DavidL

I have a 1990 Caterham with the 1700 SuperSprint X-flow with Petronix ignition. After I'd had the car for a while, it started missing, then eventually wouldn't start (leaving me stranded an hour from home).... it took me forever to figure out the problem (since it was intermittent), but in the end the problem was that whoever had installed the Petronix and the plate assemby in the distributor had it 180 degreess out (or maybe it was upside down). That caused the sensor wires to have to snake around inside the distributor before exiting. Eventually they wore through (I cant's remember what part they were touching that caused the wear). After much research and help from Petronix, I installed the plate correctly (and ended up buying a new Petronix kit), with the wires exiting the distributor with a much shorter path, and it's been fine for the decade since. I did a quick search of my digital pictures, but unfortunately couldn't find any useful pictures. I may have some notes elsewhere though. Cheers, -David

My wife has hacked a Cricut (cricut.com) hobby cutting tool to make things for her work. It's basically an X/Y plotter that carries a knife (several types available), and can cut all sorts of very intricate patterns. I'll bet it could be used for gasket making!

As an owner of a 1990 Cat with Clams, although they do flap around a bit, there is no obvious problem with high speed lift at highway speeds (an idicated 80 mph, probably bit less actual velocity!).

With Andy's help, we ran a leak-down test, and things seemed pretty healthy. Leak down was only 10-15%, and any air that was escaping was going by the rings into the crankcase, not past the valves. We could see a nice cross-hatch pattern on the cylinder walls using a boroscope. Also, although the plugs were a bit dark, they were not wet with oil after the 45 minute run on the highway. So maybe the wet plugs I had seen were more a result of the car being used for short runs and siting a lot lately. I was very relieved to see these results, thanks a ton Andy! It still definitely coughs out a cloud of blue smoke at start-up, so I'll look at valve seals (if there are any). Pegasus has some teflon seals that look like they might work with the Caterham Supersprint double valve springs, has anyone used these? https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/productdetails.asp?RecID=5175 Also thanks to Rich Kampena (longtime local Lotus garage and caterham dealer) for a helpful discussion about options and diagnostics. Onwards! thanks for all the help, -David

Thanks for all the advice, I'll try coast-down-a-hill test. I'm also working on getting a leak-down test done. I'm leaning on having someone with experience do it, and I don't have compressed air anyway.

My 1700 SuperSpint CrossFlow has always coughed a bit of oily smoke at start-up, which I assumed was a bit of oil getting past the valve guides. But lately it seems like things have gotten worse. The spark plugs are very oily (that's new), and there is even some oil seeping out where the headers meet the head. So I'm trying to figure out what to do. A full head rebuild with new valve guides? Or just replace the valve stem oil seals? Does anyone who has gone down this path have ay advice, and can anyone recomend a trustworthy place to do a head rebuid? I'm in the San Francisco Bay area. I know that these engines can break rings, but a compression test showed 180 - 185 psi on all cylinders (cold), so I'm thinking the rings are OK. The car is a 1990 Caterham, and has 17,500 miles on it. I've owned it for the last 10,000 miles. I'm going to pull the engine do do a clutch soon anyway, so maybe a good time to get head work done if needed. Cheers, -David

try a test area in a non obvious spot, like next to a front wheel?

how about a midlana (see www.midlana.com), one guy's version of a very nice mid-engined Seven. He wrote a book on how to build one, although I followed his build blog for years as it came together.

Thanks for posting the link to the article, very vivid writing, and true insight into the Seven mystique. -David (135 HP and pretty happy with it)

folks interested in electric track cars should look at Dennis Palotov's thinking. Palotov has made a name for themselves creating tiny but incredibly effective track cars using motorcycle engines. They starting building a larger LS-powered car, and then built avery very powerful electric version of that car for Pikes Peak. Palotov's thinking for the future is heavily electric, working in partnership with Cascadia Motion, another Portland (Oregon) company that makes the motor/controllers. As usual, Palotov has a creative take on how to implement this using fast swappable battery packs. Anyway, here is a link to his blog, organized by model (including a Europa chassis he built for a customer, not electric). http://www.dpcars.net/ click on D8 and D9 for electric car info.....

Thanks everyone for the thoughts. Re the M/C: I have replaced the seals, and I think adjusted it's pushrod with just a bit of freeplay, but worth rechecking. Thanks for the pump-the-pedal suggestion, tht would point to a bad M/C. If do know that if I hold the pedal in, the slave moves and then holds. I think I bought the M/C from Chris T. at Sevens and Elans a decade ago, who told me he preferred to replace rather than rebuiild them. Perhaps I should have just done that. At the slave, the rod still has about a 1/2" of threads visible, so a thinner lock-nut won't help, if I understand the argument. I'll report back when I've got more data!

typically I go from neutral to reverse, but I have tried the trick of going into 4th and then quickly over to reverse (to stall the layshaft if the clutch is dragging a bit)... it doesn't help.

