Nigel Riches

I think you have some top quality bodgery here, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to fashion this arrangement, but as you say, it is not as desired. I think you will find the female part is located in position with a small "tang" which pops out from the terminal as it is placed in the housing, these are generally removed by a tubular tool pushed into the housing from the male end, if you follow, this moves the tang back into the female terminal and the wire can be extracted from the rear. The tricky part might be sourcing the connector, and do you have a suitable crimping tool to fix the new terminals to the wires? And of course this not easily done when upside down under the dash, I don't envy you.

Hi Graham, my 1982 car has blades at 190mm long, I seem to recall the early Landrover were the donor vehicles for these, but I may be mistaken, I think I bought these from Caterham, and had to shorten them, this enabled me to gat a decent lower screen sweep and adjust length to suit the top, the overall swept area is ok, but there is a large area on the nearside not swept, hope this helpful. Cheers. Nigel.

Rubber bobbins are generally used in compression, as in this situation, not to good in shear or tension.

My Quaife type 9 has a drain plug, but it's an expensive way of buying one. Have fun with the ground off hex keys, another engineering masterpiece of mashing lots of never meant to fit together bits together. Happy Daze.

My car got pinged at inspection for too much bump steer, however on my 1982 chassis the steering rack is mounted in two aluminium clamping blocks, attached to a chassis member across the front of the engine bay, these two blocks where machined in such a way that the rack tube could be in a low or high position, depending on which orientation of the blocks was used, so a few minutes with some spanners and a change of rack mounting height got the tick, just had to do a steering alignment to get it all pointing in the right direction. transformed the road manners, so much nicer to drive now, no more continuous steering correction. Bump steer is not your friend.

Does this car have the resettable circuit breakers on the scuttle forward side, left hand side, My 1982 car has these and they are not very reliable, mainly due to poor connections between the socket on the panel and the pins in the resettable fuse unit get loose, if this is you try and close the sockets in the fixed panel mounted item, so better contact is made with the pins, and make sure the reset button is not tripped, just give it a push, it doesn't seem too change position from one state to the other, If your car doesn't have these you won't need all this guff. Have fun. Nigel.

O2 sensors are generally not active until a certain engine temp is reached, and a time has elapsed for the heater in the sensor to stabilize, so as you say, shouldn't be this at start from cold. Bashon, Nigel.

If your front wheel bearings are the Triumph type and have a hemispherical cap with a small hole in the top, driving a self tapping screw in has probably knackered the thread which is usually in there, the idea being, use a screw of the correct thread form and suitable length to wind down into the end of the stub axle, thus drawing out the cap. you don't really think back in the dim darks self tapping screws were available, and this method of doing things falls firmly in the bodge field, but at least it achieved the desired result.

This could be the same fault which got me, the switch isn't the most strongly made thing, and when you key it to the start position can over run the contacts, thus losing electrical power to the places it needs to be. The back of the switch can be removed from the lock barrel assembly, The cables pass through a plastic cover which is a snap fit on the back of the barrel, prise this off, and the electrical switch can be accessed. If you place a suitable sized screwdriver blade in the hole where the shaft comes from the key end, you can get an idea if the switch is porked. Also worth connecting a multi meter to the terminals, check for volts. Hope it doesn't get this industrial, it's a bit of an act too get in there under the dashboard. If it is the switch they are widely available, fitted to many Brit cars over the years.

Hi Graham. The other difference, apart from as posted by Rob (# 8) is the lead in to the teeth, inertia type spin the pinion into the ring gear from the front, pre engaged pull the pinion from the rear, and then start cranking, thus the tooth lead angle needs to be on the correct side, and also the correct number of teeth on both. But it seems you are making progress, so bash on, sounds like the starter is OK, good luck. Cheers. Nigel.

If you go for a pre-engaged type you will probably have to change the ring gear,

Happy to report that after an e-mail to Emerald, they have sent me a copy of the map recorded at the rolling road session a few years back, and having installed it, carried out TPS alignment it is pretty much back to how it was way back. Just got to get my head around populating the other map positions with the same map, I spent ages in the garage today, and it just doesn't click for me, never mind, hopefully the dyno driver will know the trick. Cheers. Nigel.

