Anker

Got the Caterham ready just in time!

A Birkin with 97,000 miles on it listed in LA, but registered in Vermont. https://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/cto/d/los-angeles-birkin-s3-lotus-7/7114974016.html

Here we have USA and New York on the same page: Notice how New York accounts for a third of the US data in the beginning and then they diverge.

They think an entry level price is $55,000!

I have been doing my own analysis and the main problem has been that the US numbers have been dominated by New York state. Now that New York is stabilizing I am seeing that the other states are ramping up, more than making up for improvements in New York. It is going to be a long summer sitting inside looking out! Opening up the redneck states isn't going to make the situation any better.

Sad. He was my hero back when I was a teenager in the early 60s. I saw him race at the track where I worked on race weekends. RIP Sir Moss!

Thanks Nick, Simple. I didn't realize that it was that simple. Will take a look later today to see where they go and take measurements so I can order them.

So I got the right front cycle wing installed. It looks great. It does, however touch the body side then the wheel is cranked way to the right. I tried the same on the left side and the mounting bracket does the same thing. Doesn't bother me, but I do wonder whether there is a stop that could be installed to prevent this from happening.

I have posted a couple of threads on this, but have decided to journal my work. So when I purchased the Caterham there were a number of issues that needed taking care of: It was very hard to start when cold It smoked, primarily when letting off the gas It used oil, related to previous bullet It overheated if sitting idling in warm weather It was pretty dirty, and has an oil film on the bottom shield It spat out of the carburetor especially under low and medium throttle It had air leaks in the carburetor to inlet manifold gasket, especially of any force was applied to the carburetors, a light push up or down on the carbs would change the idle. Based on the above, I decided to do the following: Install a modern radiator fan Replace the carburetor manifold gasket with a Misab gasket Replace the supposedly unreliable Lucas electronic ignition with a complete Aldon Ignitor ignition. Install a catch can to the crankcase breather Replace spark plugs and give it a general tune-up Do a thorough cleaning I also decided to install cycle wings on the front instead of the traditional wings. Just like the look better. So I got cracking: I installed a choke cable. Very simple, but it didn't do much to improve the starting The next thing I attacked was the carburetor spitting. I bought a timing light and discovered that there was little advance on the timing. I advanced it to optimal idle, between 10 and 12 degrees and it did wonders to the idle and the spitting is gone. I also decided to clean the K&N filters. They were filthy and after cleaning and oiling I needed to adjust the carb balance and idle mixture. Took it for a test run and was very pleased with the result. Since that test run the car has been on jack stands. Putting it on jack stands without putting your safety into jeopardy and risking damage to the car takes some care. Doing one side at a time didn't work. The first side worked fine, but when jacking up the other side, the jack stands started shifting. Doing one end at a time worked much better. After putting the car on jack stands I discovered that it had a coolant leak from the thermostat housing. Fixing that was one of the most frustrating things I have experienced. The old gasket had completely disintegrated and it was a pain to clean the remains from the surfaces. I couldn't get a gasket that fit from the auto parts stores, so I bought some gasket material and cut my own. Installed one, it leaked. doubled it up, and it leaked. At this point I was concerned that the leak hadn't been from the gasket, but from either the temperature sensor, or another, one wire, sensor on the other side. Assume one controls the fan and the other the temperature gauge. Finally I used a gasket in a tube, and behold, the leak was fixed. This took many days because the leak was small but persistent. I bought an Aldon distributor with an Ignitor. Replacing the distributor required removing the carbs. Needed to be done anyway in order to replace the carb manifold gaskets, not an issue. Getting it off was fiddly, mainly because access to the manifold nuts under the carbs is really fiddly. Took a couple of hours, but then it was off. With the carbs off I decided to tackle the catch can. Experts on this forum and and Lotus7.club had recommended running the crankcase breather to one end of the valve cover end and then from the other end of the valve cover to the catch can and finally under the car. The nipples were bought from MacMaster Carr and the catch can from Amazon. I wanted a catch can with at least a quart capacity and the ability to see the volume contained and also easy draining. The one I bough is pretty and big, but turned out to be un-baffled, so I'm going to stuff some steel wool into it to provide some surface for catching the oil droplets. Got some practice with my new pop riveter. There's a lot less room to install extra stiff along the upper side rails than you would think. I measured the radiator and decided that an 8" pusher fan mounted in front of the radiator would be the best. It came with an adjustable thermostat and probe that I decided no to use, but instead run the wires from the old fan to the new fan relay. The fan turned out to be a tad too big, and when I cut it back I had hadn't noticed