Crudders

There's a very good pictorial guide on Weber DCOE overhaul in the August '14 issue of Practical Performance Car. Rebuild kits (gaskets, O rings, float valves, filters, etc.) are not expensive and if memory serves mine came from an eBay seller by the name of Fast Road Cars. Cruds Edited to add - memory did serve and their current eBay listing is 200648345893. Cost is £15.97 per carb with free delivery. Edited by - Crudders on 1 Aug 2014 08:56:45

I have the same problem, can't sit in the leather seats but travel thousands of miles with the old style bench seats and a McKensie D roll. May not look as smart but no problem with the back Ditto 😬 The McKenzie roll used to see service in the daily driver too, before adjustable lumbar support arrived. The nice thing about the old bench seats is the softness of the foam core. I miss that combo in many ways - as well as being very light it's easily removed for drying out after a drenching, picking out gravel, or to carry a huge drum of diesel for the Le Mans campsite generator 😳 When I rebuilt the car I put in a nice pair of pre S Type leather seats bought on here, which are heavy, fiddly to take out, hopeless for carrying diesel but very comfortable. I tried a pair of the current S Type seats first and my back didn't get on with them at all. Definitely worth trying some alternatives before giving up on the car Cruds

It may be a BA thread, which was common on older auto electrics. Check the diameter and thread pitch against the table in this link: http://www.ba-bolts.co.uk/faq.html. HTH. Cruds

I recall a 7 with a traditional torque converter auto in the early 90s driven by a hirsute and jocular chap (name long forgotten), bumped into him a few times at various meets. So yes, it has been done. A Duratec with an MX5 auto sounds like a good solution. Cruds

An alternative to removing the dash is to make the scuttle top removable, by drilling out the rivets fixing it to the bulkhead and replacing with M4 or M5 rivnuts and machine screws. If you have the knee panels in place these will also need to be removed to get to the pair of nuts on each side holding the scuttle down to the chassis tubes. On an '89 car you probably have the downturned tabs on the scuttle sides with a large flange rivet, which on my car have been replaced by stainless button head machine screws into tappings in the chassis tubes. This will make future maintainence much simpler without having to drill out any rivets (or working upside down with your head in the footwell, which isn't much fun). Cruds

There's an open road wheel within a few inches of the intakes so wire gauze would be likely to let in a lot of potentially damaging sh1te. I've tried the Pipercross foam socks and I'm sure they filter okay but the induction blarp is a lot nicer with the K&Ns. I'm told that the airflow around the trumpet ends is better with a small airbox type filter like the K&N which seems logical but I can't say I noticed any real difference between the two apart from the noise. Cruds

Hi Clements, you're likely to suffer a lot of fuming and high oil consumption with an oil that light in a crossflow, and the protection might be marginal as well. The original spec was 20/50 which you can still buy from Opie and others - ask for Valvoline Racing 20/50. This is a high quality mineral oil rather than synthetic but there are many who swear by it. I have used fully synth Mobil 1 15/50 in the past but I'm pretty sure it's been discontinued. If you really want a fully synthetic oil I think Motul might make something similar. Cruds

Just to add, rivnut designs vary a great deal. The originals on my car were slender, smooth and with a very small flange. The replacements (still M5 threaded) were fatter, ribbed and with a broader flange, so needed to be set into a much larger hole. The ribbed design also gives a lot more grip against the ali skin. I'm also a nylon screw convert, not for track bash convenience but to avoid the inevitable corrosion between steel and ali. Cruds

Hi BB, you're not the only flared wing fan but most conversions are the other way about - flared to cycle (including me during a rebuild I have to admit, although I still like the flared wing look). On my 1990 chassis the wings were held on by 5/16" UNF (1/2"AF head) bolts at front and back which located in threaded bushings in the chassis, with intermediate M5 bolt fixings to rivnuts in the sideskin. The hardest part of the job will probably be locating the bushings and drilling the skin in the right place. It's also worth checking that Caterham still provide them by default in the chassis - if they do they may have metricated them to M8 or similar. Once over that hurdle you'll need to get hold of a rivnut setter and a flared wing car from which to take measurements. Caterham used to sell a flared wing fitting kit containing the required bolts and the 'p' section rubber beading but the bits you need are available separately. Oh, and you'll need combined wing support and headlamp brackets. Some older cars also had support brackets at the rear of the wings but they're not really necessary and my car never had them. HTH, Cruds

POR-15 is excellent but a bit on the glossy side. Flat it back and overcoat with VHT Barrel Paint though and you have a very good match for factory powder coat. That's what my front wishbones are wearing. Both paints bought from Frost Restoration. I haven't compared personally but POR-15 is reputed to be more resistant to chipping than Hammerite. Cruds

New Year's resolution?

Well I'm not at all clued up on the Amethyst (yet) but my mechanical only advance is set to 10 degrees static/idle and 35 degrees at revs (can't recall the engine speed for max advance at the mo) and I wouldn't expect the electronic setup to be all that different. So yes, add 23 to get 35 max. I can't imagine 47 degrees ever being desirable but happy to be corrected... Cruds

SETyres I've been singing their praises for a while and all my tintop tyres have come from them since I exited the world of company cars (the lease companies usually had arrangements with serial pickpockets like KwikKrap). I use the Foots Cray and Blackfen branches as strangely, they rarely quote the same price. The Blackfen manager is/was less keen on fitting customers' own tyres though. I shall be visiting them for a new front pair on the Leon shortly which will be costing a touch more than your £20 John Cruds

You want RWD wheels really mate. I would think the last RWD Ford to use 4 X 108 PCD was the Sierra - you might be lucky enough to find one in a scrappy. But if you decide that you really *would* like crap handling, my FWD Escort van will be going to meet its maker shortly, as it can clearly rust faster than I can weld 😳 Cruds

Chris Alston (Aeroscreens) went the Crossflow > Zetec route not too long ago and I’m sure he’ll be happy to share his experience. Zetecs are available for not a lot (£700 brand new) but IIRC the cost once you have factored in all the ancilliaries that need changing to suit the 7 is more like £3k. As Chris found, you can recoup a good chunk of this on the sale of your old crossflow bits, especially if you have the highly sought after AX block. Some of Chris’s old engine came my way and I probably should have bought the block as well thinking about it, but hindsight is a wonderful thing . . . I like the crossflow too and would be happy to upgrade mine with a set of Accralite forged pistons, a bit of machining, a head refresh and a Megajolt setup, but beyond that it gets harder to justify a crossflow rebuild against a Zetec. An ali head such as the ebay one you linked to above (which is bare with no valves etc. and is probably well in excess of £1,500 once ‘dressed’) is a lovely thing to have but isn’t likely to offer a huge improvement over an upgraded iron head at a third of the price – you are into seriously diminishing returns at that level. At the end of the day it depends how much of your current engine you need and/or want to replace and how much power you are after. A Zetec with no internal modifications whatsoever will offer 160-170 on carbs, be very reliable and offer loads of torque. But it won't be a crossflow Cruds