ashaughnessy

The fan switch is situated on the radiator, I presume this is from where you took the two spade connectors and connected them directly to a 12 volt source? You said you took some spade connectors from the thermostat, which obviously isn't electrical, so I'm wondering if you took the spade connectors off the temperature gauge instead of the fan. I'm sure you did the right thing, just a poor choice of words. Anthony

Thanks Simon. Anthony

I'd qualify M25 Traveller's reply by saying that on my car, the flasher unit stays securely in place but the wires at the back fall out. Not regularly, but more than once over the years. If you push home the flasher unit it won't make a difference, you have to feel round the back of the block to where the wires go into the unit and make sure they're fully pushed home. Of course, that's on a fairly old car. Its probably all done with wifi and bluetooth nowadays.

Surely a westfield? The wings and nose cone are the wrong shape and the dashboard and transmission tunnel are also wrong. I'm not expert though.

I wish you'd all told me how much it was worth before I advertised it ☹️ Thanks for the comment wile7, I had to stick a pin somewhere and this price is what I came up with. Clamshells and crossflow - its the only way really Though BDR or lotus twin-cam are also nice.

Thanks Simonpa, in that case you can have it for £10,995 *smile* I should probably try and get a recording of the noise before I sell it. If only I could capture the smell as well.

Baz, that's an interesting reply. My overheating problems only really occurred either when in traffic jams, or when I hadn't taken care to top up the water very regularly. Eventually it would lose enough water to cause a problem. Whether you see this as the result of a fault that needed to be cured, or simply as an ineffective design is up for debate. Caterham Midlands were of the former opinion, and thought that upgrading the radiator, replacing the thermostat, and replacing the filler cap should be enough but this was no help. Changing to the sealed system has resulted in zero problems since. It still gets hot in traffic jams but doesn't lose water and so the fan works reliably and keeps it under control. I never had any trouble as long as I avoided slow moving traffic but this is difficult in most parts of the UK :-( Anthony

I've now agreed a sale, thanks for any interest. For sale, my beautiful 1987 supersprint that I've owned for 21 years. Bought from Caterham in 1990 with one previous owner. 1987 Crossflow supersprint Long cockpit, live axle, four speed Red/aluminium, clamshell wings The engine was originally a caterham standard 1700cc supersprint spec engine. It was rebuilt in 2002 and has done only five thousand miles since, by Dave Brookes of Crewe (www.davebrooks-engines.co.uk) to a 150bhp spec, with much strengthening, lightening and balancing - forged pistons - lightened flywheel (compared to standard supersprint spec) - additional head porting - kent 244 cam - distributor remapped/adjusted by Aldon - uprated radiator (caterham aluminium race rad) - many other internal changes to strengthen and raise the rpm limit. - full engine spec available to peruse Carbs are uprated to 45 DCOE Exhaust is caterham 4 into 1 side exit system. It revs easily past 7000 rpm and is far smoother than the original spec. FIA roll over bar Uprated / updated front suspension, with the more modern full wishbone setup (original period design had only a single top link plus the roll bar, the uprated set up adds a second top link) 22% steering rack Original bench seat (composite race seat also included) Fully plumbed in fire extinguisher Battery cut out switch Flush fuel filler cap Stainless steel braided flexible brake hoses Original KN alloy wheels, with Yokohama A032R tyres Hood and tonneau Heated screen Six point race harness I had it set up for racing about ten or fifteen years ago, with adjustable spring platforms, corner weighted and flat floored. 150bhp + 505Kg = R300 performance + superb crossflow sound! I've owned the car since 1990, bought from Caterham and it's done about 50,000 miles (with only 5,000 since the engine rebuild) Cosmetic condition is good but consistent with being a 25 year old car. For sale at £8,500 See pictures here Located in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Edited by - ashaughnessy on 25 Jun 2012 12:43:51

By "expansion tank" I presume you have the original standard set up, with a filler cap near the thermostat. This is very prone to losing water, which gets spat into the expansion tank but doesn't get sucked back in again, leaving air instead. Eventually, the water level will drop below the level of the fan switch, which means the fan won't turn on, which then makes the problem worse. You'll also need to take care when refilling to ensure no air in the system, by various means including jacking the car up at both ends in turn to dislodge air, manually jiggling and squeezing the bottom hose, etc. All these troubles disappear if you convert to a fully sealed system with a header tank (see picture here - you can see the header tank next to the fire extinguisher). I had your problems for years before switching to this system, and have now driven without trouble for years since. Normal behaviour on my car is to heat up to high 90s when stuck in a traffic jam, at which point the fan cuts in and cools down again. With your setup, this is likely to result in much water being spat out and lost. Anthony

testing...

Mine attaches to the bellhousing, to one of the bolts that connects the bellhousing to the engine block. Anthony

Thanks, I applied some home made padding to the caterham supplied bracket so it is functional but not pretty. I was (and still am) very surprised you can't find an off the shelf cosmetically acceptable solution, but I suppose most cars nowadays have head restraints on the seats. Anthony

I bought some time ago some head restraint brackets to fit to my FIA rollover bar, my seats not having any head restraints of their own. These come just as a bracket with a metal plate without any padding. Is there an alternative to these that is properly and nicely padded and that looks OK? Anthony

I've had a similar experience with engine mounts. Took the engine out and found out that the brackets on both sides were approaching total failure. The only visible sign prior to this was that the engine was low in the engine bay. When I took the brackets off, both were badly cracked at the welds, one of them almost all the way round. I guess the engine was wedged in place and held steady by the gearbox mount. This was on a 1987 crossflow, don't know if modern cars have the same brackets. Anthony

I preferred my old standard (1987 vintage) rack on the road, much more civilised while the new rack is twitchy and oversensitive. However its good on track while the old rack was difficult on very tight hairpins as you needed too much movement to get round the hairpin. Anthony