that the fan blades were connected to a rim. The rim interfered with the reservoirs on the top and the bottom of the radiator and a 7" fan would have been better. I was able to mount the fan so that the blades would spin. Two of the cheap Chinese spring loaded mounts broke and I used tie wraps as temporary mounts until I can get replacements. The old fan was pretty useless. Small, far from the radiator and no shroud to ensure that it pulled air through the radiator. Next the ignition replacement. The car was built with a Lucas electronic ignition and it took some work to figure how to unwire the Lucas and wire the Aldon. Especially since I didn't want to make it a one way street in case I couldn't get the Alson working. After more trouble than I care to describe the Aldon was installed and after very careful checking I turned the ignition on and tried turning the distributor to check whether there was a spark. No spark! I then tried to see if I could generate a spark without the distributor by grounding the negative terminal of the coil and breaking the ground, simulating opening and closing points. No spark. By this time I decided to reinstall the Lucas system, and it sparked when the distributor was turned, so until I can figure out how to test the Aldon it isn't going into the car. Reinstalling the carbs with the Misab hardware was one of the most fiddly things I have every done. For one, the rubber "springs", their caps, the steel spring washers and the nuts barely fit on the studs when not compressed and I kept dropping parts on the floor. The top studs weren't too bad, but the bottom ones were very hard to access and the middle ones were too close to the bracket joining the carbs to allow a socket to go on to the nuts. So here's how I did it. Rubber "springs" and caps on top studs, nuts on the two upper, outer studs to prevent the cabs from coming off the top studs. Then the same on the bottom studs. A magnetic pickup and a screw driver and a flashlight helped get them on and deep enough to not fall of. Nuts on the two bottom outer studs and off the two upper studs and then the steel spring washers. Nuts on to again and off the bottom and springs on the bottoms, and then nuts on the bottom outers again. Now for the really difficult part, getting all nuts on and tightening them. The only order I could to the top ones were first the outers and then the inners. Bolts had to be pushed into the barely large enough gap and pushed and aligned with a screw driver while fastened with an open ended wrench. If more than one to two threads holding the nut, the gap for the other nut was too narrow for the nut to go on to the stud. The bottom was worse. Outer nuts fine. Enough room to put the nuts on by hand and then tighten with a socket. The inner nuts were really hard. No room for a wrench, no room for a socket, so how to get the nuts on. After much trial and error I thought of carefully banging a screw driver blade into the top of the nylock nut and then use the screw driver to align the nut, push on it to compress the spring and then tighten it. Phew. I forgot to mention that I gave the carb a good clean with carburetor cleaner before mounting it. The new mounting is much better than the old one. Really pleased with it. While all of this was going on I had ordered a set of front cycle wings, wing brackets, headlight brackets and a cycle wing mounting kit from Caterham US. Getting the old wings off was simple. Getting the light brackets off was not so simple, because the wires to all the lights had to be cut. I ordered automotive connectors from McMaster so I can put the old wings on again without as much work. The wing brackets and new light brackets were easy peasy to install and with a wheel mounted the wings were trial fitted, Will work with all my rims, 13s, 14s and 15s. The connectors will arrive on Tuesday and then I'll rework the light wiring and install the lights. The wings will go on last after I figure out exactly where to drill the 4 mounting holes in each wing. I did look up on lotus7.club and found the measurements, so I am ready. Then an oil chance, brake and clutch fluid flush and last a though cleaning and polish and my Caterham should be presentable and ready to use! I'll also check and adjust the lifter gaps before doing any serious driving. The gaps on cylinder 4 seem to be too small just from comparing them cold with the others. Next fall and winter I will do a deeper analysis of the condition of the engine. I suspect the valve guides and seals are worn and hope the rings and pistons still are in good condition. Bought a leak down tester and will find out how much work is in store. No time to be bored with the lockdown!

I have a cycle wing kit from Caterham and just read the installation instructions. They refer to the "prescribed position of the mounting holes" in the wing, but there is no position marked on the wings. These are the wings for 13-14" wheels. If anyone here can let me know where the prescribed positions are I'll appreciate it. Thanks/Anker

My daughter just pointed me to an article about Iceland, where they are in the process of testing everybody. Their new case to known case percentage is in line with the Scandinavian countries, but their cases per 1M is 7 times higher, which implies that the ratio of symptomatic to asymptomatic cases is roughly 1 to 10. Given that most places in the US aren't even testing the symptomatic cases the real number of infected people must be more than 10 times as large as the reported cases, which, in turn, leads to the conclusion that we have at least 1 million unknown cases. You can easily imagine what will happen if social distancing is abolished!

