EdWills

Hi @Rodnok. I have seen a photo of a Lotus Seven Series 3 SS Twin Cam whereby the owner turned the electric fan motor around on the 3 sheet metal fingers so that the blades are much closer to the rad. If you want them even closer, you could possibly add spacer tubes to the electric motor? Those 3 fingers have been part of the chassis throughout the Series 2 and 3 run, but I have seen them cut off which is a shame, as they do give some originality to the car. And, as usual, great advice from @SENC and @Timothy Keith-Lucas If your chassis unit has the frame painted with middle graphite grey, which Arch seems to be using now on many of their rebuilds, I have the chemistry from Dulux, as I sent them a sample bracket from my 1969 Series 3, and they did a colour match. I recently had 6 rattle cans produced with satin finish oil paint in 'Lotus Graphite Grey' from a local paint supplier to the oil and gas industry. Good luck with your build. W.

Is it possible that Mr. Utt meant to say Carroll Smith, as Carroll Smith did do design work for DSK on their 7 according to David Kaplan. Not sure if Carroll Shellby was involved with the Caterham 7, but anything is possible? W.

@randomDMZ. Well done with your investigation. Sometimes frustrating trying to find out about the history of a car, but great detective work on your part in this case. It would seem that in the U.K. with the drying up of Standard axles that were prone to breakage, a number of Series 2 owners there chose to install a wider Ford unit, with corresponding Series 3 rear wings. Only a general question, but are there any Japanese sourced rear axles that would work? I believe that Caterham (and Lotus) attempted to source as many U.K. manufactured components as they could for their cars, but Lotus, later under foreign ownership, did turn to Toyota for engine/transmissions and possibly others? @IamScotticus has done a lot of research on the Ital/Marina axle. Caterham chose it for their 7 after the Ford unit, so, if supplies can be found, this may be the way to return to 'original'. Cheers, W.

Hi Scott. I have not viewed that many frames, (the alloy brake master cylinder casting covers most of them on the angled upper bracket of later Series 2 and 3 cars), and due to security reasons put forward by John Watson, John Donohoe, and others, there are a limited number of photos of stamped frame numbers provided by owners. J.W. on his Register does show a couple of them - with one welded in the same manner as on randomDMZ's possible purchase. If this frame proves to be a 1961/1962, the metal letter/number stamps used at that time may have worn out over the years, and been replaced with a different font style or possibly Universal had a couple of sets to use with different fonts? Only speculation on my part of course. If J.W. can provide all of the details he has on the car, it will be a great help for @randomDMZ to decide if the purchase is worth it to him. It would be great to know what J.W. advises. Cheers W.

That's the one. Many thanks for finding it. W

The frame manufacturers tag fusion welded on the frame is prototypical of how Universal completed their frames for shipping to Lotus in the early 60s. The stamped identification letter/number was later moved to the angle bracket that secures the Ford cast brake cylinder mount. W.

@randomDMZ @SENC, @theDreamer have provided great advice. Re: JW. Contact him at the Lotus Seven Register and see what he can provide. I have some records of North American cars (including Canada) that were kindly given to me by a couple of Lotus Seven enthusiasts who started a North American Lotus Seven Register, but had to abandon it due to other commitments. I found 5 Lotus Seven Series 2 cars all with 'U' followed by a 4 digit number, one a few numbers away from your stamped frame number. All 5 cars are/were registered in the U.S. as 1961 or 1962 cars as suggested by Henry @SENC. It would seem that Universal Radiator were using the 'U' in conjunction with 'B', but then went to 'B' for right hand drive cars and 'BL' for left hand drive frames after using up the 'U' designation (Arch used 'AM'). Modifications to Lotus Sevens has been going on ever since Mr. Chapman first designed the car. If you can get a copy of Dennis Ortenburger's book, he shows modifications to the car that would make Mr. Chapman turn over in his grave. Our city stolen auto division used acid to check for ground down serial numbers. It is a one time only procedure, as of course the acid will completely obliterate the writing after application. A camera needs to be at hand to record any numbers before they are wiped out. As Lotus fitters often just scratched the Lotus chassis number (V.I.N. in N. America), there is not much of an indent. I also agree with Scott who has noted in the past that if you want to stay original, oil paint is what Lotus used, and is easily touched up if necessary. You can powder coat, epoxy coat etc., but if any repairs are required, you will end up using oil paint over the repair anyway. Hard coatings are harder to remove, and grinding is not recommended - round wire brush in a drill seems to work o.k. and always wear safety glasses (like my hero Norm Abrams of 'This Old House'). I really appreciate mention of my website by both posters above. I apologize for any confusion, but 'Ed Wills' was my handle back in the dark ages when I first signed into hotmail in the early 90s and has carried over ever since. Cheers, William E.

Hello again Steven. I note that you already have the usa7s download - should have reread your post again- apologies. W

Hello Stevehello. The library on usa7s has the Caterham publication of the Lotus Seven 2,3 and 4 for reference, (or just the Series 4 at 'barnblinker.com'.), and a Series 4 owner by the name of Andrew Barron published what I would call a thesis on the Series 4. It was originally under the 'Connexions' web site, for free download, but 'Connexions' closed down.. I did find a trace of it at 'sevener.fr' (google: 'Lotus Seven Series 4 design analysis'.). I originally printed off some pages that I was interested in, and these are numbered 131 to 134, and Chapter 5, so Mr. Barron really went into detail about the Series 4. If you can find the article, it makes great reading. A noted authority on the Lotus Seven Series 4 is Hajo Steffen in Germany. He has a wealth of information regarding the Series 4, and was in contact with Alan Barrett of Lotus who provided him with photos and background about the car. Hajo is on Facebook Germany. Good luck with your project. Cheers W. P.S. $229.95 U.S. for a book? Phew, wonder why it hasn't been republished?

