Nick Green

Supposed to be the same track as the rear, IIRC. But newer DD tubes are slightly wider than before...

Alex, Thanks for the info! CageyH, There is theoretically a chance of this deformation, of course. And yes, in the event of a roll, a head might touch the ground. But a roll is not the only thing that can happen. If you get punted and the car stays upright, your head could still wave around. But as Alex says, the cage would protect you better from ingress of external objects. And the roll. And then there was the Academy car I saw at Combe once, just after it had bounced off the tyre wall at Quarry (not too hard, I believe) and had rolled on the grass. It had a roll bar, but the damage was pretty impressive. Perhaps I'm persuading myself in favour... Anyway, I would say there is no right or wrong answer with regard to road use of cages, or rather unhelmetted use of cages. In different circumstances, rollbar might be better than cage, or vice versa. You just have to weigh things up and decide how lucky you feel.

Alex. Fair point. I hadn't considered that one. It all comes down to personal experiences and assessments of risk. Like some people go bungy jumping, which I wouldn't do. What type of cage have you gone for ? Are you a "hoodie" ? Nick.

I'm not convinced about cages and unhelmetted heads either. While admittedly the speed was probably greater, Mika Hakkinen had a big crash in his McLaren a few years ago in Australia, that almost killed him. He was *very* tightly strapped into his car (by someone else as F1 drivers can't achieve the necessary tightness themselves, from inside the car), but the belts still stretched enough in his head-on crash into a tyre barrier, to severely concuss him, due to his helmetted head hitting the steeering wheel. They are meant to stretch in a crash, to give a "controlled" (in as much as anything can be in a crash) slowing down of the body. This is why one should do them up tight to start with, and change them after a crash. And Roger Green (erstwhile LF editor) had to bin a helmet after being rear-ended on the road in a caged 7, due to it whacking the cage. I suppose I'm still not prepared to give up a hood for a high cage, or to fork out the necessaries to convert to a lowered floor and (wafer-thin)self-moulded seat and Roadsport cage... But perhaps I have my priorities wrong

For those that need to know: 2 seats I have now found that will fit my 7 are: Mothercare Spectrum (about 25 quid) Mothercare Palermo (about 40-45 quid) Spectrum has width to spare. Palermo is a very snug fit, and the colour scheme matches my car... Will need to move the door fixing popper/strap for the Palermo, but easy enough to do. This is on a '99 non-race chassis (tunnel handbrake), with the current leather seats (oval head restraints) and 4 point harness with 3" shoulder straps. The Graco Junior wouldn't fit in my car. YMMV and all that. Edited by - Nick Green on 5 Apr 2006 14:32:03 Edited by - Nick Green on 5 Apr 2006 14:36:52

Pictures now sent to Dan. If anyone else would like to see them, just let me know.

If you can get hold of a standard 5" catted silencer, the one with the long pipe coming out of the front, it is possible to make it fit on a Caterham 4-1 manifold as follows: Cut off the tail pipe at the silencer, shorten by 2-3 inches, weld back on, to keep the rear mounting bracket. Cut off the bracket at the front of the silencer. Cut off the front pipe and weld on a much shorter piece of tube, suitably angled and flared to fit on the end of the manifold collector. Got a local(ish) exhaust fabricator to do the job for me. Works fine for me. Passes MOTs and everything. I dare say I could rustle up a picture or two if interested.

Stu, Startup Enrichment varies according to engine temperature; it isn't just for a warm engine.

IACV doesn't sound likely on your set up, and it sounds like it is disabled in any case! One less thing to worry about then

Not very different from mine (been messing with this area on mine recently, so I'm not too sad), but I've got a plenum system with IACV. Another thing you might want to try (suggested to me by Dave J, in case I'm starting to sound like an expert), is to knock 20% off the Start up Enrichment value and just see if that makes any difference. Then try adding more than the original value. It is a slow PITA of a process, no getting away from it. Edited by - Nick Green on 25 Jan 2006 16:21:05

Are you running an IACV on your engine ? If so, check that its settings are something sensible. (Additional Settings drop down)