The reports in the press have not shown useful data, just total numbers of cases and deaths. To try to make sense and gain some knowledge I created my own spreadsheet that massages the numbers: [TABLE=width: 393] [TR] [TD]Country[/TD] [TD]Total cases[/TD] [TD]New cases[/TD] [TD]Cases per 1M[/TD] [TD]New Cases %[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Turkey[/TD] [TD=align: right]3629[/TD] [TD=align: right]1196[/TD] [TD=align: right]43[/TD] [TD=align: right]33[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Belgium[/TD] [TD=align: right]6235[/TD] [TD=align: right]1298[/TD] [TD=align: right]538[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]USA[/TD] [TD=align: right]85435[/TD] [TD=align: right]17224[/TD] [TD=align: right]258[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Austria[/TD] [TD=align: right]6909[/TD] [TD=align: right]1321[/TD] [TD=align: right]767[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]UK[/TD] [TD=align: right]11658[/TD] [TD=align: right]2129[/TD] [TD=align: right]172[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Canada[/TD] [TD=align: right]4043[/TD] [TD=align: right]634[/TD] [TD=align: right]107[/TD] [TD=align: right]16[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Portugal[/TD] [TD=align: right]3544[/TD] [TD=align: right]549[/TD] [TD=align: right]348[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Germany[/TD] [TD=align: right]43938[/TD] [TD=align: right]6615[/TD] [TD=align: right]524[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Brazil[/TD] [TD=align: right]2985[/TD] [TD=align: right]431[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Spain[/TD] [TD=align: right]57786[/TD] [TD=align: right]8271[/TD] [TD=align: right]1236[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Netherlands[/TD] [TD=align: right]7431[/TD] [TD=align: right]1019[/TD] [TD=align: right]434[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]France[/TD] [TD=align: right]29155[/TD] [TD=align: right]3922[/TD] [TD=align: right]447[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Australia[/TD] [TD=align: right]3050[/TD] [TD=align: right]374[/TD] [TD=align: right]120[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Israel[/TD] [TD=align: right]2693[/TD] [TD=align: right]324[/TD] [TD=align: right]311[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Sweden[/TD] [TD=align: right]2840[/TD] [TD=align: right]314[/TD] [TD=align: right]281[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Norway[/TD] [TD=align: right]3372[/TD] [TD=align: right]288[/TD] [TD=align: right]622[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Denmark[/TD] [TD=align: right]1877[/TD] [TD=align: right]153[/TD] [TD=align: right]324[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Iran[/TD] [TD=align: right]29406[/TD] [TD=align: right]2389[/TD] [TD=align: right]350[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Switzerland[/TD] [TD=align: right]11811[/TD] [TD=align: right]914[/TD] [TD=align: right]1365[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Italy[/TD] [TD=align: right]80589[/TD] [TD=align: right]6203[/TD] [TD=align: right]1333[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]S Korea[/TD] [TD=align: right]9241[/TD] [TD=align: right]131[/TD] [TD=align: right]180[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]China[/TD] [TD=align: right]81285[/TD] [TD=align: right]67[/TD] [TD=align: right]56[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] The first two columns are raw data that really don't tell you anything. The fourth, New Cases %, shows the new cases as a percentage of all cases. This normalizes the data for population size. Now it starts show something useful. Even though the US has the highest number of cases, it is "only" the third worst in new cases as a percentage of the total cases. Basically we are out of control, but not as much as Turkey and Belgium. At the opposite end of the spreadsheet it shows good news for Italy because there are few new cases, even though the total number of cases is very high, so they are getting the situation stabilized. The third column, cases per 1M shows how big a percentage of total population is currently a case. If it is low, you either haven't started seeing the infections explode, or you have gone through the peak and you have the situation under control. South Korea and China are in the best shape. But this doesn't mean that they are in the clear, because nobody knows, for any country, how big a percentage has become immune. If it is low, then when you relax your control you go into a second wave, or a third, or a fourth.... The US numbers are very bad and I think we are in for a really bad summer, especially if we go back to business as usual by Easter Sunday.

I wouldn't expect the holes to line up, and the "7" in the center is molded into the metal. Anker

My 15" prisoner caps are 6 5/16" in diameter. Images: https://photos.smugmug.com/Public/Public/i-d4BPRrW/0/157824a6/O/IMG_0396%20%281%29.jpg https://photos.smugmug.com/Public/Public/i-7scKnT8/0/ad8604a3/L/IMG_0395-L.jpg

I can't find it in my email folders. Looked in inbox, trash and spam. anker@ankersoft.com Thanks/Anker

I have a set of Prisoner rims. Will measure the center cap tomorrow morning.

