Paul Deslandes

From memory they're 7/16" x 2" UNF and yes they should have a nylock nut on the inside. I also have a plastic nut cap on the inside of mine to avoid catching clothing on the end of the bolt. I can't remember whether they chassis bushes are threaded or plain but if threaded you will need set screws, rather than bolts with a partially plain shank. My cage also has triangular plates that have three cap head bolts + nuts onto the corresponding plate adjacent to the front large bolts. The chassis plate will likely need to be drilled through. Removing the shocks is the time consuming part and involves jacking up the rear end of the car, removing the bolts securing the shocks to the de Dion tube and unscrewing the top caphead bolts with a 3/8" allen key or hex driver. If you don't have one you can make a driver from a 3/8" AF socket and a short length of hex bar cut off an Allen key with an angle grinder. If your FIA roll over bar is bolted down at the top you will need a 3/4"AF socket modified as described above, and a long extension and wrench. Don't expect it all to fit perfectly, especially the two rear end bars that go to the upper rear chassis cross member at the top of the boot. They may need to be 'persuaded' to cooperate with ratchet straps. Others may hopefully have further advice. Best of luck Paul

If series 3 then not too difficult but requires removal of the rear shocks to get at the bolts which have thin hex heads. Modified socket required to get these out if you have FIA bar with them fitted (not all do). Socket requires its face grinding or turning down to remove the radiused end of the socket 'tube' so that there is maximum engagement with the bolt head. Otherwise it's easy to damage the head. You also have to expose the threaded bosses that take the through bolts at the front. All up not a quick job but doable with a bit of care and preparation. Paul

The only thing I would add is that the thermostat switch contacts don't like the fan motor on/off surge. I got through two thermostats in short order until I added a relay to the circuit and haven't had another failure in 15 years. You can add an override switch across the thermostat contacts and power the warning led off the relay coil side, rather then the motor, to stop the flickering. Paul

Bad luck. How did you manage that? I take it we're talking deDion. Paul

I reckon Jim's version would be easier to use than mine, especially as the inclinometer would 'stick' to the steel angle, and less than a tenth of the cost of the Gunson device. Paul

I made my camber gauge with a bit of aluminium angle and a dual axis spirit level. I'm sure you could adapt the idea to measure caster as well. See here for full description and pictures, 3rd page. A lot cheaper............ Paul

All as above plus I've always found it useful to have a load spreader bar on the crane which makes it easier to tilt the engine when lifting and avoiding all the things that the engine will try and catch on. I also remove the mounting brackets from the block for the same reason although they can be a bit of s*d to refit when the engine is back in. best of luck, it gets easier the more often you do it! Paul

Great write up and pictures. I'm intrigued that you managed to get away without the foam Roger and with no additional baffles. However, as you say, the issue goes away when a dry sump is fitted. There are differing experiences with the foam, some of us having had them break up/go soggy within a year or so and a few thousand miles, others who have run the same foam for 20,000 miles for several years or more without having a problem. The most popular explanation has been differences in the oil. In my case, before going dry sump, I was using Millers fully synthetic and regarded that as the cause. Other have used different manufacturers' fully synthetic oil without issue. On the basis of no knowledge whatsoever I suspect that semi synthetic would provide equal protection to the engine and not attack the foam. Paul

Big Red do cylinder repair kits as well as replacement parts. They should know which type you need in the absense of anyone telling you on here. Paul

I can't help feeling it's a typo but we'll have to see. Like you I get a bit concerned about the authenticity of some eBay vendors but DT should be absolutely fine. I wouldn't have there was much money to be made out of hooky AGM batteries but then people forge £1 coins, so who knows! I'll post if I get a reply from Tayna. Paul

I've emailed Tayna to ask them to check their listed price as it's twice that of most others. Their prices are usually very competitive and service excellent. Apart from an automatic acknowledgement no reply yet. Paul

I managed to drain mine by leaving the ignition on for two weeks and assumed it was completely dead. Just for the hell of it I put it initially on a regular trickle charger to get it going and then an Accumate and just left it and it recovered and kept going for another three years. It's just finally died after eight years service Worth a go Paul