Thank you gentlemen, much appreciated, but Simons post is the sort of stuff I can't get in to mode with, Tony, I have a wide band lambda, an AEL which seems to get better reviews than the Innovate unit, and I also have what I call "the reference map" which was sent across from Emerald, not to be mucked about with, this is for this engine / ecu from the rollers at Emerald, so should be good to go, I'll get out and do another TPS alignment and have a recheck of airflow through the throttles, make sure they are all pulling the same. In the meantime it's a case of bash on rewardless, thanks again, cheers Nigel.

Hello fellow sevenistas, after a long and tedious time I am finally booked at a dyno in town, but that is 22 Feb, so I wondered if I might give the adaptive tuning a shot, as the the old dunger is not a happy driving experience, mostly self inflicted, and being a total dough brain with computers. Anyone here used this feature to iron out poor running? it idles ok, but put some throttle on and it kind of bogs and spits, coughing and spluttering, alright if the throttle and clutch are sort of balanced, but doesn't make for a decent shift off from stationary. I have read through some techy stuff on the web, but basically seems it must be within a range of such and such to enable this mode. Anyone here used this mode to achieve a decent running motor? Or else it languishes in the garage for another few weeks, which as this journey started in 2012, isn't a big deal. Any info gratefully received, cheers, Nigel.

As Paul (post 22) says, the remote was fitted to the 4 speed cars with the Escort gearbox with integral bellhousing, as the stick would be buried far forward under the dash without. However I have a 1982 car with the remote and a Type 9 gearbox, so the stick is as it was with the 4 speed box, alongside the steering wheel. It was a close fit and needed some tweaking to the mechanism. It also needed a different rear gearbox mount, that work was carried out at Arch Motors If you don't have the necessary gearstick mounting then I don't think you will be able the fit the gearstick back as it was in the 4 speed cars. I have a picture or three if you BM me I'll flick them across. If I'm not defeated by technology. All good fun. Cheers. Nigel.

A good soak with acetone or MEK, if you can get some, can soften most thread lock compounds. Failing that the tap trick does it, it won't remove any metal provided you have the correct tap, or as previously mentioned take an old bolt of the same thread size and cut some grooves "UP" the thread with a triangular or half round file, this will scour out the thread lock goo. If you try to run the bolt through the hole full of locking compound there is a good chance your torque figure will be reached prematurely, and therefore the bolt is not sufficiently tightened. Good luck. Nigel. PS Bin the Torx head or socket head screws and get some proper Hex headed bolts, I think the torque for the caliper mounting on 1982 car are 45 ft/lbs, not something for twee Torx sockets dealing with, Cap head bolts may stand this treatment, and I don't recall any mention of thread locking compound, so things must have changed over the years.

Just as an aside here, if I was fitting new carpets in an early chassis I would cut them to clear the floor panels, if there is any gearbox leakage (as if), it will seep into the footwells, and the carpet acts as blotting paper, and subsequently smears this on your trousers, how do I know this stuff? Personally I am not to concerned about this, but the handbrake grizzles much. I ditched the carpets for several years, but down here in NZ the summer heat and the engine heat can be very uncomfortable on the legs. Have fun. Nigel.

Hi J J, biff the points set up and go electronic, once set, and forget, no more messing with worn contact breakers. Be aware not all starter motors are alike, do you have a "pre-engaged" or "inertia" type, you will need the same type if it is to be replaced, however your comment about starts ok with a jumper from a charger pack might be a clue, is the battery up to scratch? Get a decent charger and give it the beans, some can carry out a recondition cycle on the battery, basically giving it a bit of a higher rate of charge to de-sulphate the plates, sounds more like a battery defect than starter motor, but also check the connections in the wiring, it is also important to be sure all the earth contacts are in good condition, all the battery volts are only as good as the return circuit. I found this through Google, might be helpful. https://www.caterhamlotus7.club › forum › correct-starter-motor-xflow Nave fun. Nigel.

