Benedict.

Quoting Mankee: The other problem is my rear ARB (over the diff type) moving side to side too much and the top ball joint is beginning to shred the sidewalls of my tyres, 205/55R13 CR500s on 7" wide rims. The damage is worse with 205/60R13 A048s. Will new bushes sort this and clamp the bar tighter? I might need to carefully take some material off the offending ball joints to give me a little bit of extra room. I'd suggest confirming that it is indeed the ARB moving laterally first. I've been trying to rectify overslung rear ARB clearance issues this winter and gave up in the end. You may be better with your 7" rears, but with 8" rears on my car there is simply no way that approaching full roll (not heave) the top BJ doesn't foul the tyre (and yes, the BJ is on the inside, so the nut is on the outside). I discovered this after making a bracket so the bottom end of the ARB didn't foul either the tyre or the corner of the boot floor. There's no problem at all when it's in heave, as the tyres move parallel to the body / chassis, not hitting anything but when in roll, it's quite surprising how quickly the top of the tyre does move in to the chassis. The easiest way to check this is to remove the springs from the rear dampers and move it up and down by hand(s!) I ended up concluding that this was obviously why Caterham had moved to the underslung ARB when the 8" rears became common ( ~ SLR introduction IIRC). For me it's now gone on a back-burner having removed it altogether the car feels much more stable / planted on the roads (sa per SM25T's observations - and not just bumpy roads) than it did last summer (though that may(?) also be connected to moving the trailing arm to the lower mounting point on the chassis.) While it still doesn't feel as good as the SLR I had a few years ago with watts and underslung ARB though, it's good enough for now, and I'll need a trip to arch to get the other ARB and watts mounts put in. HTH, Ben

Has it got a brake-servo? Lots of larger/heavier kit cars retain the donor's vacuum servo. When the engine's not running (once the vacuum has dissipated or been lost after a couple of pedal pumps) the pedal feels very hard to press down on. Once the engine's started and there's a vacuum again it'll feel much softer / easier to press. Try it with your tin-top for a (close-ish (probably)) comparison... Cheers, Ben

Still sounds intriguing 😬 Good luck with the sale anyway, and please keep us updated as and when you (re)build the CSR. Just a thought - do Arch still make the CSR chassis? Any mileage in buying a chassis from them and "upgrading" yours, or another S3/SV seven - ISTR the rules about when you need an IVA have recently changed or been cleared up to make this much more feasible now? Cheers, Ben

🥰 superb car. I'm intrigued to know why you want "need" a CSR when you've got this in the garage 🤔 IRS 🤔 Ben

Northampton Moptorsport are pretty close to you, as their name suggests in Northampton 😬. I can personally recommend them, their rolling road mapping and their whole attitude, service and helpfulness. They do seem to have a very good reputation (which is why I went there in the first place) and so you may find that they can't fit you in in the timescale required. They do have facility to leave cars securely there (which I and plenty of others have done) from weekend to weekend so, while it is nicer to be there while your car's mapped, it may be the best way to get it done in time. N.B. I've no connection whatsoever to the above; just a happy customer. Cheers, Ben

This may be of interest, if a little pricey? Ben

Quoting brucehc: Ben - PM sentBruce - replied to your BM last night (yes they are still for sale). I'm away till Sunday eve now, so probably won't be able to reply further till then. Ben

Sounds great - glad you didn't suffer my fate (3 points ☹️) after my last trip to Wales. Quoting markiebabes: Nige weather update please 😬 Route installed on sat Which SatNav / route planner do you use 🤔 Cheers, Ben.

It sounds like the same person I was conned by last year. The advert stated that they were left over from the building of his car, then so did all the subsequent adverts selling "carbon" parts I obviously didn't expect Caterham quality, but having seen various of friends' / acquaintances' kitcars / locosts etc with this price level of "Carbon", I expected something similar and at least straight with no chips or holes that let light through. Here are some pics of the problems: Void under the gelcoat: Gaps in weave: Overall, twisted, shape:

THIS is a great little gearbox / diff-ratio speed calculator. Even comes with the Caterham 6-speed ratios as a preset 😬 Cheers, Ben

Quoting 2GBR: PM sent Hi Gerry, I've just replied to your mail, but it bounced straight back as "mailbox unavailable" (it was going to a hotmail address if that's any use) Basically, I'd like to try and get as close to the £60 as I can; thanks for the offer though. Cheers, Ben

It's the slightly older type, without the extra fillet of material welded down one side at the engine end. Freshly powder-coated: Does £20 sound reasonable, plus postage? Happy to GONADS or bring to Stoneleigh... Cheers, Ben Edit for. bad, punct'uat,ion! Edited by - _Benedict_ on 1 May 2013 13:13:06

