11Budlite

Thankfully no!!

When you think your track pads are up to temp going into turn 1 at Palmer, but you find out otherwise. Thankfully they finally responded and I was able to slide sideways and keep it out of the tire wall. My most perfect parallel parking job ever!

Unusual seeing the Ford CVH engine in a Seven-type car.

That has to be an aftermarket CPS. Perhaps it's a CPS that's used with the MegaSquirt ECU? The stock Ford one is located at the back left side of the block and reads off the flywheel. See attached photo.

Here's the original sales ad when Tony V. listed it:

I don't know for sure but if you have a metric dial caliper you can measure the OD and thread pitch. It could be M12 x 1.25 if it's a Toyota-based steering column.

I'm signed up for a track day at Palmer for this Saturday. The weather is looking good, hope to see some other Seven's there!

That looks like the alternator bracket and belt tensioner that I had on my old Birkin. It was an aftermarket piece from Circle 'C' Performance that utilized a small NipponDenso alternator. It looks like your eccentric is different than mine was. It looks like it was threaded to take a bolt that could be removed after adjusting the belt tension, instead of the welded-on rod on mine. It's a nice piece but beware that the bracket can crack because of the way it's cantilevered off the front of the engine. I ended up installing an AN5-44A bolt (longer shank) and welding in a sleeve between the front and rear tabs to strengthen the bracket. You might not have an issue but it's good to keep an eye on it. The eccentric adjuster is circled in this photo with the main bolt circled in red. This photo is before the mods.

I agree, KTR would probably be the best option closest to the Boston/Worcester area.

I have a Haynes Ford Sierra V6 manual and it has just basic information on the differential, like R&R and seal replacement. I think you're going to have to get a Ford factory manual to get the info you need to do what you're looking to do. The Mercury Merkur XR4Ti might be the same exact rear end as the Sierra. If it is you can check out this online manual here: https://archive.org/details/1985-1988-merkur-xr4ti-shop-manual/page/n359/mode/2up Look at section 15-03, starting at pg 347. Hope this helps.

Very cool, LRP is so much better when you're on the actual track!

Lotus 7 racecar on BaT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1962-lotus-seven-12/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Model_Update

Both days turned out beautiful and we had a blast at both tracks. I was the only Seven in attendance at both days. There was an extended aerobatic display on the morning of 9/11 at NYST that got everyone excited for a really fun day. NYST is still the track I struggle with the most, but I did get my best time of 1:42.xx on Friday. Still a lot of room to improve, so I think it's time to get an instructor to ride-along or start taking/studying video. This was my first time at Pineview and we were running the full long course. I probably should have watched some videos before hand because it was a very challenging track to learn. I lost one session with a charging issue, but thankfully by the last session I was able to start to understand the track a little better and get in a few acceptable laps. It really is a nice track for a Seven and I look forward to going back there again. Highlights from our little group was Tom running a 1:26.56 at NYST and a 1:17.17 at Pineview as he continues to get his car dialed in. One thing I learned is that doing two track days in a row at different tracks is exhausting, especially at 69 years old. I did about 11 hrs of driving to the tracks, 4 hrs on track, plus loading/unloading 3 times. What's that saying, "you never slow down you never grow old"!

One of my favorite Seven videos of all time. Geoff W. is a member here too.

Some more info here for rear axle bracing options in addition to the DSK option supplied by Ed above: https://simplesevens.org/history/t10axle/t10axle.htm

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1977-caterham-seven/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Disambiguation_Update

When I had my S2 chassis, I ended up swapping out the stock fixed steering column for a complete later Caterham steering column assy. That included the upper and lower steering columns and the clamp assy. This added some adjustability to the steering wheel position and a bit of a safety factor as well. You could get the Caterham quick release upper steering column instead of the stock upper column so you could remove the steering wheel. Not cheap though. I bought some 3/4" cromoly tubing and welded the spline section of my quick release to the upper end and machined the lower end to accept the clamp assy. I forget what the wall thickness was but it fit well with the lower column. It could be an option for you.

Yes, that water rail really cleaned up the coolant plumbing on my old Birkin.

Looks great!

That sucks, sorry to hear that. Glad you have a plan in place to get it fixed. I've spun off the track in the rain before, but thankfully there was plenty of runoff.

What happened?

I think the Birkins with a 17 digit VIN came in as a rolling chassis, whereas the cars with a 'BIY' prefix (build-it-yourself) were built from the different group kits described here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/so0hj3yk89xhqjpsd4wcq/ACoFhnVRUQrJh41aILMdWhQ?rlkey=t54k2j4iu7x15i2hpd0owu7uk&e=1&dl=0 I think my Birkin was stamped BIY1899 at the base of the roll bar as well.

I know he passed away about 10 years ago and he was only active on the yahoo.birkinowners site, but does anyone recall the aero/body mods that Folis Jones made to his old Birkin? I just ran across these photos of it in it's final iteration and it looks really interesting.

The value will depend a lot on the year, specs, and condition. My old 2001 Birkin had a stamped section on the left chassis tube in the engine compartment (circled in the attached photo). Mine was BIY1899 IIRC, so that would correspond to the 2001 model year. If it has the Toyota live axle then it's an older chassis before they went to IRS. Not sure of the year when that happened, but I think it was sometime around 2010. Also, if it was set up for the track there were all kind of mods that were available during the 2000-2010 time frame when I was building my car. Do you have any photos of the Birkin? That would help determine a reasonable asking price.