Had my car successfully pass an MOT on an Emerald last November. This is with a plenum; not sure if that is of any relevance in this case. At natural (ie normal) idle, IIRC, only CO and HC are checked. My car happened to pass these fine. At fast idle (2,500 - 3,000 rpm*), everything is checked. This is the main part of the test, which I hadn't appreciated before. My car was running a bit rich initially. 2 or 3 goes at going through the full test cycle doing fuelling tweaks on the Live Adjustments screen got a perfect pass. (* I presume this is supposed to equate to a car normally cruising at 50-60 mph in top gear.) I then applied the adjustments to the main fuelling map. The only two values altered were at the 2,500 and 3,000 rev speed sites, on load site 1 as there is no load on the engine. That was the load site the Live Adjustment screen indicated, but in all the excitement, I wasn't paying too much attention to how close to load site 2 that was getting. Might have to tweak the map again next time round. Anyway, the point is to back up Oily's, that only a couple of speed sites are affected on a very low load site. Any "fun" driving is in a totally different part of the map. I can tell no difference in the way my car drives, with its "MOT special" map. This is of course based on a sample of 1, and YMMV Edited by - Nick Green on 25 Jan 2006 10:38:41

Se7en-Up, the symptoms tend to be felt/heard when driving, rather than when it is in your hand. Assuming you have the earlier INA bearing, the metal bearing moving around rather freely on the plastic mounting, might be an indicator, as would any evidence of lubricant escape. For the cost of it (a tenner or so), I'd change it anyway. Doh! Just read the mileage again, and counted the zeroes this time. For that mileage, it might be the SKF version. Not sure of anyone claiming a failure with this bearing (apart from Myles ?). Edited by - Nick Green on 7 Dec 2005 15:48:03

That's right.

Ian, Are you at, er, liberty to divulge any more about the court case yet ? N.

Unless something's changed recently, aren't 7 headlamp bulbs H4 ? In which case, the answer to your question is "no".

A question I have been asked to ask: Does the V2 tube have the narrow buttress still ? Ta Nick.

blah

I was at the factory almost a month ago. Was shown around. I would reckon at least half the cars being prepped at the time were CSRs, almost all for European export.

SKF CRB bearing details: Number in plastic backing piece: VKC 2144 Number etched onto metal bearing case: FR A306B SKF's own number for the actual bearing (not marked on bearing): 445237BU SKF's recommended preload: 50-100N. SKF contact details (from www.skf.co.uk): 01582 490049 HTH.

Tom, Would anybody buy it after the slagging it has got here ? Ok, there's eBay... My 1.8K SS-ish has had the purple pump for 6 years. Is it about to go pop ? IIRC, Dave Jackson's 210 bhp 1.6K used the PP for several years, though he has gone to the GP for his 1.9. But as the whole engine changed, that is understandable. The choice is your's You will also need the reinforced hose and mounting bracket from the sump to the pump. Nick. Edited by - Nick Green on 11 Aug 2005 16:52:43

Just remembered something: When I fitted the extra shim, the hole in the stub axle that the split pin fits through was now slightly obscured... Had to get the thick outer shims machined down, to give necessary clearance. Maybe it is easier to remove the track rod end gaitors...though that doesn't seem right to me either. A couple of solutions though.

Steve, Assuming the SVA mentioned is recent, I presume this is using the front hubs where the stub axles are the same thickness all the way along, and an enormous castellated nut is used on the end. Uses the same sized bearings inside and out. I had the same problem when upgrading my older hubs to this type. Didn't look right to me. Fixed it by adding another thin shim. The old style hubs, where the stub axle chamfers down to the outside, and a smaller bearing is used on the outside, did not have this problem. The disc was held just a little further out. Did mention this track rod end gaitor/disc rubbing to Caterham at the time... Email forwarded to Technical and then it all went a bit quiet. Maybe it is something to do with using vented front discs ? Either way, rather a basic thing and am a little surprised no-one at Caterham seems to have noticed. N.

Posting on behalf of ex-sevening/BC-ing friend: I Know there are quite a few Porsche-philes on BC, so can someone shed some light on this? I'm looking to buy a 986 Boxster S, and want PSM. It seems that earlier Ss had traction control as an option, and this was superseded by PSM around 2001. I know all about PSM from reading here, but can anyone tell me exactly what TC does? Does it just kill the power if it detects wheelspin, or maybe it could also brake the spinning wheel to transfer some torque to the other one thus mimicking an LSD? Also, does it monitor other stuff like yaw/slip angle etc? BTW, if anyone knows of a car, with PSM, for sale, ~25K please let me know. Contact: jon 'at' jonhill 'dot' co 'dot' uk TIA, Jon

