Rob Walker

You only get a dipstick with the swirl tower and I tend to agree with you Graham. I particularly don`t like burning my figures each time I dip the oil. Plus it has a habit of undoing itself if the o ring is not cleaned of oil after dipping. Come on Caterham you can do better.

Midas Metalcraft 01933 355512

Steve, I have two 6X13 Minators as new condition that I will be selling when my 7X13`s arrive.

Can`t be checked with the engine running as the oil return from the scavenge pump is sprayed into the top of the belltank or swirl tower all over the dip stick. The method I use is to get the engine oil up to temp , remove the bonnet then stop the engine and dip the oil within a few seconds of stopping the engine. I fill to the top of the plastic bit on the end of the dip stick and thats about 5.5L in total.

Garreth you were lucky. We stripped Dave Jacksons engine last night and it required Dave full weight on a two foot bar to shift the crank pulley bolt.

The piping serves two purposes. That of finishing off the edges so that stones and debris don`t get down between the protector and the painted wing also the piping holds the protector about 2mm clear of the wing and will allow the protector to absorb most of the impact before a projectile can damage the wing underneath. I have had stones put an large dinge in my ss protectors without the wing suffering any damage.

Millers do a EP80 GL4

Oily, one other improvement I noticed on the Satur gasket is the rubber seals are bonded through the metal. If you hold the gasket up to a light you will see little red spots of light indicating this. The stock Rover has the rubber seals simply bonded to the metal and hence why these seals have been known to move and fail on hot engines. Rob

If you have the racer 1.4 it will have solid lifters, this would allow you to run with hotter cams, D2HTB`s, Mappable ECU. Should be possible to get another 15 bhp with ease. Allow £1500 for this. Or you could up the capacity to 1.6 by fitting the bigger liners and Pistons. Dave J has a set for sale.

I can`t see any reason why the Caterham Lightweight flywheel cannot be fitted to your 1.8 it will certainly fit mechanically. It is possible that a different trigger pattern was used on your 1.4 but AFAIK the M3D can be configured to read this. If you plan to dry sump you will require a dry sump pan the stock wet sump won`t do. The Pace kit should include this.

Sorry Chris, I must butt in, the crank pulley is also a ultrasonic damper the pulleys being isolated from the mounting boss by rubber. Plus Gas or any other such solvent could damage the rubber in the damper. QED advised me that they had experience of these breaking up with obvious nasty results.

WARNING IT IS NOT GOOD PRACTISE TO FIT THE CAM LOCKING TOOL AND START SWINGING ON THE CRANK PULLEY. YOU WILL AT THE VERY LEAST KNACKER THE BELT OR EVEN BEND THE CAM PULLEYS OR WORSE. The engine should be locked by the flywheel , having first removed the starter motor to access the ring gear. I made up a steel hook out of steel gauge plate and bolted it to the block. Then you need a good quality socket and a long leverage bar, it will help to shock the bar with a hide hammer or block of wood. The bolt is the normal R HAND thread so make sure your going the right way and not tightening the bolt futher. Good luck.

Yup Peter, I have blocked the bleed line on my 1600 SS when hot and noted a pressure increase. AFAIK the Rover pressure relief is set to 4.1 Bar and my engine used to run around 4 Bar before fitting the Apollo when hot and between 3.5 and 4 with the bleed off connected. At idle the pressure loss was greater.

Roy, Don`t let anyone tell you the ZF is hard to live with its not and its action can be tailored to your requirements. Its a super bit of kit I am very pleased with it.

Peter, Bleed off is 0.5 Bar up to 90C using 4W 40 Synergy.

I could be talking rot but AFAIK James W discs are 12mm thick and are crossdrilled. The stock Caterham / spitfire are thinner about 9mm

The Seirra 4X4 diff is a viscous type and not very effective in its stock settings, also AFAIK the driveshaft connection to this unit is different to the standard Caterham. Caterham currently fit the ZF plate type diff. This can be fitted to the standard Caterham Seirra diff casing and can be optimised for the Seven by Road& Race transmission. The unit cost is about £600 and fitting £75

The crank needs to locked at 90DBTC mark. Yes the crank pulley needs to be removed. The bolt securing the crank pulley will be difficult to remove, the Elise manual suggests 205Nm torque and the Haynes Manual 163Nm either way you will need a good quality socket and long leverage bar to undue it with the engine locked via the flywheel ring gear or engine in top gear and the hand break on. If you have the Haynes Manual why are you asking these questions, can`t you read ? Edited by - Rob walker on 21 Nov 2001 13:14:06

Edited by - Rob walker on 21 Nov 2001 13:06:43

Accusump is your best option then. You could also fit an Apollo along with the Accusump this will get rid of the airiated oil.

For best results do not use a fully synth oil. Road & Race recomend Shell Helix which is a mineral oil GL4 spec. Fully syth GL5 is great for preventing wear but too slippy for the syncro or baulk rings to grip the tapers on the hubs.

The Accusump is a cylinder that has a Piston in it and as the oil pressure rizes the cylinder compresses the air behind the piston until a time when there is a drop in pressure ( under surge ) the piston will then move with the compressed air behind it pushing the oil in front of the piston around the engine and maintaining oil pressure for the duration that is determined by the size of Accusump you have fitted. It does not pump air. Peter was the cause of your dry sump scavange going AWOL not that you were trying to run a four grooved belt on three grooved pulleys?????????????? The Apollo tank picks its oil up in exactly the same way as the stock system and as such will not help with oil surge, in fact due to the bleed off of a the top of the tank it will help to loose oil pressure. Edited by - Rob walker on 21 Nov 2001 09:35:26

Sounds like you may have a stuck hydraulic tappet. To check remove the cam cover and spark plugs. Put the car in say 4th gear you will then be able to turn the engine over, what you are trying to do is position the base of each cam lobe above each tappet, thats the bit opposite the highest part on the cam lobe. then measure for any clearance between the follower/tappet and the base of the cam. A healthy hydraulic follower should be in contact with the base of the cam, the duffer will display a clearance an if its noisy your looking at 20 thou and above. Should you find a faulty tappet it will be necessary to remove the cam carrier and cams to fit a replacement which cost £15 or free off the old follower if its face hasn`t been damaged by the cam hitting it. Its all in the Hynes book of lies 3399. Good luck

Chel yours is the really really old chassis, I was only going back to 1996 when the threaded bush seems to have been introduced. Removing the boot skin is the only way to do a proper job and not too difficult even for a DIY`er if carefull. Remove the filler cap drill out all relavent pop rivets and make a small cut in the side skins at the highest point of the rear wings the rear skin can then be removed. Braze on your brackets and refit the rear skin, the small cuts can be ali soldered and then touched up. I saw the job being done at Caterham on a customers JPE.

Later chassis after 1997. Easy to identify which type you have just look how the radius arms attach, if they are attached to the chassis with a bolt into a blind threaded bush inside the rear wheel arches you have the old type. If attached with a bolt and nylock nut the bolt passing from inside the cockpit the nylock nut in the wheel arch you have the later chassis, this should also have a threaded bush towards the rear of the wheel arch. It is possible to have the necessary fixings put onto an older chassis but it does necessitate removing the rear boot skin to braze on the rear brackets, costs about £1000 all in.