In the spirit of making things as complicated as possible you could connect the sense wire to the battery via a n/o relay, the coil of which is connected to the cold side of the cut out switch (and ground of course), thus ensuring that the sense wire is connected to the battery when the car is running but isolated when not. But as you say Andrew, it probably makes the square root of no difference in reality given the loads drawn by a seven's electrics; and it introduces another source of potential (sorry!) failure, not to say additional weight. Paul

If you're interested in bump steer and how to measure it, there's my Low Flying article describing how to measure and correct it here. Paul

This one gives you my article on the roller and cam mods.. http://www.fastgrandad.co.uk/documents/Throttle%20cam%20and%20roller%20boss.pdf Paul

Can routes created on MyRoute be exported/saved as a route to use in Google Maps on an Android phone. I've tried saving as .kml and .kmz files and copying these to the phone but it doesn't want to know. I ditched my old TomTom a few years ago as Google Maps works really well and routes created on it can be shared with others. Ta Paul

Sorry to be pedantic but that looks like a 33 Ohm resistor, orange, orange, black. The silver band means it's 10% tolerance. 330 would be orange, orange, brown. On a four band code the third band is not a number but indicates the number of zeros after the two digits. With five bands the first three bands are numbers, the fourth is the decade multiplier and the fifth tolerance. See here for more info. Apart from tidying up the wiring it's really helpful if you document what you've done and, where there are any components buried in the loom, their type, value, function and location so, when you come to fault find you won't have to try to remember what you did. Photos are good too. Well worth removing the scuttle if not already off. Good luck Paul

Just don't shift the gears with the lid off as the selector mechanism is located by a bracket on the lid and will mis-align if moved. MTL for me too Paul

Not bonkers if you'd seen the one I pulled from an engine 2 years after replacement; I wish I'd taken a photo of it. Admittedly the car had done a lot of competition, so may have got particularly hot, and used fully synthetic oil which does seem to be the main culprit. As you say John, watch the oil pressure. Paul

Hi Charles. I tried forcing it using the command prompt which appeared to work but only for the PC, not the logger, presumably for the reason you've just given. I remembered that one of my machines has good old XP on it as a dual boot alternative to Windows 10, so I can format them on there. Bit of a pain though. All the best Paul

As a long term owner of a DL1 logger I was offered a discount to upgrade to the latest Racetechnology logger because formatting to FAT16 cannot be done using Windows 10 and, I believe, Windows 7 and the old logger won't work with FAT32 or higher. As I've no intention of forking out for a new logger I've been looking for a utility that can be used to format old sub 2GB SD cards to FAT16. Has anyone found a utility to do this reliably? Paul

Assuming it's the same as the 2.0 litre the baffle is essential, otherwise you'll have oil surge and oil starvation when cornering. You're right to be concerned about the foam deteriorating as they either fall to pieces or clog into a gooey mess which stops the oil passing quickly through the foam and being picked up by the pump pipe. Modern synthetic oils are far worse for this that older traditional oils. The only answer, unless you want to go dry-sump, is to replace them frequently. If I still had one in my engine (dry sumped it many years ago) I wouldn't leave it any longer than yearly or even more frequently. Watch out for momentary drop in oil pressure when cornering even when you know that oil level is correct as this is a sure sign. Paul

Sorry, it's Darren Phillips at Caterham Dartford, not Jason. The original clutch cover supplied with my car kit by CC was a Quinton Hazell unit. Paul

As I recall, there were two types of Vx flywheel, one of which was known as the 'pot' type. This is what I had and that needed the washers which, by the way, although not ideal or particularly elegant, were a perfectly good way of adjusting the correct clutch cover spacing. I don't know whether the other, non-pot flywheel, was used on 7s and whether they also needed the spacers. Again, I'd ask Jason at Caterham Dartford, if he's still there. Paul

I had the same with mine years ago, although I've long since changed to race clutch and lightened flywheel and forgotten the details. I would definitely check with Caterham if you can find someone who knows about the Vx 2.0 as I'm pretty sure that you'll have problems without the washers as they space off the cover and alter the allowable travel of the pressure plate. I seem to remember that without them the cover release fingers hit the driven plate boss. Paul