬 *redface* 😔

Thanks guys, you seem to concur with my own thoughts on it. Cheers Dave

Hello, Bit cheeky as I haven't gone and had a proper look yet but I have to remove the alty tomorrow from the 7 - a 1994 VX2.0 HPC. Is it quite straightforward and are there any tips, tricks I should know about to get it out? The chassis has the removable engine bay chassis rail if that helps. Thanks Dave Edited by - Lotus Boy on 10 Feb 2008 15:48:55

I am selling my Mum's Peugeot 106, a 1998 Auto that's done around only 38,000 miles. It's a clean silver 5 door in good nick so got lots going for it but the thing is the auto box went on it a couple of months ago. My parents got it repaired (at a cost of nearly a grand whoops!) and has 12 month warranty on it but I'm wondering whether it's worth advertising the car as having, effectively, a new gearbox or not mention it in the sales blurb in fear that it might but prospective buyers off, given that they might wonder why such a low miles car has had such a fault?? Is a fresh 'box a selling point or not? I guess I'm leaning towards not mentioning it but would appreciate a second opinion. Obviously if a buyer comes to look they will see the invoice in the file and have no probs with that. What do you think? Thanks Dave

Well I doubt it would hang around long at that price! Beautiful car that! I'd love to own it but I already own an HPC and can't afford the upgrade right now...

Thanks everyone for the replies. Been getting some quotes for batteries today - best locally is £69+VAT - apparently the price of lead has shot up 3 times this year increasing the price of batteries. Also I have a good local auto elec that can test and possibly repair certain alternators, so I will give that a go, otherwise I will get new as you all suggest. Thanks for your help. Dave

Ric - no yours is a different colour. Yours is quite a bit darker than Bryn's car I believe.

Just saw it on PH a couple of mins ago! Sorry to see that you are having to part with it Bryn. Lovely car. Dave

Noticed recently that my ign. light has been dimly glowing over the past couple of weeks - could only tell at night - and the car had been turning over slowly when starting which has now got to the point where it won't start off the battery at all, just get the clack clack clack, only a jump start from another car (or push obviously). Won't even start if the battery has been fully charged according to the optimate. Also noticed that the ign. light glows pretty much fully if I accelerated hard or turned the main lights off. So...I'm guessng the battery is dead (although could check the cells?) but is the alternator dead too? Are there things I can check such as the belt tension, regulator bushes etc before shelling out cash. Please be gentle, my hands turn into cabbages when it comes to things mechanical or electrical! Car is an 94 HPC for what it's worth. TIA Dave

Hmm well I have just checked mine which is a '93 supplied Vx and my dipstick just has two markings. Lower marking - 23mm Higher marking - 37mm I know that if I overfill the car (ie above the top marker) it will chuck the oil out through the exhaust which makes for entertaining times! ...and like others, I let it find it's own level sometimes. Normally I fill half way, or just a bit higher than, between the markers, it seems happiest there. Dave Edit to say - having re-read my markers are the same as ric's though mine doesn't have a cross hatched lower section and at least me and ric seem to concur. I never thought the top mark was a CC mod though, most acrs I have owned, if not all, have a min and max marker. Edited by - Lotus Boy on 1 Nov 2007 20:32:00