Rosteri

Thanks John! The first thing was changing the steering from RHD to LHD and sampling thru the parts. The diff had a ZF LSD in it (yes!) and I machined and welded down the original Ford backplate. The original 13" minilite wheels were a bit corroded, so some media blasting and powder coating made them like new again. The watts linkage and the dedion axle were not a pair, so the dedion mounting point received some excenters to provide the linkages more space (with a possibility to reverse back to original. A carbon dash was ordered and arrived, but the front indicator mounts didn't feel right (too large). An old (and leaking) tank came along with the chassis. And I managed to find a seal kit for the original Girling tandem cylinder - so no more excuse to eye a new AP, rebuild it was.

Hi! I built this car from a non-rolling chassis during the past 12 months, so this is more of a documentation thread to give a little back to all the internet sources (including this site), that helped me build the car. This seems to be one of the friendliest 7 forums, so hopefully you accept me even though I'm currently residing in Europe! The starting point was a disassembled project car, that had been imported 23 years ago from the UK and even though the paperwork was 1967, it clearly had a Caterham S3 chassis already at that time, which was also somehow labeled with a Westfield chassis number. The paperwork was referring to a Lotus 1967 S3, even though in one of my Lotus books the S3 didn't start production before 1968... I was able to find a few pictures and data of this specific car from the internet with the wayback machine, it was aluminium / red and the engine was apparently a Lotus Twincam in its 90's configuration. The car was taken off from the road around 2007 and it had lived in various storages in boxes, owned by several people during the past 14 years. The previous owners had collected a random collection of bits and pieces, some were new, some second hand and some literally pure trash. It had new sheetmetal, fresh paint and a few dents and scratches from being transported around. It had a diff, shafts, wide track font parts and a newly rebuilt Type 9 gearbox (20 years ago by SPC) with Quaife clubman straight gears. I'll document this thread in chronological order, so no, there is no logic in the order...

Hi, I have just completed a RHD to LHD swap and as there is very little information to be found, I thought I'd share my findings and a few pictures. Chassis: Imperial S3 The steering column lower and upper are usable on both sides The steering rack pinion can be rotated, but it needs machining a hole to the blanking plate. Remove C-lock ring, drill a small hole to the center of the blanking plate, use a punch to push the pinion out, take blanking plate out and machine larger hole to match steering rack connection and assemble -> done. I didn't have mounts for steering on both sides, so I had to do some welding. I cut the lower dash tube with the steering column symmetrically and flipped it over. The angles match. I cut of the pedal box as close as possible to the footwell The footwell on the driver and passenger side was of different shape. I used cardboard templates to replicate the original driver side, removed the original passenger side completely and built a new one out of scratch (1.5 mm 6061T6). Reshaped and fitted the pedal box and welded it in place Cut off the lower mount for the steering rack (just outside scuttle) and welded it to other side Made a half moon cutout into the rectangular chassis tube to clear the steering rack Whether the steering column clears the engine components (exhaust, drysump, alternator...) or not is fairly hard to predict, but it can be checked with a string before starting. I had only a chassis to start with and could design everything around the new steering column location. So it is perfectly feasible to switch sides, but it will require serious fabrication and welding skills. I hope this helps someone in the future!