I have a pair of wingstays that I removed from my car to fit the lower Caterham "race" ones. I'm not sure exactly what size wheels they're specified for, but they look like they'd fit 15" wheels/tyres easily. Here's what they looked like on the car with 13" wheels & CR500s (sorry, best photos I have): They've just been freshly blasted & powder-coated, so look pretty much as new: Looking for £60 for the pair. They're a bit cumbersome so would prefer collection/GONADS or could bring to Stoneleigh. Cheers, Ben

Last year, I had a bad hesitation when opening the throttle; it was OK when you opened the throttle really slowly, but not for blipping or normal driving. If you blipped it quickly from idle, it would misfire badly to the point of stalling. It turned out to be low fuel pressure, I spent ages trying to diagnose it, but ultimately Troy at Northampton motorsport diagnosed and sorted it; the locknut on the fuel pressure reg had come loose and I hadn't thought to look/check. (I was extremely pleased by every aspect of the service from Northampton Motorsport by the way ) May not be connected, but worth consideration 🤔 Ben Edited by - _Benedict_ on 25 Apr 2013 00:39:13

Just noticed these on ebay. (Nothing to do with me etc etc) Ben

Well that's not going to work then... However if the main bar was a bit longer, (and the arms straightened) then it might. Does anyone know how much longer the SV rear ARB is? Ben

Surely Oxtead, the manufacturers could repair it / replace the clear bit at much less than the cost of a new one 🤔 🤔 🤔

YAY ❗, got the 😳 😔ing thing out 😬 I probably wouldn't have persevered quite so much without all the "yes it's possibles" though, so thanks for those The reason for whipping it out ( 😳) is that I've been investigating the clearances between the arb/droplinks and the tyre/boot. A previous owner retro fitted 8" rear wheels and, as many people have, simply moved the droplinks round to the inside. As they were they would foul the boot corner with a lot of roll (not sure about heave), so I managed to get a workaround for that. Unfortunately then the nut from the droplink was able to contact the tyre, again in roll, so in it's current overslung form it simply isn't going to work. I may may be able to bend the side-arms in a bit, but not sure if the BJs will then clear on the inside. I haven't got the chassis mountings for the Caterham underslung bar, but that then leads me on to my next question Ben. Edited by - _Benedict_ on 22 Mar 2013 18:14:28

... remount the Caterham one as an underslung one but facing forwards, mounted like the Freestyle rear ARB (as found illustrated on this excellent website) I'm having clearance issues with the overslung mounting and 8"rear wheels, and don't have the chassis mounts for the caterham underslung one. From the pics above and some initial vague offering-up, it looks to me like this may well be do-able and not too difficult. Probably. Maybe. If anyone's attempted this, then I'd be very interested in your results. Ben Edited by - _Benedict_ on 22 Mar 2013 18:15:34

I've had a damn good look round the archives (which come up trumps for most things) but can't seem to find much info on removing the rear, overslung, anti roll bar. Can you wiggle it out by removing one or both dampers? Please don't tell me you have to remove the diff - I've not long put the thing back in. I'd also be interested to know how many people have just left theirs off altogether. Ben

Quoting Doug: Post it on Ebay. You're probably more likely to sell it there.I probably will accentually, I'm just wary of all the idiots that friends, family and forum members seem to encounter when selling things there 😳 Ben 😬

Bump again Nobody need a spare (spare) for a Fiesta, or possibly Focus/Ka etc 🤔

Quoting elie boone: Why would you want to mix brake fluids ? I don't, hence my original question; and if you're changing between the 2, it's not enough to flush the old stuff out you have to clean the residue from inside the calipers etc as well. Have you a link to your air-bleed system? Does it need a compressor? Ben

Thanks for the replies chaps (both on and off the forum). Agree is isn't massively likely that it's dot5, but for the time it takes I shall be testing its paint removing capabilities, miscibility with the dot4 I have lying around and looking for shades of purple . Given its indeterminate age I'm going to take the opportunity to replace it all, and I'm contemplating replacing the master cylinder with the AP one. It already has the AP 4pots on the front, but I much preferred the pedal feel of my previous seven which had those and the AP m/c. Thanks, Ben

Given that it seems like I'll be bleeding the brakes fairly soon is there a way of telling if fancy silicone brake (DOT 5) fluid has been used - the stuff that's not compatible with "normal" DOT 4 & 5.1 ? Haven't found any receipts for brake fluid in the history, though it was upgraded to 4-pots at the front, so it's obviously been bled at some point. Cheers, Ben. (more brake questions to follow no doubt 😬 )