EdWills

Very nicely done! The workmanship is excellent. W

Hi Darcy. Did you also order inner tubes for your Pirelli Cinturatos? I believe that Longstone Tyres recommend inner tubes even if the rims are steel or alloy. My car came from the second owner with Cinturatos fitted with inner tubes to the 5-1/2 J Cortina steel rims. He used 185s, but kept the spare as a 165 width. W.

Coincidentally, that is just about the correct metallic blue that my Seven would have had from the factory. Your car looks magnificent! I have seen a photo of a Seven SS twin-cam in the same metallic blue original finish. Regarding badges on a Seven. Although I had some back and forth communication with the Lotus Seven Registrar on the subject, most - and I do not propose all - Seven Series 3 cars produced after August 1968, and sold in 1969 - that I have seen in Canada, have the black Jim Clark memorial badge attached which may also have been fitted to Elans, Europas F.F. cars etc. The black badge may have carried over into cars sold in 1970 as Lotus was using them up. Not to get too much into it here, but a very good Lotus Elan site discusses the history and some disagreements regarding the use of the black memorial badge applied to some of the cars before this time. W No problem regarding the bushes. One company noted by @JohnCh sells a full set for $271.00 U.S., but not sure what the taxes will be on top of this? Caterham Cars still show some on their web site. Good luck with your refurbishment, and keep the build details rolling please.Cheers. W.

Hi @Darcy. Just a bit of info regarding your plan to strip your car back to bare alloy. I was just checking some original chromed bonnet catches and grey painted parts from my 1969 Series 3 Seven (fully constructed in October 1968 at the Lotus Factory, Hethel, Norfolk). I noticed that the original metallic blue factory applied paint that Lotus used on a few Series 3 cars shipped abroad, (and sold in the U.K.), had sprayed over onto these parts and had remained on the car without the two previous owners or myself removing the overspray. For this to happen, I'm assuming that the parts had to already be attached to the car? I am also guessing that Lotus were busy turning out the new Series 3 and masking tape (or similar in 1968?) back then wasn't as good as it is now or the newspaper wrapped tubing wasn't that well applied? It may also of course have been painted at the location in Canada where it was sold. On the BAT site, you were in contact with John Collier of Edmonton who also has an all yellow Series 3. You could check with him about the paint finish on his car. Also, the Lotus Seven Registrar should have a record of the colour of your car as it left the factory. The Registrar should be amenable to providing full details on the car, if he has them., as you are the new owner. He did not have any details for my car that was imported by the Lotus Concessionaires in Toronto, but I was able to obtain them directly from Lotus when I purchased the car. Cheers, W

@Darcy. If you check the web for Hagerty.com or enter "The Lotus Seven and a lightness of spirit" you will find a 'sister' car to yours. Second owner for 13 years was David Ellis of Vancouver B.C., who passed away some years ago. The car is now owned by Rory Banks of the Lotus Club of B.C. A Lotus factory built car similar to yours, all yellow, and in original appearance as per your car. It is possible both your car and the Ellis/Banks car came from the same dealership in Vancouver. Mr. Banks produced a YouTube video of his car, but it has very shaky camera work, and hard to make out any detail. I do not have the Lotus chassis number for the Ellis/Banks car. The bushes for the rear of the 'A' bracket where it attaches to the axle are Y16, and the front bushes of the 'A' frame are 636. Tony Weale in his book notes that the Y16 are a superior bush to the Y9s that are fitted to the front inner wishbone location on a Lotus Seven. Later Caterham 7s used the Y16 in place of the Y9 with a bolt and possibly a spacer in place of the spindle welded to the front of the Lotus frame.. W.

Hi Darcy. I have brand new spares of the bushes that you require for the 'A' frame, and you can have them for what I paid for them plus postage from Calgary to Kelowna. Let me know if this if of use to you. W

Hi Scott. You could reach out to David Kaplan, who has contributed to this forum previously. He is a wealth of knowledge regarding U.S. Seven manufacturers, including Pat Prince. Also, SimpleSevens.org has some information on Pat Prince (via David K). If you click on an ad for an ally nose cone (long ago sold), it shows the front of a Prince racing chassis. W.

Hi @theDreamer. The information you had may well be true, as it’s anybody's guess what happened all those years ago?’ I have not yet found a contact for anyone who worked at Universal, but I’ll keep trying. Any former workers would be in their 80s by now. It took me a long time to find any information on the company because all of the books on the Lotus Seven that mentioned Universal, stated that the company was located in Northampton, England, but this was incorrect. It’s possible that whoever mentioned the location to these authors were confusing the location with Cosworth, but again, that’s anyone’s guess. As almost anybody connected with Lotus in the formative years has died, any information is lost if it’s not been previously recorded by them. Cheers W.

Hi Scott. Lotus began production of the Series 3 in August 1968 according to records. Arch would have switched from the Series 2 and the 2-1/2 at this time probably, as they already had the same jig set up to build the Series 3 and just needed to add a couple of extra brackets for the S3. W. Not sure where the story of the ‘U’ on Universal Radiator frames being used for replacement chassis came from, but it would seem that the ‘U’ would just stand for Universal until Lotus decided that the ‘B’ or ‘BL’ should become the designation? The ‘U’ seems to have been used on 1961 and 1962 S2 frames, but not much later than that. Arch of course just used ‘AM’ for their frames with no lhd or rhd differentiation that I have found. W

Hi Darcy. Message sent to you. If you require a paint match for touch-up, please drop me a line. I found a source for the oil based paint (Graphite Grey) in Calgary. W

Hi @Darcy. Congratulations on your purchase. FWIW. Please be aware of any raised manhole covers (which seem common in my neck of the woods - Calgary), as that is what took my 1969 Series 3 off the road. I was sandwiched between cars either side of me taking a curve where the road was under construction for repaving. The collision with the manhole cover that was sitting about 3 to 4 inches above the road surface did a lot of damage. Lotus reckoned at the time that my sump clearance should have been 4 inches, but noted that my springs could have sagged. Apparently a bad batch of springs may have made it through onto the production line? I'm not sure that even 4 inches of clearance would have been that helpful though? I read somewhere that Mike Warner left Lotus after an argument with Chapman, and commenced the manufacture of alloy rims. When he returned to Lotus, the company introduced his rims to their product line. W.

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.