The_ASH

The Seven is I guess a little different to most cars in that the pedals are adjustable and there are even oem pedalstops nowadays.

Just musing over something here, in the interest of originality could a 160 be built new with a bench seat as fitted to Sevens of old, in many cases of stature it would dispense with the need for a lowered floor as the seat height is lower than an S type base and adjuster. Presumably a track day roll bar would be needed to provide mounting for a headrest to pass IVA but would modern regs mean that as the drivers seat isn't adjustable fore and aft it would still fail IVA or if retrofitted after that would it fail the MOT for non-adjustability (not that I've ever seen it tested in the last 10years).

I used a Halfords 12v electric pump for years and separate accurate analogue gauge for final pressure settings, however for cycling I bought an upright track pump and have found that ideal for the Seven and tintop, I still use the same separate gauge for final setting.

My X has become a /, badge adjudged to be obsolete by CC so predictably it's out of stock, one did pop up on eBay recently, the first I've seen in a year of casual looking. 2004Academy80 - If it's a standard 1600K then it'll be either 115 or 120hp not sure that the actual horsepower changed when 115 became 120.

Looks like the eBay ones had the spacer channels for the Metric chassis included so the whole lot would have been £52.08 plus postage from CC.

I've seen quite a few choked with grit, as Academy cars have no carpet it ends up under the seats and then as the adjuster is greased when new the grit sticks to it and can often be heard cracking guillotine style as you try to slide the adjuster with the grit trapped in there. Also the adjusters often go rusty and get wet which helps to fuse the two parts together. I have heard of people removing the seat and using a hammer to get the two halves moving again.

Yes, a bit like the little carbon canards if you want them in the precious black fibrous material they are nearly £50 each, seems an excellent way to be able to charge just that bit more as they are unique and handed, I guess though arguably they are lighter than the old un-handed ones so yet again less is more.

I thought that some cars had a metal cover that filled the howling great gap on the drivers side, I think at least a couple of the Seven's I've owned have had them, my present car doesn't though and you can indeed see the back of the flywheel.

The later indicator pods are I notice left and right handed, I think the earlier ones could be easily made to fit quite quickly using a Dremel or more slowly using a round file or something similar.

Very interested to hear how successful you are, most of my sva/iva stuff was applied by the builder of my car and is/was held on with bath sealer as recommended however during the post build check at C Midlands the same method of front sus skin/edge protection was employed as yours. Also, post check/road registration C Midlands applied the number plates to the car using Sikaflex, I've not mustered the required courage to attempt removal as yet, I can see that pulling the plates off would result in the paint coming with them so the dental floss approach is called for but this then begs the question of how to remove Sikaflex from car paint.

If you don't mind 'used' there's a couple of sets on eBay, one is here... they come with yet another set of Avon's.

I found that although the six-speed suited the 1400SS power delivery it lacked the relaxed overdriven 5th of the 5 speed as on the 6 speed 6th is a 1:1 ratio so probably excellent on track or fast road but not for long distance cruising or the B roads and speed limits of Berkshire :-) The BGH route I'm told fixes 1st and also improves the box generally. I must come to the Thames Valley meet and see your car some time.

I've had two SS 1400's, the first had a five speed, not necessarily because of that it was I thought a better car than the second one I owned which was a six. I loved the zingy rev-ability of that engine and of course the half price road tax provided a certain extra feel good factor (as if it was somehow cheating the system to tax a Seven for £100 or so), I never did it but always fancied a 140hp 1400 via Mr Andrews, an Emerald and a set of T/B's.

Sounds like the correct cap and that it does pass pressure, whether or not it vents enough is another question, in the original BC thread there were pics of where the hole should be in the back of the cap but as you mention it I think it did vent though the key slot. The 'clicking out' issue is normal mine does the same (and I have a plastic cap on my present car) OR allows you to completely fill the tank and then spit a load back at you as it cuts out if you fill too fast.

I seem to remember that the problem was of the scale that if it was negative pressure in the tank that initially the cap was held in place and hard to remove, positive pressure would present the cap to you on rotating the key along with some fuel vapour. Just a thought - From memory and from owning one, a 1400 Roadsport LE came by default with an aero cap, does it have 'Caterham' inscribed into it?, if lost a replacement cap might not (if obtained from another source) have the specific hole drilled in it. Alternatively, your car may have enough air leaks in the tank area (filler, breather, sender, cap) that once it's stopped by negative pressure (if that is indeed the problem) that a small stop, rest and restart is enough to reset things pressure wise again.

I may have this completely wrong but I remember years ago, on Blatchat, a discussion about something very similar, it came down to the fact that the plastic fuel cap allowed the tank to breathe but the aluminium aero cap didn't (or some aero caps didn't), as usual I can't find the thread at present but there was a fix that required drilling the cap in a certain place with a specific drill. The quickest way to check if it's a tank breathing problem would be to wait until the problem occurs and then before you do anything else remove the filler cap, if there is an inrush of air to the tank at that time and the car then works properly once more you have found it or a breather problem outlined in the other posts above.

