Pierre Gillet

Can someone tell me the grade of steel specified by Lotus for the wishbones of a S1 ? The spec used by caterham would also be of interest. The reason why is that I have been told that hydrogen impacts the mechanical properties of steels containing a high quantity of carbon.

It generates a lot of dust and abrases steel as wel l as rust, Elie.

I am wondering whether the very simple electrolytic process I have been using in the past to de-rust barrels of old guns would be useable for the very rusty wishbones of my son's Elise S1 I am aware that hydrogen may have a brittling effect on steel. Given that the process, basically the electrolysis of caustic soda with a 12 V battery, a wishbone being the anode where native hydrogen woud reduce the iron oxyde, obviously implements hydrogen, would it be relevant ? Cheers, Pierre

Thanks Cagey. Well this is a stock 1.8 K, 120 bhp, used only on the road, so that I figure that a viscosity of 40 should be enough. Cheers, Pierre

Thanks guys. I shall drain the oil and use 5w40. Before doing so, would some Wynns added into the present oil be useful to clean the oil ways into the tappets ? Cheers, Pierre

Car is my son's. Just bought this nice Elise S1, RHD, 58000 miles. Engine has plenty of torque and is powerful. Now my son is concerned by a tappets noise that, one start out of three, occurs and last for 30 s when idling , and disppears should he raise the rpm. Oil has just been changed by the former owner. It is a synthetic 5W30 , MOTUL Synergie. Should he be concerned? Is there something that can be done? Cheers, Pierre Edited by - pierre gillet on 30 May 2008 18:20:46

I just discover the new livery of VDU 7X. Nice ! Thanks Mike for sharing with us your experience. Cheers,

That's good news really . Thanks ECR. Now, Alex, has had his engine rebuilt several times I recall , is not it? Pierre

Thanks Essex. Any feed back on the reliability of the engine in the JPE tune ? Cheers,

Thanks Linds. I had tried your way, rather unsucessfully as the plastic broke. The parts are strongly glued together. I think that I will let it the way it is for now. Cheers, Pierre

Linds, The tail lights of my pearlescent ruby 40 th Anniversary have been ledified last year and I do not like very much the orange colour of the plastic part of the lights as it does not match the red of the body work. I would think that a full red light would better match the car than a clear one. Do you think that it is possible to replace the orange part by a red part ? Since the LEDs behind are orange, the perception of the light will still be orange. Cheers, Pierre Edited by - Pierre Gillet on 13 Apr 2008 10:37:55

Thanks Dave and Alex. Very contrasted comments as one may have thought ! The comparison with an R300 was unexpected though as far as I am concerned, as I would have thought a JPE was in a higher league. Cheers, Pierre

As some of you may know, it is not so easy to own a powerful, affordable, tractable and... street legal Caterham in France. In fact the choice is basically limited to a S3 with 1.8 VVC engine . While the CSR range is a bit on the high side of my mate's budget, it seems that a rare, genuine JPE, LHD, fully licensed in France, could be available against a rather large, but justified, amount of money. One point is that my mate is not really the type to admire the glow of the phosphorescent yellow of his JPE sitting in his garage. He would like to use it for blatting and for the odd trackday. What are your thoughts please? Pierre Edited by - pierre gillet on 13 Apr 2008 08:12:26

Thanks for the info. Is the extra rigidity brought by the replacement of brazing by welding or by a different design ? Pierre

Is it correct to say that the new chassis of the Sigma is welded and therefore more rigid ? Pierre