Hi Pantha. I have a car of the same year, and I can vouch that the resettable circuit breakers are a source of problems in the lights dept. If the much touted hazard switch thing doesn't get the it going, try removing and refitting the circuit breakers, also if you are doing this check the the female sockets aren't distorted, (on the firewall) if they are too slack it can create an intermittent fault, some work with a small screwdriver can close any which are slack, and if possible use a tie wrap to hold the little bastard in place, as they can become loose, and after 40 years not a surprise, how do I know all this? been there, done that......40 long and happy years together, sometimes. On these older cars the flasher and the hazard units are little metal boxes in behind the dash over by the fuel gauge, where there is also the voltage regulator for the good old Smiths instruments, if yours hasn't been too mucked about with, they do not fit into a socket. Have fun, and good on you. PM me if you want, I see you are a bit fresh around here, thanks for dropping in, I hope you enjoy your car, they really are a different raw driving experience from a modern computer on wheels, X box car. Nigel.

When I fitted the individual seats to my 1982 car I cut some 6mm ply board to the same outline as the seat well, if you see what I mean, this will spread the load across the floor area, similar to the original seat squab. I measured the centres at front and rear of the seats, you may need to cut the rear seat rail step up section if it is present, this is for use with later chassis, which have a tube across for mounting the seat rail, drilled holes through the chassis tube in front of the original seat position, a larger hole at the top, and smaller at the bottom so I could introduce a spacer to stop crushing the chassis tube, drilled the rear of the seat rails to accept Hank nuts on the upper side, I subsequently had these tack welded in place, as I didn't like the idea of just relying on the peened over, swaged installation of these in a position inaccessible when the seat is in place. I used 8mm bolts and nuts, some large washer to spread the load, especially at the front, bolting to the chassis tube., if you use this idea you will also need 6mm spacers between the seat rails and the front chassis tube, as the seat is obviously raised by this dimension. It wasn't particularly difficult to achieve, and it didn't incur the disdain of the picky inspector bloke when I had to have it all eyeballed, but that maybe because a 1982 car predates a lot of the requirements. Have fun, and these seats are lot more comfy the old padded park bench. Regards. Nigel.

I am needing one of these if possible, as one of mine seems to be mucking about, all went to the local Bosch agent for interrogation, but no specific failure was observed. Any assistance gratefully received. Cheers. Nigel.

Hello fellow Sevenistas. A bit of long shot here, but anyone out there got a spare injector as in the title, used serviceable is good, doesn't have to be new, need one for some fault finding. Anyone upped the grunt, and needed bigger squinters got some hanging around. I'll post on the Wanted page also. Cheers. Nigel.

Trunnions do you really need to splurge gazzillions of wonga on this. Good old, in keeping with the period, trunnions do whats needed to accommodate suspension and steering movement, and in keeping with the vehicles age, just adding another mongrel aspect to a car design which has a long pedigree in this respect. The spherical joints wear out if exposed to grit contamination, ok, no oiling, or greasing , if that's your thing, but not the be all and end all, get some new trunnions and use EP90 lube, they'll last a good deal of miles. Buy some new trunnions, and move on. As you said.

If your trunnions have a swaged in steel disc on the bottom you will probably find they leak if you use oil lubrication. However this can be remedied by degreasing and being scrupulously anal about getting any contamination out of the area where the disc is installed, being sure the area is dried thoroughly, then apply some wicking grade Loctite from the outside, around the swaged joint. I have done this and have no oil leaks.

Have you tried adjusting the selector locking spring pressure? OK, where is it? It's socket head screw about 10mm diameter, at the front L/H side, at the top of the maincase, if this is to far in it applies excess pressure, via the spring, to the locking pin behind, which then binds in the gear selector shaft detents, causing poor gearshift action. Presently this screw on my 'box is about flush with the gearcase face. If you change this, you may have to apply some new thread sealer to the screw to stop any leaking, how do I know this? Hope you can get your problem sorted without having to remove and dismantle the gearbox. Nigel.