STEVE GILBERT

Are you a new owner? Has it always done it? It sounds like jetting to me. if it runs ok at higher revs its not fuel related and a facet fuel pump will always tick. Do you have the TTS Dynojet kit fitted? Other than that it could be needle height or a split diaphram. Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Anyway How exactly are you testing the existing breakaway torque? There is no nut in the center of an Escort 1/2 shaft Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Are you planning on doing this yourself? If so I would: 1) de-grease the CWP with carb cleaner/ wd40 etc so you can accurately measure backlash. 2) mark 6 teeth (1-6) evenly around the CW 3) devise a method of locking the pinion flange against the housing to stop it turning (nut/bolt usually) 4) set up a dial guage so it's real steady for measuring backlash at the end of the CW teeth 5) lock the pinion and measure backlash at point 1. record setting 6) unlock, move to point 2, lock and measure, record. Repeat for all 6 If you are not confident you have accurately been able to measure the exhisting backlash, do not proceed. 7) Mark the bearing cups relative to housing (the ones with the lock tabs) 8) remove the lock tabs 9) Make a tool with pegs to undo the bearing cups. Stop for a cup of tea 😬 Check your happy to proceed. (hey the worst is you hand a bag of bits to some bloke to put back together! 10) Undo the pre-loaded side bearings counting the turns that got you to your marks (1 side at a time) 11) Remove the big bolts in the end caps. don't get them muddled up. I have no idea what the torque setting is for these and you will need to find out. Obviously the diff can be removed now. Don't get any of the bearings/cups etc muddled up 12) Take the end plate off the diff to re-arange the clutch pack/ cross pin holder. The arangement is detailed in the info you get with the diff. You should probably renew the bolts, use thread lock and tourque up to something. Ring Tran-x about this I think your going to struggle to test the breakaway torque on a bench without spending forever making tools/ chopping up old 1/2 shafts etc. I'd go with the makers settings if I were you 13) reassembly is the reversal of removal 😬 Your going to have to re-set the backlash while maintaining the pre-load IYSWIM and this is why you marked the bearing cups. To do this you are moving the whole diff from side to side, the original pre-load will be maintained as long as advancing a cup on one side is balanced with retarding on the other. This whole job is a time consuming and painstaking process but rewarding if you can be bothered I'd rate it as 'Haynes 5 spanners' but once you have done it once, the next time will be twice as fast. Enjoy Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Yours is a Tran-X isnt it? That sounds abit much. I had one of these. You can change the pre-load by the order of the clutch pack, how was it loaded when you installed the diff? On the Tran-X your options are 25/30lbft or 65/70lbft. It sounds like yours is the latter with worn clutch plates or a bellview washer that's lost some of it's spring (probably a bit of both). Unfortunately you need to take the diff itself completely to bits to change the load on the clutch pack. While your at it I'd check you have the cross pin cup set right to give your desired ramp angle, as this has several positions depending on what you want (id think 35/90) I'd be happy doing this myself. It's quite straightforward really. just measure the backlash with a dial guage at 6 marked points around the CW, (after degreasing CWP with carb cleaner) mark the bearing cups so you can see how much pre-load has been added (and count the turns as you take them out) when your CW and diff are out whip off the end plate, re-arange as required then re-assemble back to your noted backlash numbers. You'r bound to do a bit of side to side past the markings on your side cups but as long as you maintain the overall pre-load you won't go far wrong. Or if you can't be arsed RR will probably do it for a ton! HTH Steve HTH Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Live Axle? See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

I have a set of RS2000 9 inch drums, backplates, new shoes and wheel cylinders, yours for £30 plus postage. See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Nick The Fireblade Shop. Do a Google, they are located in Sible Headingham near Haverhill. Barry is the owner. Its where all the new engines came from in the first place! See My Caterham Fireblade Here. Edited by - STEVE GILBERT on 23 Oct 2005 18:00:07

I like the comment 'A bike is considered high mileage when it has covered 20k.' Shouldn't that be 'A CATERHAM is considered high mileage when it has covered 20k' I think you need to put any downside of bike engines into perspective. I have a COMPLETE low mileage engine under the bench which as you know include box, starter, carbs all ancilliarys etc and it cost me £800, whats to worry about Regarding gearboxes I could massively increase the strength of mine by replacing with an aftermarket item from Quaife or Nova. Typical cost is £1k which is about the same as any uprated gearbox for a CEC See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Ebay or there are loads of ' Escort rally sites' that do old spares if you Google the net. The English Axle is usually junked for the Atlas in an Escort so cheap and lots of choice about HTH See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Ooh an archive posting by me..how exciting! As an update the Tran X I built is still perfect and silent after lots of hard use and 10k miles See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

No See posting about fitting english axle by me this morning for useful info. See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