On one of the many car rebuild shows on TV I noticed a guy using a small bench hand pump for manipulating calipers, looked like it made things very easy but obviously rather ott for rebuilding just one unit at home. When I took mine apart the pistons got stuck several times so I pushed them back and started again, I did begin to wonder what would happen if I pushed it back and it got stuck there but fortunately it didn't happen, it is a bit of a challenge to bring them out squarely, when in operation I think the pad being in front of the piston helps to keep it square. Also although the bore being smooth is important it's the piston that needs to be perfect as that's what moves through the seal back and forth so needs to be imperfection free. My caliper is a youngster at only 4500 miles and 4.5 years so there was none of the black goop that everyone had predicted would be hiding behind the piston and also no corrosion, I could however see witness marks from the piston manufacture and rapid assembly of the caliper when new :-( A highly priced mediocre quality part in my experience but then that could be said about many things.

I too wondered about imbalance but with the new Caterham caliper on the car there was none. I should have added to my previous post that although that linked guide is good and has all the answers if at any stage you feel uncertain about what you are doing get someone else to at least oversee or do the work for you... the consequences for cutting corners here are not to be ignored! edit: I should also have added that should you need them Redline do replacement pistons too, depends whether yours are corroded or not, as an upgrade stainless pistons are also available but then you'd have to refurb both the left and right calipers. edit 2: I think my estimate of £20 for parts might have been a bit inflated and was for 2x rebuild kits (enough for both calipers), banjo bolts and washers so more bits than was actually needed.

I have recent experience of the front caliper conundrum, sorry if this goes on a bit. At MOT my car was found to have a leaking front seal, partly out of laziness and also wanting the car working instantly I bought one from Caterham with the view that it had some return/refund assurance behind it should any of the older Blatchat stories be visited upon me. Replaced the leaky unit, pads, etc, bled it, all good, used car and checked caliper during the trip only to find fluid everywhere, cleaned, returned home, fluid seemed to be coming from between caliper halves but I couldn't be fully certain, checked torques of through bolts... wrong, tightened, tested car, all apparently good but checked some days later after no further use and again it was swimming with fluid, on close inspection fluid appeared to be coming out of the top 2 through bolts which points to the transfer seal being in some way faulty between the two caliper halves, over next week repeated all checks, cleaned, used car, fluid continued to appear after car being at rest for some time. So got very annoyed, removed caliper, drove to Dartford again the next morning, told the parts guy the story and that I felt I'd payed top dollar for crap, obtained refund. Return trip took me past the town of Caterham so visited and obtained caliper rebuild kit from Redline £20, I hate working on brakes but after the previous failure of the minimal involvement option anything was worth a go. Stripped caliper without splitting the two halves cleaned the pistons, cylinders, lightly lubed with fresh fluid and proper Girling red grease, reassembled, fitted to car, bled both sides of car, bled again, tested on road, perfect (apart from remaining fluid in bleed nipples making me think I'd failed). Type of Caliper Girling Type 14 LF Useful guide here Redline for parts here As a contingency plan I obtained transfer seals from the people here ultimately I didn't need them but it felt safer having them to hand. A further contingency should the above repair have failed was to get both the fronts refurbed by Bigg Red in Worcester here Thanks also to Mankee on here who provided moral support. edit: reason for vast price difference for OEM part?... I think you've already hit it on the head... let's put up the price of regularly requested parts and make a bit more bunce. It occurred to me that an upgrade kit was only £700ish and you get both calipers, fittings, etc! (but no stock). The standard caliper is rumoured to come from China now, nothing wrong with that as long as quality isn't compromised, Caterham told me they'd had no complaints (obviously) BUT how many complaints would a manufacturer receive if the part had killed the user which this has the potential to do by draining the front brake circuit (the brake reservoir level warning only being truly visible in the dark).

I recently bought one of these, even if not using them as a phone they make for an excellent music player or internet radio as long as you have an old 30pin dock or 30pin hifi adapter and they are cheaper than many dedicated internet receivers.

That's interesting, so a factory built 165 (the European 160 model) could be road registered here in the £30 rfl band, I like it, but it seems an expensive way to get a cheap to run Seven, imagine though yearly running costs of £200 (depending on your insurer... ins + tax) service/maintenance extra, and I thought I was doing well @ £500pa all in. Whichever way you approach it there's a lot of fun to be had for very little money in ongoing costs really and that applies to almost any Seven.

So the car is right on the maximum width allowable for a Kei car and short enough to comfortably fit inside the 3.4m max allowable length, height wise you could probably get 2 Sevens in, however surely at 80hp it is well outside the 63hp max power limit so a bit like the road tax thing here (where it has low enough emissions for £30 rfl but falls into the sub 1500 group for low volume type approved cars) is it not actually a Kei car in Japan? or is it registered with 63hp and upgraded thereafter? edit: the much coveted yellow number plate seems to be the visual key and the 160's pictured in Japan seem to bear them.

A great improvement over the old format, reminds me a lot of the Tamiya r/c car kit build manuals.

I use a Clarke CTJ1250AB 1.25 Tonne Aluminium Racing Jack, around £100ish, max lift is 37.5cm, not had any clearance issues but having just measured it the main body does indeed stand 14cm tall but there is 3cm clearance under the nosecone (for reference my K sump is 8cm off the ground). I took the carry handles off mine as it was a bit tight fitting between axle stands if you used a pair at the front of the car.

Talking of fire extinguishers there is one of dubious provenance here