Hi John. > > So I’ve fashioned a small torch on a piece of wire and > lowered it into the Bell Housing. There must be a market for little cameras, to be able to do this... Would a video bullet cam get in the hole ? > > Although the clutch fork can be pulled by hand to touch the > left and right hand sides of the Bell Housing, it can also be > pulled upwards about 2 inches till it contacts a big wiring > loom under the air filter. I have a DS on my car, so the clutch fork is different, but I fail to see how being able to *lift* the arm 2 inches vertically is a good thing. I'm sure even the wet sump version should be wedged on a little pin at the bottom of the housing. The "wedging" is thanks to a little bit of plastic tube (nothing special, just a little bit of flexible plastic tube) that you soften by dropping in a glass of hot water, then fish out and push onto the pin. If this tube has fallen off or split, you have to take the engine out, minimum, to access it. > > I’ve inspected inside the Bell housing and can report as follows > 1. Behind the clutch fork (in the direction of the gear > box) is something that was once circular and metal but has > got what looks like part of it sheared flat. (imagine a > flatish circular piece of metal the size of a beer can top). Not sure what is behind the clutch fork... Not a lot as I recall... apart from the gearbox, of course. > 2. Then there is the rusty clutch fork > 3. Then there is circular piece or steel about 15mm thick > (about the size of a role of electricians insulating tape > with what looks like sandpaper around its edge > 4. Then another steel ring the same diameter as number 3 > but only 3-5mm thick 3 and 4 sounds vaguely like the CRB... > > Then there is the end, all the above is sitting on a thick > metal shaft. This is the gearbox "nose" which has the shaft running through it, that slots into the end of the crankshaft. > > It should be noted that numbers 3&4 can be wiggled about on > the shaft a good 5-10mm in all directions. I know this as > I’ve just got my hand stuck in the Bell housing whilst having > a feel and had to wait till my Girlfriend came out to help > me. I had to be brave and pull my hand out although its all cut now!. The car does bite back now and then. The bearing can be slid about on its plastic carrier. From new it is stiff. As it ages, especially in the Caterham installation, it is able to move around much more easily. (It shouldn't, as the point of the bearing being able to move on its plastic mounting is to allow it to self centre. Logic would suggest it only has to do this once, so it should never become loose on the plastic mounting. However, the theory of CRB failure in Caterhams, is that due to insufficient pre-load of the CRB, it slips against the clutch fingers, and overheats, yadda, yadda.) > > I spoke to John at Redline today and he says they only do one > type of CRB supplied by Caterham, its better than the one I > have on the car from new apparently and the new ones are made > by SKF?. So I understand. Just had a look at Myles' pictures. Looks a bit different in terms of shape, but still looks like metal bearing on plastic carrier ? Would be interested to know preload details etc, for this bearing. Whatever, let's hope it is more durable in a Caterham. > He also advises that if the car has a short ‘Gear > box Front Cover’ Redline can supply a longer ‘Gear box Front > Cover’ that is now standard on all K series after mine. Is > this a necessary upgrade? John recommends it for about £45. This is the gearbox nose I was referring to above. On early 6 speeders, the gearbox nose piece covering the shaft, was a little too short and the bearing could slide far enough forward off the front, to go out of alignment against the clutch. Also the earlier noses were alloy and would wear, thus allowing the bearing to slop around a bit. If memeory serves me correctly, the longer nose came in around '98 or '99. I am more than prepared to be corrected on this. You *may* therefore have the shorter cover on your gearbox. If that is the case, Yes, definitely change it. The way to spot what you have, is that the newer gearbox nose is obviously of 2-metal construction, with the area where the CRB runs, being steel and *slightly* thicker than the rest of the shaft cover to which it is attached. The earlier nose is all alloy. > > It was not John at Redline that recommended the ‘Clutch Kit’ > is was me that thought if I was going to replace the CRB > should I go the whole hog and replace the Pressure Plate and > driven plate whilst I’m at it. The car is on 11,000 miles > and is wet sumped. At 11k miles, I'll be surprised if the clutch is knackered. Unless, of course, the supposedly knackered bearing/clutch fork, has caused damage to be done... > > It now appears impossible to try and hook the clutch fork on > its pin (if its come off) as theres just not enough room to > get my hands in (and out again). See above for another reason why not. > > I’ll order the clutch kit from Redline tomorrow. John Howe If you want to be sure, I suppose so, but as Steve suggests, it would also be prudent to get a new CRB and clutch fork. Dave's suggestion of at least getting a professional second opinion might also be a good idea ? Depends how far you want to drive the car in its present state though... Good luck. Nick. Edited by - Nick Green on 20 Jul 2005 10:29:46