My wife is returning home from Denmark tomorrow. She is at high risk because of age (72) and recent cancer. She will have the mandated two week self-quarantine and after that I will have to work on getting her to put a restraint on her social activities. Looks like I will have to learn to grocery shop. Hope we have enough toilet paper!

This is a cross post from the Lotus7.club site. Started for serious on updating, cleaning and checking the 1700 Supersprint. Item 1 was putting it on jack stands and removing the wheels so I can get at suspension and brakes. Learned the hard way that you can't put jack stands on one side and then the other side. Has to be one end at a time. was careful, so I saw what was going to happen. The whole suspension is going to need a good cleaning. Oily grime covers everything. Bearings and bushings seem to be in good shape. Cleaning, flushing brakes and checking pads and shes can wait. Then I moved to the engine. I am going to reroute the crank case blow by using the routing through the valve cover and then a catch can. The Caterham catch can is a bit of junk, so I'll get a good one instead and use the hoses and PVC valve connector from the Caterham kit. QUESTION: The original rubber PVC valve connector is a really lose fit, but doesn't want to come out of the valve. It is held by a disk that appears to be brazed on to the valve. Do I just use brute force to pull the old connector out? Seems to be the only option The carb was a real chore to remove. Especially the nuts on the bottom of the carb that holds it on to the manifold. I was able to get a socket on them with a universal joint on the outer nuts and an extension on the inner nuts. The butterfly valve for cylinder 4 was quite a bit dirtier than the others. I suspect that's the one with a leaking valve seal. The spitting caused by the bad ignition timing must have blown oil on to the butterfly valve. The last thing I did today was to trial fit the 8" cooling fan that I'll replace the original with, The shield will need a bit of trimming to get a good fit, but it will work a lot better than the original fan when fitted properly. No wonder the original fan is inefficient. There's no funnel to prevent sucking from the sides and there;s a huge hap between the fan and the radiator, so most of the ait sucked by the feeble fan must have come from around the radiator. Must have taken over an hour to complete the job, but now I can get at the distributor. I am going to replace the original with one from Burton Power with an Ignitor.

Actually, the adjustable ones can be useful for determining the length that you want. You will need good ears or a dyno to determine where the boost is happening. Better is to know where you want the boost and then do the calculation. Basically the way they work is that closing the inlet valve creates a shock wave that travels at the speed of sound up through the manifold, through the throttle and the trumpet to the mouth where it gets reflected back the way it came out. You want the inlet valve open, ideally fully open, when the shock wave arrives back at the inlet valve. Remember that the inlet valve closes once every two revolutions of the crank, so don't make the mistake of boosting twice your desired RPM! Another complication is that the speed of sound is pressure dependent, so you need to know the manifold pressure at the desired RPM and load! It does get easier because you want the boost to happen at fully open throttle, so the manifold pressure will be close to atmospheric pressure. There will be a written test at the end of this lesson!

Also, notice that the mouth of the adjustable horn isn't as wide as the mouth on your original. Also bad, because a wide mouth gives you smoother airflow. I would forget about the adjustable one and instead get multiple sets of different length. I assume you can calculate the ideal length for a given RPM boost?

It seems to me that this is an ideal project for 3D printing. I have a decent 3D printer that can print nylon, and ABS, both of which have enough heat resistance to work. I may give this a stab so I can shift the performance curve around depending on what type of driving I am doing. Shorter for high RPM track sessions, longer for autocross where you stay in gear at turns and need lots of grunt t get up to speed again. With the stack you got the step in the inlet is not good at all. Airflow will stop being laminar at the break and it will also cause a secondary reflection of the shock wave that is bouncing back and forth between your intake valve and the mouth of the trumpet. The transition between the trumpet and the carb inlet needs to be as smooth as possible.

Ugh! The world is heading for a lot more of that!

The other way round. All weight in the back and none in front makes the car prefer to be driving in reverse. When at university many, many years ago, some of the students made money by driving rental cars back to their home countries. The VW Beetle was the most accident prone and we teasingly named the accidents where they ran backwards into some obstruction at high speed after the student who had happen at the highest rate.

It is more likely the issue is toe-in. For track use I would set the front toe-in at zero degrees. You may prefer slightly more front toe-in, but it sounds like you have way too much.

"Knowing his age, he sold when he was 61. I guess he realized he was getting too old to be getting in and out of the seven." I will be 72 in a couple of weeks and I just bought a Caterham!