Timothy Keith-Lucas

Tying the torso to the frame/cage by more and more points while not restraining the helmet leaves a person vulnerable to a Dale Earnhardt accident - on impact the body is restrained while the head/helmet keeps on going. That gives me shivers to think about. Broader issue: a Lotus Seven really doesn't have much to attach to. When we put a roll cage on one, the cage is a lot stronger than the frame. Do we attach the driver to the cage? The Seven is really a beer can with wheels. Hmmmmm. I don't race; I've proven that I am without talent in that area. I do use a 5 point harness and full face helmet, and have added a telescoping steering column and a full side-to-side roll bar with two braces. That's all for routine driving. I'm still left with the feeling that rolling over or hitting a tree is going to be lethal. The roll bar is going to rip right off the frame or bend the frame flat, and the telescoping shaft only adds about a foot of collapse before I get speared. Thoughts?

Ditto with aviation bolts. Many are single use, single torque, and expensive.

It means to just exceed the elastic limit of the bolt and just enter the plastic range, so the bolt lengthens. Of course, you go a little more and the bolt starts losing strength. To my old engineering school mind, it's damned dangerous, but apparently it is used in bolting down engine heads. I would never risk it with a lug nut.

Two concerns here, engine mounts and lug nuts. Thank you for the warning and specs on engine mounts. Lazy Saturday morning thoughts: I wonder how many of the 10x20 18-wheeler tires running down the freeway are the product of over-torquing with an air wrench. One killed the wife of a colleague of mine. Related thought- my bet is that bunches of people with wrenches in hand don't understand that the proper torque is a function of the bolt, not what is being bolted. You want the elastic range of the bolt, so it forms a spring to hold your parts together, and god forbid that you stray into the plastic range. I bought an old Jeep with oversized tires a few years ago, and found that some previous owner had torqued the lug nuts at about 200 ft lbs, or about 270 nm. He (I'll bet on he) must have thought big tire, better tighten it more. I'm very glad I got it home without sending one of those suckers down the road.

Here's the same advice I've given many times to people wanting to buy a first sailboat. Whatever you buy, buy a ready to romp machine, not a project car. A car that just needs some gas before play time will let you learn the mechanics slowly and without capital outlays as you either break things or decide on improvements. Meantime you're getting bugs caught in your teeth because you've got a silly grin on your face at 70 mph. A project car will end up costing more, because the owner reduced the price when he saw how much the repairs would cost, and will keep you and your 1993 BugSmasher 300 in the shop when you should be out challenging the insect population.

"Every Lotus is a kit car. They are only bolted together for ease of shipping." I love it!

Here's that earlier answer from John: "A one-off is fine for the time being, provided it's clear that the copyright stays with the club, and there's no form of monetization; however, since the club may opt to monetize merchandise in the future, we'll likely add a restriction that the use can't duplicate an official club item. e.g. if there is no sweatshirt available, and you want a sweatshirt, make a sweatshirt. But if there is a sweatshirt, support the club and buy the official version. Bottom line, we don't want to unintentionally spawn a sanctioned knock-off market " That seems to me to be most reasonable. Private use only, and with limits that protect the organization. --Tim.

Wizard! Thanks so much for the updated logo. I just downloaded a copy so I can print it on a shirt. No commercial intent. Is that OK?

Thanks, SENC. I've found a few general guides, such as https://blog.simonbbc.com/classic-car-projects-and-tips/converting-a-vehicle-from-positive-earth-to-negative-earth-electronic-ignition/. I will try to learn to do searches on USA7s, because I should know how to answer some of my questions that way rather than asking knowledgeable members to repeat stuff they wrote years ago. If I fail, I hope you won't mind guiding me into it.

Is there discussion in any known location of the pros and cons of converting an early Seven from positive to negative earth? I keep struggling with finding positive earth parts for my 1962 S2, and keep being tempted to try it. Could work, and could be a very expensive failure. Thoughts?

There's a related concept that I use when teaching fire extinguisher use. Neither gasoline nor wood actually burn. What burns is a combination of oxygen (in air) and the flammable vapor from each. You have to heat wood or gasoline up to its "flash point," which is when it gives off flammable gas. For wood that's around 450 degrees F. but for gasoline it's about -45 F. You can't get a log going with a cigarette lighter because every time you remove the lighter the log dissipates the heat.

