IamScotticus

These were supposed to be cheap throw away club racers that anyone could afford. Cat did a fine job building them up into pretty tightly packaged techno marvels you don't dare put a scratch on. Guess what? 0-60 in 7sec and rollercoaster road Manners, harness tails slapping you in the face, burnt ankles, entry exit gymnastics, and getting stranded any time can be had with a 40yo $18-20k used beater. Not many cars hold value as well when cared for, but loose so much when wrecked.

There is a history of 7 body parts from DSK, Dave "The Man" Kaplan. According to the site anglocanadianlotus7/lotus-seven-parts-suppliers-list/ Pat Prince of Prince Race Car Engineering (815) 625-8116, www.sports.racer.net, who's thing is fiberglass bodies, "took over" some components from DSK. I don't know if that translates to body panels, but there is a good possibility.

Look at this https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/p/on-off-rocker-switch

The best advice I've ever heard is to ring him on the phone. I expect he is swamped with orders and no secretary on staff to track and follow up. I've made a few inquiries that went cold. No money, no foul. You have every right to keep shopping and he has every right to service the orders he can, and pass on one's he can't, or put them in eternal limbo. I've never heard of him not provisioning a paid order. Just keep in mind that there are plenty of other parts he can provide. Try buying something small you need, like a clutch package. He's good for that and may keep you on his radar.

Did you pay for them? CM is a man of few words

Even at Haggerty, you must find an agent familiar with 7s. After my self induced "accident", which was minimal damage, I told the claims agent about it, who was then set on sending me to a body shop. Um, no thanks. ***Hijack alert*** Interestingly, in 2025, Texas will be dropping the safety inspection requirement for road vehicle registration renewals. Yet, emissions will still be required in various counties. I can't think of a dumber thing. The logic of it, that I have heard, is without someone looking and telling you of a safety issue, the owner will be more attentive to the particulars. HA! These people here rotate through used cars straight out of the Insurance write-off auction yards. They sell them back to the dealers for another car before the registration deadline to avoid being on DMV records and having metal plates the police and plate readers can identify them by. We, enthusiasts of outstanding moral character, hit these registration and safety and emissions compliance walls trying to do the right thing. There are much bigger problems afoot. And once you get out there, you have to worry about being squished. So, things have to be kept simple. A banana is a banana no matter what sticker it has, right? Dole, Chiquita, etc. The registration is concerned with how to TAX your vehicle, they don't care about the history. So you stick with something familiar that is recognized by the people processing your application. In our case, they recognize Lotus, and maybe the 7 as a model. It doesn't matter who made it. For tax purposes you have a 4 wheel convertible top passenger road vehicle made by Lotus in 1967. That's your banana. The sticker on it is Caterham, or Robin hood, or Birkin, or Zero, Westfield, etc. If you have a jurisdiction that has a registration for replica cars, the snag they might have there is emissions may need to be compliant with the year of manufacture, not the year of replica. This may not be a problem for a current owner, but might become a problem for the next guy who's jurisdiction is enforcing year of manufacture IM standards. And there are kit cars, gliders, etc. It gets too complicated. This is why we just register the 1967 banana as a 1967 banana. This is not professional or legal advice. Just a schmuck who over complicates everything.

What charger? An AGM type I hope.

Too thin a backing wood will warp and bow from the cover when it shrinks, or if covered to taught. I estimate my back squab wood to be 3/8", 10mm. The back seat is very warped from age and bad storage practices. Fortunately it didn't bow laterally and is usable as is. I measured my Cat squab back to be 24" tall. I measured my rear seat bulkhead to be 24" from top of top square chassis tube to top of bottom square chassis tube. The bottom seat squab sits afore of the seat back cushion. I would suggest some Velcro to keep the top secured. 61 cm = 24", very close to the Lotus spec.

@Bill What is this clamp used for?

Any changes in front sway bar for these tracks?

Use this as a reference For 5/8 x 36 spline shaft vehicles https://www.moto-lita.co.uk/products/b20

Oh my goodness, that's beautiful work. At least CM gave you a reason. What axle do you have?

PM sent

Fuel stabilizer for those carbs and rubber fuel hoses. Sta-Bil and Enzyme are popular. I use it all year, every tank.

Have we set a bump record here? I consider the Slingshot to be the modern day 7. There is a current 7, buckets of them. But it's the idea. Fun, open top, open wheel, stick it to the tax man with the autocycle concept. I think it's the ultimate fun car, besides a dune buggy. But I never see buggies on the street. There's many things the Sling is not going to excel at, but for what it is, its much easier to daily than a 7. And just recently, this lot had a line up of Slings These are Vanderhalls, or Chinese knock-offs.

Interesting... I have been studying the manifold vs. port vac advance debate, watching all the popular Expert Tubers on it. Several of the creators mention the changeover from manifold to (carb) port is in response to new emissions regs, getting the cars to run hotter, burn carbons later in the burn cycle with no idle advance, yadda yadda. I have been looking for evidence of manifold or port vac connections in my various Cortina and Escort tech books, to see how they were hooking them up then, but the closest guidance I can find I'd a mention of disconnecting and plugging the port for the static timing setting. Something I knew from high school auto class. Anyway, we're talking Weber 23 DFM and 32/36 DG*. The 32/36 has a vac port. The 32 DFM does not. Both of my Cortina and Escort Manifolds have the 1/4 BSP tap that can be used for a port. Here's what I intended to share. Going through my english Autodata Cortina 2 manual, I noticed how the recommended idle RPMs increased: 1966-7 580-620 rpm 1968 700-740 rpm 1969 700-740 rpm 1970 830-870 rpm The same engine!

My Crossflow chassis (your DeDion may differ) is 1/2 front-back adjustable. This isn't much. My 30" inseam needed adjustable seats to reach. But I don't like having enough room behind my seat for luggage either. I'm looking to move my pedals back and build squabs to suit. Why squabs? I'm a purist snob now. Some buckets are too thick and I sit too high. IMNSHO, the 7 looks better in squabs. Have the squabs just to have. The 7 looks right with them. There were some folks here selling buckets recently. What's a 99 DeDion VX doing with squabs anyway? Perhaps the PO was too tall for buckets?

Negative. All the engines are unleaded, even the Cat built X-Flows, at least since the late 80s.

Happy B day

Its a really good question

Cold gap is a starting point to get you close so you are less likely to do any damage. Hot gap is the fine tune. The thing about Caterham's gaps is that the early Sprint builds were A2s but they later went to GT cam on the Sprints. My '95 manual does not specify but I suspect by '95 they were GTs, with the 1700s getting the 234 profile. Do different cam lifts require different gaps? I don't know. Assuming your pistons are pocketed correctly, maybe not. But since your head is built, your springs should be checked for binding and breaks at the least.

You also have the hot adjustment. Where are getting your gap numbers from?

One of the best ways to sell a car is to show all the wonderful things one can do in it. Like off-road drifting

Have a advert on Hemmings to get some of the $$$ looking at it. It may not be Robbery Report territory, but you want those high income offers if you can get them. advertise in the UK and Canada also. this is a complement to you. My 7 goes on BAT. Heck my 7 goes on Autotrader. Your 7 deserves much better.

This block has a lot of development (abuse) potential. I have to consider the future owner may want to put the primary there. I can use adapters for a gage sender or other.