wdb

Well *cough* for the Caterham I actually unlatch the hood to access the connector. On my other cars I tuck the connector in near the wipers. I don't really mind seeing the dongle, and if it does bother me I can always open the hood/frunk and pull it under to hide it.

I use CTEKs and they come with a quick connect kit. I put them at the base of the windshield so it is in my line of sight. Not as trick as the Bentley but it works for me.

Yup, the sump hangs low. Be glad you have a sump guard! I destroyed two oil pans in a year. Bit the bullet and dry sumped it.

I'm not familiar enough with a Birkin to be of any help without some pictures showing what is adjustable.

I would love to see the rest of that message in the red bars. I have two packages in transit from the UK via Royal Mail. One is supposed to arrive today. No word yet regarding tariffs.

https://hts.usitc.gov/ "The Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) sets out the tariff rates and statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States. The HTS is based on the international Harmonized System, which is the global system of nomenclature applied to most world trade in goods." Short version: virtually every single part of an automobile has a separate entry.

50% ?!?! UK tariff is supposed to be 25%. Maybe you got in before the new agreement.

I am in the process of procuring a steering wheel for the Elan from a fellow in England. I will let folks know how it progresses.

There is a neutral safety switch -- is there a clutch safety switch as well? My modern cars will not start unless the clutch pedal is depressed.

I have a tube of flexible cement that never hardens fully. I kind of think they'd use silicone though. I also agree that it's a pretty chintzy mirror!

@jbcollier for president!

Continuing the topic drift, but it may be of interest to @Timothy Keith-Lucas: there are tariffs on car parts sent from the UK and EU to the US. No mention of exemptions for 'vintage' parts. https://iaaf.co.uk/auto-parts-tariffs/

Doesn't matter. The de minimis rule is gone. Everything is charged a tariff. I believe cars and parts may have different percentages though.

I suspect that will be highly dependent on what's being sold. For example TR6's sold like hotcakes in the US compared to other countries. Porsches also come to mind.

912 weighs in at 1675 pounds, down from over a ton for the original, via a full carbon fiber body. A mere $460K -- plus donor car -- and it's yours. https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a65898746/kamm-912c-is-as-light-as-a-porsche-can-be/

If possible please let us know how the whole shipping/tariffing thing goes. I'm currently hitting the 'pause' button for overseas orders.

Extra cost is one thing, packages simply not being accepted for shipment is another. One I can deal with, the other I can't.

Is the pressure plate securely fastened? It was hard to tell from the pictures, plus the slave cylinder was loose, so maybe other stuff in there is loose as well. I think the slave cylinder over-extended and a seal got displaced. In this thread I've seen mention of a clutch pedal stop. I don't know if your car has one, but if it does it may not be correctly adjusted which might allow too much pedal travel -> too much slave cylinder travel.

I was going to suggest cutting the spacer. But I think you'll want as much thread as possible there.

Did Lotus ever put a T9 gearbox in a 7?

From pictures, posts, etc. it definitely does appear as though there is more bracing under newer Caterhams. Even looking at my 1995 car it would be difficult if not impossible to drop the engine/trans out the bottom, unless I committed to drilling out the rivets for the transmission mount.

I've decided to ditch the big, ugly, vision-obscuring windshield mounted rear view mirror. The scuttle on my car is already drilled for a pedestal mount mirror, which makes sense because it originally had a Brooklands windscreen. I don't have that mirror. Every pedestal mirror I've located thus far has mounting holes approximately 1.5" apart. The holes in my scuttle are 2.5" apart. Any assistance in locating something suitable would be appreciated.

Your description makes it sound easy. My brain tells me that it might be easy, or it might be an opportunity to learn new cuss words. I just want to make sure @hahuang65 understood this. He's saying that you don't lift the engine/transmission, you lift the car and leave the engine/transmission in place. This is a compelling idea. You'd still have to get that driveshaft yoke out though.

Can you go over the top of the diff instead of trying to come down with the driveshaft?

I finally finished a job I was not happy about having to do, namely taking apart some of the dry sump plumbing to fix small but nagging leaks. I used a liquid thread sealant product instead of my usual teflon tape, and it failed to to do the job. It was also a bear to clean out of the threads. NOT recommended. Anyway it's done. On a shakedown romp to test the refreshed connections I heard sounds in the rear that gave me the impression something was loose. So I climbed underneath with a handful of wrenches, and found this. At first I thought the bolt had broken but it had not. There was a small washer on the outside, under the bolt head, and the suspension arm just walked itself right over it. As the pictures show it was on the brink of coming all the way off, which would have been -- exciting. I put large washers on both sides so that it can't happen again. Boy oh boy do I need to refresh the rubber bits under this car.