Damned good point, JB. My young friend hit the jackpot on fuel/air mixtures. Let's be careful, folks. Hand sanitizer has been the culprit in a bunch of hand fires for people lighting cigarettes immediately after rubbing in a squirt of the stuff. Good news; he's been released from the burn unit with a huge bandage down one leg, and is home again. Yeah, we play with fuel/air mixtures every time we adjust a choke.

Everyone knows that if you pour sugar into the gas tank of a combustion engine the result is ruining the engine, as in, burning sugar in the cylinders and a massive seizure. Used by the underground in WWII and by teenaged vandals ever since. Nope. Look at the picture below. At the bottom, a tablespoon of granulated sugar. The yellow stuff is gasoline, and it's been sitting on my desk for several months now. The answer is (and it helps to be married to a chemist here) that sugar does not dissolve in gasoline. You might clog a fuel filter, and it could be a mess to clean up, but no. The chemist is also archivist for a WWII museum. Apparently what did work was a hand grenade with a rubber band holding the spoon in place. Gasoline does dissolve rubber. On an unhappy note, a 10 year-old friend of mine got hospitalization level burns Friday evening when he lit a match in a small garage restroom where alcohol-based hand cleaner had been spilt. I would not have guessed that an explosive fuel/air mixture would have resulted.

Yeah, I tried doing without the leather strap that came with my S2. Can you picture the bonnet sailing above my head and landing on the road behind me? Fortunately I had the road to myself. The cam latches on the bonnet must have been marketed by Lucas Electric.

I'm not going to recommend Lexan in this application. Lexan (polycarbonate) is softer than plexiglass (acrylic). The fine high-speed grit coming off a road would pit it very quickly. Lexan is so soft that you can bend a sheet of it in half without it cracking. On the other hand, it is wonderfully tough against impact. Plexiglass is harder but more brittle and is usually used for plastic windows like our face shields and goggles.

My understanding, and I am not a battery authoritarian, is that the Lead-Acid setting would be a better match. AGM batteries are lead-acid, with a mat added, so the chemical processes are more like L-A than like Lithium. But then, at less than 3 amps and a maintaining circuit, I don't imagine your damaging it either way.

Have we exhausted ideas? If so, I vote for any of the near relatives of the original design proposed by JohnCh, such as this one: A risk in doing a group design is each person having a very specific favorite, such that no consensus is reached. I actually would prefer a slightly lower bonnet and wings, because it looks more Caterham than Lotus, and I own a 1962 S2. Perhaps someone with more investment in the organization than I have developed could propose a model that he/she thinks everyone could live with.

Several of the profile designs (which as a group I like) have a blank space that could be occupied by wing fenders (AKA clam shells). I think the designs would be improved by the addition thereof.

Let me work in that "pretty messy" garage for two days and you would not be able to find the John Deere Gator.

Climbing into the car when it's in the wild? That's awful. Get them out of the gene pool before they reproduce. Never happen in this part of the country. People are much too polite for that. Lisa asks if "the kids" would like to sit in the Model T for pictures.

Yes to the kids and ambivalent on taking the bonnet off. My wife (1924 Ford Model T) and I are engaged in a campaign to get all entered cars to have explanatory plaques. A paragraph or so naming the car, why it is significant, and a bit of its history. Most of the visitors at our shows cannot even name a Lotus 7, but they are interested in cars and want to know more.

Good morning. Is there an accepted paint number of formula for British Racing Green? Jaguar has one, but it seems almost black to me. Some manufacturers try to palm off Case Green (as in the heavy equipment manufacturer) or Hunter Green as BRG. Neither is really right. Thoughts?

Today I will build an additional carport to join 2 existing carports and five garage bays, with 1962 Lotus Seven Trailer that takes it to car shows 1924 Ford Model T Enclosed trailer that takes it to car shows 2017 Miata RF (pop top) Yamaha TW200 dirt bike 1994 Jeep with crane (retrieves the bike, plays in mud) 2007 Ford F150 (tows the enclosed trailer and 1924 Model T 2017 Dodge Caravan (dogs, plywood, tows Lotus Seven) And now, with the new carport, a 1926 Ford Model T BARN FIND! I guess we're back in the restoration business.

Can anyone name a source of a 13" wheel like this one? I need a spare tire, and the rim I have was damaged beyond repair during my car's racing career. Thanks.

Cros and CharlesG, that thing looks like the designer was on acid. It is repellant to even think about it, much less meet it on the highway.