Strangely

'Tis done! Halfords failed me, but I had a rather obvious brain-wave this morning (that I should have had last night, but I was knackered). I moved the stud from the top left to the bottom, since that's the one that I wouldn't be able to get an allen key to. I also cut down the two bolts and the stud (OK, Nige...). Steve told me that I probably wouldn't be able to cut the 12.9 bolts with a hacksaw, which proved to be just the kind of negative encouragement that I needed ; 5 hacksaw blades later, and all 3 were trimmed. Thanks for your help everyone. I've had too many premature "successes" with this starting problem to proclaim anything yet, but if the noise it makes is any sign of intent, then this Brise is a serious super-starter!

No, because of the Allen head vs. "standard" head problem.

I gave in and bought a "direct replacement for Magneton" Brise starter to try to cure my starting problems. I was rather displeased to find that it's not actually a direct replacement. The Brise doesn't use the spacer plate that the Caterham starter uses (which is probably good), but it means that none of the bolts off my old starter fit; they're too long. Also, because of the difference in design of the Brise, one of the bolts is never going to work with an Allen head; it needs to be a "normal" bolt head. So, can anyone please tell me what I need to ask for so that I don't get laughed out of the bolt shop? I think the old bolts are M10 and have "UM 12.9" stamped on the top. They are 55mm long (the new ones need to be about 10mm shorter), but the top 21mm (nearest the head) has no thread. For the N. Hants & Berks crowd, any suggestions on where to buy some of these beasts? I suspect that a trip to Halfords may not be too fruitful. Depressedly yours, Jason. Edited by - strangely on 9 Mar 2005 00:26:16

This is starting to sound like you're all ganging up on the poor old CR500s, so just to counter that... I've had just about every kind of tyre on my Seven (apart from ACB10) and the CR500s are excellent. They do not go off as they wear down, even to the legal limit. They also grip much better than I have a right to expect in this weather, BUT that is much less grip than a dry summer's day. So I support the advice to wait until the weather improves before doing anything drastic to the car, unless you have an unshakable feeling that something is wrong, then get it looked at. Oh, and congratulations on a) buying a Seven, and b) not waiting for the weather to improve before taking it out!

Erm, OK Dave . It was set to 10 before I started mucking about, but I didn't notice any difference (I only changed it by 2 or 3 up or down).

Thanks, Dave. Which way is up? i.e. if I reduce the number will the updates (potentially) occur more frequently (or less...)?

On the "Idle control" tab of the Emerald Windows software (1.1r7), there's a field to configure the "Update rate", but the field isn't documented in the latest manual. Anyone know what it does? Does it actually do anything? Curiously yours, Jason.

See here for lots of info about fitting a bike speedo: http://www.strangely.org/owned/bikecomp/index.html Edited by - Strangely on 9 Feb 2005 11:32:02

Steve, I think I'm going to try to track down an OptiMate locally. You'd only need to spend an extra 1p at Maplins to get free delivery though. I'm sure that you could find something else there that you'd like. How about a single resistor?

Thanks, everyone. I consider myself duly warned; the description on the leaflet in the Draper box did not match the Hawker requirements, here: http://www.odysseybatteries.com/charging.htm Hopefully I won't get any grief from Halfords about taking it back. The OptiMate III sounds like it will do the job: http://www.accumate.co.uk/it010003.html Phil, if your Airflow is this one http://www.airflow-uk.com/battery-conditioner.htm then I don't like the sound of it. It apparently lets the battery drain down to 12V before resuming charging. 12V isn't enough to start the car, is it?

I just bought one of those Draper Battery Master conditioners that have been mentioned here, and inside it says "intended for use with all conventional automotive lead acid batteries ... it is not suitable for specialist applications such as ... gel type batteries and other types of rechargeable batteries". Anyone know whether this is OK to use with my Hawker Odyssey PC680?

Hmm. Since the conversion to aeros, I've got a windscreen washer pump doing nothing .

Thanks, Guy. My car doesn't have similar holes now, but it might after this weekend .

I am minded to drill some drain holes in the floor, having spent half an hour bailing out my Seven after the commute this morning. Can I do that without adversely affecting rigidity? Or making the car disintegrate? (Steve, Phil, you'll know what I'm talking about ) I've got a chassis tube across the footwell, just in front of the seat. Is it OK to drill holes on both sides of that? I found a thread talking about drilling a hole in the bottom of a Tillet seat; I think I'll have to do that too...

Sorry Adam, I'd missed your earlier replies. I'm afraid I haven't had time to work on my project, never mind write software for other people ☹️. I can recommend Python for that kind of thing, though. Or if you want something more mainstream then Visual Basic would probably be good too.

I've written up what I know so far about the Emerald serial format. You can find it here: http://www.strangely.org/emerald/format.html Please let me know if you have any comments, or especially if you can add any information.

My plan is for something that will run on a Pocket PC (mainly so that I can do all of the hacking / prototyping on a laptop). I like Palms, but I have no experience in developing software for them... I'm a software guy so I don't want to get into creating custom hardware for this. If you're into that sort of thing then I don't think there's anything that would overly tax a simple embedded system.

I've decoded a large part of the serial data format. Actually, I know how the data is structured, I just haven't figured out what all of the data items mean. I do know how to get revs, throttle position, fuelling, ignition advance, etc. I know which fields encode the temperatures but haven't quite mapped them to degrees C yet. It was at that point that my free time ran out so I haven't actually written any software yet (other than something to convert a raw file captured using a terminal program into a CSV file). If you're interested / capable of using the information then I'll happily send you what I have about the serial format.

I had quite a large prang in my first Seven. Details here: http://www.strangely.org/owned/seven1.html#Crash I thought it coped very well. For many reasons, there's no car I'd rather be in, in an accident or normal driving. As proven by the fact that I've had a Seven as a daily-driver for nearly nine years...

Hello all, My long-standing K-Series starter click problem is fixed, but it's probably not much use to the rest of you sufferers ☹️. It was down to a break in the live lead from the battery master switch to the starter. There's a bit more detail and a picture here, if you're interested: http://www.strangely.org/diary/200410/fixed.html Cheery, (A very happy ) Jason.

There's another shot near the top of this page: http://www.our-nest.co.uk/Caterham/Diary/diary_dec03.htm

Rog, PowerSpeed have been discussed on BC before, so a search should provide plenty of views. I had a complete exhaust system done by them. It's now done 23,000 miles and I'm still very happy with it.

Hi Dave, I've got the block from a 1996 1600 SuperSport sitting in my garage. I don't know for sure whether there's anything wrong with it. See here (at the bottom) for a description of why I replaced the engine. I've also got most of the other bits from the original engine, if you're interested.

I'm not being cagey; just can't clearly remember. I think it was something along the lines of occasional problems with low(er than normal) oil pressure, and the oil being over-cooled due to the tank being right up front. You're going to tell me that's all crap aren't you

Thanks so far. It sounds like it might indeed be doable over a weekend (with suitable help). I don't like some of the things I've heard about the Brise tank, and its position in front of the engine. So I'm considering shortening the passenger footwell and putting a Pace tank there. Any comments?