Hi @jmaz. Glad you have found what you were looking for. Apologies for lousy photo, but if the Gates 'T' piece doesn't work, the photo showing the Pex 'T' may be better? I have shown 1/2", but 3/4" the same. I totally agree with Scott that brass would be a better choice, the barbs will probably hold better, and the brass looks nicer. Cheers W.

Hi @jmaz. I have a few of these that I would be willing to send you for free, but the complicated postal system these days is too much to contend with. You don't mention the o.d. of the fittings required, but go to your local big box hardware store and look for 'Pex' fittings. They should be made of brass (sometimes chrome over brass?) and normally come manufactured for 1/2" pex pipe or 3/4" pipe. You may require metric size for your car, and if so, some Italian manufactured pex fitting may be available, but not sure. Here in Canada, although mostly metric, we rely on Imperial fitting sizes along with many other construction items also in Imperial measure. Cheers W.

Not particularly Lotus/Caterham related, but on holiday on Kauai, Hawaii last year, I needed to fill up our rental car before returning it to the airport. As a Costco member, I made use of the great prices and shopping available. At the Costco gas station, I tried 3 cards (one in U.S. Dollars) in order to pay for the gas. None of them worked, and I couldn't pump any gas. I noticed that an entirely different type of pump nozzle was attached to the hose of a type that I had never seen before. I returned to the store, and they confirmed that all of the cards were up-to-date, and should work. I tried again with no luck and even a very helpful lady customer also tried to help with no success. I went to the nearby Costco attendants booth, where a young 'surfer dude' Costco employee was keeping cool in his air conditioned cocoon. He came out to the vehicle, tried the cards - as I had done - which still would not allow him to pump any gas. He looked at the pump nozzle, and then gave it a very hard shove into the gas tank filler neck. He told me "Your nozzles not in far enough". I replied "My wife often tells me that"! He stared at me for a few seconds, then went back to his air conditioned comfort. I was then able to pump the gas. It appears that the 'new' nozzle has to make a very firm contact with the filler neck of a vehicle to allow the gas to be pumped. It cannot just be left loosely in the filler neck to work correctly. Not sure if this type of nozzle will become standard in the U.S. and Canada? I have not seen this particular type of nozzle since then, but our local Costco has fitted newer types of nozzles, but they are still of the type that the nozzle does not have to be all the way in to pump the gas. W. Tommy Cooper: "The local police arrested two bank robbers at their hide-out recently. One was drinking battery acid, and the other was chewing on a firework. They charged one, and let the other one off"

Thanks Scott. It's amazing to find that a number of car owners have asked this question on the web and there seems to be no conclusive answer. Even Ai suggests on older (vintage) cars, valve stem seals are not necessary, but it doesn't mention bronze guides. "I took a drive the other day, and parked the car to take a stroll. Came back to my car and a note on the windshield said "Parking Fine". It's great when someone congratulates you on your driving abilities".

At the risk of answering my own question, (but to put this post to bed?) I have checked a further couple of books by U.K. Ford Crossflow tuners, and the consensus seems to be that valve stem seals should be placed on the inlet valve at the very least, (to prevent carbon build-up in the head and inlet manifold), but on both valves is preferable. In my small collection of Ford Crossflow reference books, these stem seals are hardly mentioned, if at all. With double valve springs fitted, the original Ford factory 'umbrella' stem seals will not fit, but with single springs - which they were designed for - they will work as they were meant to. David Wallage in his book on tuning the Crossflow noted that some tuners install rubber 'O' rings on the stems for double springs, but he was not fond of this practice, although they will probably work o.k. I also found the 'Felpro' site and it shows the 2 main types of valve stem seal. I plan to stick with the Ford 'umbrella' stem seals (unless someone has other ideas), as they will help to limit too much oil going down the guide, but still allow some oil to splash on the stems for necessary lubrication. Cheers, W.

The web has a few car forums where owners of cars from small European sports cars to U.S. muscle cars inquire about using valve stem seals with silicon or manganese bronze valve guides. Some say yes, you should fit them, and others say no with a mix of reputable car mechanics advising either way. I have a Holbay Ford cylinder head that some describe as Stage II - fitted with larger 1.6" inlet valves, but not so large as to cause possible cracking between the inlet and exhaust valve seats. The head was new and based on an 1100 c.c. flat cylinder head as there is/was more metal available to grind away for porting (Note: recommendation of David Vizard many, many years ago to use an 1100 uprated flat head on the 1600 c.c. 711M Crossflow which I will be rebuilding). Holbay fitted harder exhaust seats for unleaded fuel, stainless steel valves, and silicon bronze valve guides. Double springs are fitted, but I am thinking of using singles. Holbay did not fit valve stem seals to the double springs. I checked with Burton a couple of years ago as I was considering using 'special' stem seals on the valves (with single springs), but Burton did not recommend using stem seals, as they believe that the valve stem and guide would not receive sufficient lubrication. Some say there is burnt oil smoke on start-up with no seals, and that this goes away quite quickly. Also mentioned was valve stem seizing if there is insufficient flow of oil due to the seals doing too fine of a job. I have read that tuners installing stainless valves fitted in silicon bronze guides normally specify minimum clearances from new, thereby requiring a good flow of oil. Has anybody with road or racing experience seen premature wear with stem seals fitted to bronze guides? I don't want to be trailing smoke and polluting the neighbourhood - even with a car that has no pollution control to speak of - so advice would be much appreciated. W