LoTusH

That looks like a lovely detailed HCP from that photo. The number of 7 owners in the Midwest seems to be on the rise! I know of 8 in the Minneapolis area now. It seems Chicago is another local hotbed.

My old 7 had to have one in the UK so looked like this: Less than ideal…

Thank you. I’m a bit of a fiend when it comes to batteries. I had an odyssey 680 in the Atom, but managed to get through 3 in 8 years. Mainly because my cars go into hibernation for 5 months here in Minnesota and I forget to swap the trickle charger over. My uncle dropped a new battery in my 7 before it was shipped over as Covid had prevented any use. Unfortunately, it’s a monster of a battery and larger than the already large one that was in there before. Think I’ll give the ATX12HD a go and fit a battery cut off switch at the same time. Cheers!

Anyone have any smallish battery recommendations please?

Thanks again. I topped up all the fluids and took it for a boat today without the engine cover on. The temp stayed pretty constant, but the engine bay smoked nicely! Burning off the wax on the exhaust wrap. Im going to look into the expansion cans. Thanks for the prompt. I’m also going to see about the fuel regulator, but that will be a little project once I get the cooling sorted. I think I’m going to try some rad flush for the system, followed by a good hose through the rad itself. When I got home and went to restart, the battery had died, so looks like another thing to dig into! Either new battery or alternator (though that looks pretty new, so I’m guessing battery troubles). Edit: sorry for the questions - will move to the other thread

Thank you for the great advice! When you say an expansion tank to the firewall to fill completely for more coolant capacity, do you mean just a large reservoir with a single water connection (so no in and out, just a single tube connecting to it)? I have a long weekend this weekend, so will probably try doing a system flush with chemicals, followed by a hose pipe wash out of the rad as you mentioned. Then I will recharge the system with new fluids. You are right about checking that the thermostat actually opens all of the way (or even some of it!). Rookie error by me and something that my 18 year old self would be more than amused at me missing. I think first step will be to make sure the radiator hoses get hot with a flush of heat. No idea about the pressure regulator being ethanol compatible or not. I must check that out. It came on the car when I bought it. I have no idea if it has unleaded heads either, so I am just putting additive in when I use it.

Thank you. I’ll try contacting them and see what they have to offer!

Thank you. It can be a little confusing as I’m used to driving on the other side too! Last night I finally got the wrap on. Now I just need to decide what to try next for cooling before I do the closed system this winter. I will probably just give the system a flush and add water wetter and call it good for now. Anyone have any recommendations for good alloy radiators and rear mounted fan configurations that fit an early Xflow (sprint) car? Thanks!

It’s great to find a site that doesn’t care, whether you have an official Lotus/Caterham or another 7 type car. I bought my first Seven back in 1989. A prelitigation Westfield. I had it resprayed red. This is my Dad and I back then. This was his first drive of it. He wasn’t much of a car guy. I ended up going to school with a certain Nick Smart and got into the Ariel company. The company I work for sent me to the US about 18 years ago and started my fight with the MN DMV/department of safety, to get an Atom approved for the road. Finding some loopholes in the MN statute, and a 3+ year fight, I finally had a road legal Atom (I think still the only one). I’m now in my 50s and decided I wanted something a little less raw. So I started a search for a Caterham. My family still lives in the UK, so thinking about the 25 year classics exception, I searched and found this little beauty. Unfortunately I missed a K series car and discounted any Q reg cars (wanting to make the import as question less as possible - I think MN DMV have my name on their ‘naughty’ list) so settled on this Xflow 1600. Sevens and Classic did some head work for me and then… Covid happened. So the car sat in my uncles garage for a year. With some of the restrictions lifted, the car was taken to the port and RoRoed to the US. I used a broker to get it through customs and they arranged a shipper to my front door. This left me with an overstocked garage… so my tool room looked like this! One car sale down and I managed to get everything in, but found I had two cars for the same thing. So I mentioned to a friend I was thinking of selling the Atom during lunch at work. The next day his friend was over and it was gone(!) So now I just have the Caterham. I have a bunch of the usual issues to sort. It was spewing gas after its RoRo trip, which I’ve managed to tame, but it still overheats after 20 miles in the heat. So this winter, I’m going to wrap the exhaust header, move to a closed system, new radiator and fan and also block up the gaps around the radiator and the nose cone. I have a few other cars that need work too, so progress will depend on priority!