I posted this a couple of months ago on Seventorque, might be of some use. Since then I now have the rare Alloy Diff housing to compensate for the weight increase of the Axle. As Brent says, rear springs stayed the same at 90lb Here you are: The 'ultimate spec' Ital Axle in my car ***** me off for the last time recently and I have changed it for an English Axle. I know a lot of people have problems with these and I thought Id share my findings. I had the casing bracketed/blasted/coated at Arch (and they did a pukka job) so obviously it fitted exactly cost @£160 I fitted a Disc Conversion that I sourced from a guy on the Turbosport forums cost new @£35 Long wheel studs ebay £10 To this I fitted mk3 Escort front Discs @£20 and cross drilled them cost 1/2 hour of my time. To fit the above the 1/2 shafts needed machining down about a mill and I had them 'trued' to perfection at the same time cost @£40 Sundry bolts/braided hoses etc @£50 10mm whele spacers £10 New Prop (shorter) Bailey Morris £110 I already had the Axle/shafts/3.54:1 Diff/Anglia flange(be careful fitting this) but factor in about £150 all in to source these parts and you won't be far off. Also you will need the Sierra calipers but I had these on the Ital Axle The only thing that is a fiddle is opening out the rear of the tunnell a little. I managed to do it so you would be hard pushed to tell by using a scissor Jack. Took about 1/2 hour On the road the slightly lower ratio (from 3.27 to 3.54) makes the car feel a fair bit quicker through the box and will be better suited to the ratios on Novas Undercut Dog gears if I get round to going that route. As it is Max speed at 11400rpm is 122mph. Looking at the dyno plot I think the car is more likely to hit the limiter in top where as before it would have never got close, struggling to creep past 116. All in it was pretty easy once you have the bits and I'd recommend this to anyone having trouble with the Ital unit If anyone needs any advice, let me know Steve Gilbert See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

No See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Why not just widen the transmission tunnel? I did this on my Blade when I fitted the Escort Axle and it's so neat, you would be hard pushed to tell I used a scissor jack and specially shaped wooden blocks. See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Mark Stew has the Quaife out of my Blade and he is changing out his 'open' diff v soon. Depending on ratio required his old one might be just what you need and it's local. See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Reserved for John C See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Ital Axle Case from my 03 Fireblade, Waxoiled from new and in perfect condition £60 Billet Alloy Axle ends/Sierra caliper mounts (perfect) and a pair of drilled discs (perfect) with buggered alloy Hubs (not perfect) £100 To do the rear conversion you will need a pair of new Hubs (£95+vat each from JW last time I asked) A pair of Sierra rear Calipers (cheap as chips 2nd hand) and bits of brake pipe. Reason for sale-Fitted English Axle Collection from Colchester Essex Tel 07734 004753 for more details See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Arch will add the brackets to a std axle case for a modest cost, This might b your best bet Axle cases on ebay at the moment. Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

I have lots of Carbon and trick bits on my Blade and it's 420kg with 1/2 tank of fuel. That said thee are loads more areas I could save weight with little effort 360 sounds do-able IMHO especially with less fuel and coolant. Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Hey, I was there with my fireblade and my brother in my old Zetec getting petrol about then. You sure it wasn't orange? Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

My NTR's were gassed specifically for my lightweight fireblade but if it's of any use On road, No clicks at the back and 4 on the front On Track 7 clicks rear and 11 clicks front I find with the widetrack 4 more at the front always feels 'right' HTH Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Bob I built a TranX one myself into my Zetec 7 (since sold to my brother) It's a regular plate type, was easy to build in to the 7inch case and is totally silent in use after lots of trackdays and hard road miles Recomended If your near Colchester one weekend and want to try it I could arrange it for you. All the best Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

If you go direct to Luke the harnesses are not expensive anyway, You might find it cheaper to buy new and flog the old ones on here/ebay I sold some in 5 mins so shouldn't think you will have a problem shifting them Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

Isn't there a selector rod that slides on this surface? IIRC the gasket stops seepage from this rod. Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

If you must try and DIY a nut gun will shift it. You will have to hold it on the flange. Last time I did one I bolted the flange to a long length of angle. The old Workshop Manuals used to say mark the pinion nut and shaft to get the nut back on in exactly the same place it was tightened up at when changing pinion oil seals. Nowadays they probably say 5 spanners take it to a service centre! The other thing is that these nuts are usually peened over on a grooved section of thread. Its a while since I looked at a 7" so can't remember. If it is then when you get the nut off that section will probably be buggered hence requiring a new nut. Having to fit a new nut will mean you have no idea how much to tighten it up as the marks will be lost! Unless of course... You take off the back case and use a Dial Indicator to monitor movement on the depth setting of the pinion as you tighten up the pinion nut. i.e as soon as it's seen to drop, stop doing it up! In fairness as the end face of the pinion will be rough machined as soon as it moves your indicator will probably be all over the place, you'd have to suck that one and see. I'm not sure I'd do it if I were you as someone like Road and Race would be very reasonable anyway It's up to you though. Steve See My Caterham Fireblade Here.