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Since when did this become an OR proposition??? Feels like it's been an and my entire time here

This needs to be the cover photo for a little bit somehow for the entire forum

Honestly I think tinkering with it is part of the experience that makes you connected to the car, but this should be more known/announced. I come from a world where tinkering on everything is standard practice so its not a culture shock for me or unexpected. Especially considering I bought mine used with a questionable and interesting history. For somebody who orders one new or pays top dollar for it, who has high expectations for value per dollar spent and expects high reliability from a $50k+ purchase and doesn't want to tinker or expect it, I can see how that can be an unwelcome factor in ownership.

And to think it only took AI ~5 watt-hours of energy to create that.

Done with the oil and filter change. Button it up and go for a drive!

Imagining Crockett & Tubbs in this ...

I feel like we’ve gotta keep the British terms for these. It’s a bonnet and a boot!

To change the subject while staying on subject, I wish I would have known how hard it is to find a competent mechanic to work on these cars. I heard "Ford Engine, Mazda Trans" and thought I could roll it into a local shop and be all good. Nuh uh. These cars are simple but not simple. I spent much of my ownership time chasing down small to medium-large problems instead of driving the car. When everything was right, it was bliss.

In hindsight, I'm thinking that I should have included the master battery cut-off switch. The extra $250 would have been minimal. I can add a battery isolator switch but that's a bit of a kludge, and not trivial if I want to put in a switch that's accessible without removing the bonnet. hood. What do we call it here in Caterham world?

Lotus 7 on Bringatwailer https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1967-lotus-seven-7/

I have the admin power to change your signature footer…..mmwaahaaaaa. Be nice to me or I will make you look stupid. oh wait on….

testing

I feel an urge to measure the front camber.

Many words just to describe that @vovchandr is right.

Hey thanks. The S3 version is a little skinny for my SV and likely a little skinny for me. 🤣

Understood, and thank you. Will inspect the grounds.

Waiting for transport. Both going to Josh at Rocky Mountain Caterham. The HPC for sale and the r400 for the diff.

The loom was essentially a crossflow loom with a custom engine harness for the zetec. I bet this is a bad earth somewhere. John's comment on LEDs exposing bad earths is spot on.

Damn right. Do your homework on who you are sending a car to. I have been known to ship projects out west as it is MUCH cheaper than using a specialist on the east coast plus I can tap into a deep network of very knowledgeable people with extensive collections. In the dumb cost awards, did you know Land Rover Brooklyn in NYC area charges $500 per hour for a mechanic to work on your trusty Land Rover or Range Rover? Even the local Ferrari dealer repair shop is not that bad. Fuggeddabutit. It was also good to break down at Tom Carlin's on my road trip in 2021 as there was a convenient specialist nearby in a little town who knew his stuff and even owned a sister car to mine. He also had a large collection of Lotus/Loti which reinforced my faith. For a Caterham or Birkin, I believe a good race mechanic will work wonders as the cars are similar to many space frame race cars they work on. Always make sure you source parts for them - thats an expensive soak of time that you can do yourself. Always provide a copy of the manual or technical bulletin and educate them - simplify their learning curve as that saves substantial time. In an ideal world I would have time to do the work myself but I don't. Between work, work travel that keeps me out of town 7-8 months of the year, family sagas, and my own home saga, I don't have time to come on here and cause mischief to @Vovchandr

True, really exotic cars take a lot of money. Run of the mill 8 cyl Ferrari should have a maintenance (not repair) account set for $%,000 annual. Could be worse. I have a copy of a guys receipt for 20k Km. service on a Porsche 959 back when. First you drop it at a European dealer. They put on truck to the factory. Factory disassembles it, including trans, diffs, engine, then sends the estimate. By the way, you need a set of wheels because the hollow mags are prone to rot. Final service totals $53,000 US. I took a F-40 for a couple thousand mile oil/service. $900, back the same day.

I don't know how the loom was set up in those days. I wouldn't expect it to matter, but it's always possible that the grounds were daisy chained and the connection at one of those missing points failed (e.g. they crimped those grounds together to complete the circuit and the crimp weakened over time). My understanding is that because LEDs draw far less voltage, they tend to expose weak grounds earlier than an incandescent bulb. I'd start by replacing the incandescent lights one at a time to see if the issue persists or goes away as a means of potentially narrowing down the location of the issue. You may get lucky. If not, then start methodically checking and cleaning all the ground connections in the circuit until you find the culprit. Don't forget to hit the grounds at the switch and relay.

Got one ordered, thanks for posting!

Good to know. One of the original tail lights was working intermittently before, so I will start looking around there. Any idea if missing reverse and fog lights might have something to do with this? Yep, I did. The car already had an LED relay, and I also tried JAL's relay to be sure.

Did you swap the flasher relay for an LED friendly one too? (JAL sells one I think but they are very easy to source anywhere)

I had something very similar happen with the Westfield many years ago. It turned out the ground on a rear taillight was bad.