An update on this thread. I've not yet found the source of my issue, which is the transmission grinds when shifting into reverse, but only when the car is warmed up. I've replaced the hydraulic clutch hose (a bit of a saga, the one from Caterham is too short, so I had one made), and with the linkage tight, I've been moving the slave forward by adding washers between it and the bellhousing. That will pull the clutch lever further at full travel. However, it has not helped. Josh Robbins at CAterham USA suggested I inspect the plastic "saddle" at the bottom of the shift lever. Any advice on whether it's possible to get to it without removing the gearbox? As best I can figure, I'll need to remove the seats and then remove the carpting and the attached shift boot. Does anyone know if I'll be able to get into th shift lever asembly throught he tunnel? Thanks, -David (1990 1700 SuperSprint Xflow Caterham, Ford T9, DeDion)

Hilarious! I recently rebuilt my vintage espresso machine with those exact connector covers from Espressocare! They are just the covers, not the spade terminals. Are you looking for the covers, male, or female spade terminals? -David

Great, thanks for the feedback and confirmation that other cars used the same slave cylinder. OK, so job one is to re-examine the linkage and compare slave cylinder rod length with the old one... maybe they're different. I appreciate all the help! -David

Thanks Andy. I didn't open up the slave cylinder since I don't know if rebuild kits are available, good point, it could be the problem. Although the master is a typical Girling unit, the slave was made by an American company called CNC/Neal, which are now out of business, and as far as I can tell, catered to the VW/Dune buggy market. I haven't been able to find out anything about why Caterham used that slave cylinder, or even see pictures of other cars. I do know it was stock, at least for cars sold by Sevens and Elans. My car came from them (I'm the second owner), and I bought a master and the replacement slave from the[ATTACH=CONFIG]17763[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]17762[/ATTACH]m 10 years ago when Chris T. was still in Massachussets. Do other hydraulic-clutch CAterhams from a similar era (1990 X-flow) have the same slave cylinder? Her are some pics.

Thanks everyone for getting back to me so quickly. I'll re-check the mechanical adjustment, re-bleed the sytem, but maybe I'll need to replace the clutch. Fun fun!

@Lotusfan, did you ever solve why it was worse with a hot engine? I'm experiencing the same thing. I recently had to do a master-cylinder rebuild in my 1990 X-flow Cateham with a hydraulic clutch (5-speedT9, DeDion). I also swapped out the slave cylinder since I had a new one in my stash of parts. Now, reverse (and somtime first) is hard to get into with a noticeable clunk, but clearly worse when the engine is hot. I've adjusted all of the play out of the mechanical linkage at the slave, and the friction point of the clutch is with the pedal about 2/3 away from the floor. Following advice from further back in this thread, I tested whether I might be over-extending the clutch. Experimenting with not pushing the pedal to full travel did not help. If anyone has any advice or experience, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what might be going on, or how to adjust the clutch mechanicals. Cheers.

I once went to Ikea in my Europa, and I brought a Christmas tree to my girlfriend's in my TR4!

1990 Caterham

Perhaps it would help to know what kind of Seven, and a pic or two? On my '90 Caterham X-flow, the thick wires at the battery go to the Starter (+) and ground (-); there are also 2 smaller wires that come off the wiring loom near the battery and connect to the + side of the battery. I don't remember what they do.

No pictures, bu I was out for a walk and there was a nice red Westfield driving in my neighborhood. Had a quick chat, I had no idea there was another Seven afew blocks away. I drove my car to pop into work for a few hours (we've arranged it to have only one person there at a time). Only 6 miles, but a pleasant run. -David (Menlo Park CA; 1990 Caterham, Ford X-flow)

Tyler, I'm in Menlo Park, and have a 1990 S3 Caterham. De Dion, with adjustable seats and the "long-cockpit" chassis (I believe they all were by 1990). You would be welcome to come and sit in it and drive it, but probably best after the shelter-in-place order is lifted. I'm shorter than you, but my wife has a 34" inseam (and stands 5'8") and she can drive it no problem. Bring your narrowest shoes! MY guess is you'll fit no problem. Cheers, -David

Where are you located? It might be easier to look at a car. I've got a 1700 Super Sprint X-flow with dual 40 DCOEs in my '90 Caterham. you would be welcome to come and see it, I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area (Menlo Park).

I use Castrol 20W-50, with an additive from Moss Motors, "ZDD Plus" as a lead replacement. https://mossmotors.com/zddplus-engine-oil-additive My car is a 1990 Caterham with the stock Caterham X-Flow 1700 Super Sprint.