pethier

If I had a nickel for every time that I missed the point i'd ... probably waste it all all on cars. No offense taken or intended, my friend. Good luck to all of us as we continue to tame these cars that are so amazing and so frustrating.

I absolutely agree with your points about windscreen mirrors. In the past I have had several vehicles with vertically-stacked quads. I have switched the lights around so the low beam is on the bottom. Not only is this kinder to other drivers, but also works better in fog and snow. I believe the decision of car makers to put the low beams on the top in vertically-stacked quads was a bonehead decision, especially in trucks. When I was writing about the blue coating, I was not writing about a windscreen mirror. I was writing about the wedge-mirrors stuck to the side mirrors on my Cayman. The scope of these mirrors do not cover vehicles immediately behind me, only vehicles in adjacent lanes close to me.

I have the blue tint on the little convex wedge mirrors I bought for the Cayman. I thought maybe the blue was the tear-off you get on so many products nowadays. Does not seem so. I did not know the blue was supposed to be a nighttime thing. Does not seem to be something you would need in a convex wedge mirror: The convex means the headlight will appear small and that the light intensity is spread-out. The wedge means that following cars not in the danger zone should not be in your field of view. The larger wedge mirrors I have on the F-150 have no blue coating and I certainly don't regret its absence. 7 relevance: The convex side mirrors I bought for the Birkin seem to be working well. The I-assume-stock Birkin windscreen mirror seemed a little low.* I noticed that the ball was higher on the mirror than central, so turning the mirror 180 degrees raised it nicely. *. I'm only about 5'9", but have shortish legs. I therefore sit tall in the saddle. The antithesis of Danny Kaye and Conan O'Brien.

Of course they can be removed. Grab pair of cutters and cut the back side of the block. Don't use a box cutter or the like or you could damage the strap (not as big a risk if you had Diamond Weave straps). Then just bend the block and pull it off the strap. If, after your experiment, you think you need them, just pop them back on. They will function just the same as if you had not cut them. It should be a long time before you need to replace the straps. What usually kills straps is UV radiation. You are going to use and store these straps in an enclosed trailer. I renew my endorsement of the Diamond Weave straps with the European-style friction sleeves from www.autohaulersupply.com. I didn't buy these because my original straps were shot. I bought them because they are better.

Let's start with "It probably does not make much difference due to the friction of the strap". Now, let's neglect the friction for a moment like a lot of classical physics illustrations do. If the straps go straight down to the roller and clip, then the portion of the strap between the two is at the shortest length it can be. The tire can't go anywhere because that would require more strap length. The yellow things are not ramps, but chocks. I believe they attach to the E-track. I therefore suppose they offer more resistance to the car moving forward in braking (or, heaven forfend, a crash). I don't think that strongly-enough to go out and buy a pair. What they are good at is stopping the car while you load it at the exact place you had it last time. Since I use a remote-controlled winch so I can see exactly what I am doing, I don't need permanent stops. Non-Seven sidebar: I have left door on my full-width trailer so I can open my car door. I don't bother with the winch when unloading the car, I just get and drive the car out. Some cars are set up so the car door will not clear the trailer inner fender and the trailer door. I have fashioned plywood risers that key into the E-track. I place two of these on the left track where the tires land. The front one has a wood strip at the front to prevent the car from rolling off the front of the riser if the trailer happens to be pointing downhill when I am winching a car in. These risers tilt the car enough to get door clearance. This is really a good thing, since my Cayman has a dual-clutch transmission, so just like with a conventional automatic, I have to step on the brake to get it out of park. The risers are sized so that I can still get the tire straps to the E-track slots. I don't need these risers with a Seven. I can enter either side of a Seven inside my trailer even if it has top and doors.

You don't need those rubber blocks on wide tires. I stopped using them long ago because they were a right pain on my lowered Elise. You can test the theory by leaving them off on one wheel. If the strap is placed correctly, it's not going anywhere. If it is placed incorrectly, I don't think the blocks are are going to help much. It probably does not matter, but I tend to have the parking brake on and the car in neutral. I use the space behind the car to stack up my race ramps and use a 1" ratchet strap from one E-track to the other to hold them in place. They weigh almost nothing. Ignore the D-rings. The car needs to move on its suspension. A Caterham does not offer much in the way of good places to hook tiedowns: That's what is so good about using the tires. I have a short strip of E-track about shoulder height on the side wall of the trailer near each corner of the car. About 6 slots: three for a tire strap and 3 for whatever else is hanging around. Since I run my ratchets ahead of the car, I generally only disconnect the after clip of the three on the front straps and leave the assemblies lying on the trailer floor while I am driving the car. When the trailer is used for something else, I hang the front straps on the wall E-tracks. With all three clips fastened, the mass of the straps themself is unlikely to cause any trouble. Don't just clip two; you don't want that idler roller swinging around when you are towing an empty trailer. If you need to put the car in the trailer and don't have time to tie it down right then, take one of the straps and put it in the driver footwell of the truck so you you don't come back later and drive the rig away.

Don't think much of the terrain tires on my F-150. The Michelin all-weather LT tires on my Suburban 2500 were much better. On the F-150, I keep the tires at 80 PSI all the time and use the sway-snubber.

Looks like the one in my green Birkin. More about that later. What I think are Bosch numbers in the USA are: Bosch Starter - New - SR7559N Bosch Starter - Remanufactured - SR7559X After success with getting a new starter in the (Birkinized) Caterham, today I install a starter in the green Birkin. These two starters are marketed as different brands with different part numbers. They appear to have been remanufactured in the same place in Mexico. More details after I get this second one in and tested.

Still looking around. I have apparently stored them so well I can't find them.

The substitution of a hex bolt in the Birkin upper location is not going to work. Taking taking a Dremel-type cutting disc to an 8mm Allen-key-type wrench was a great help in for the Birken middle location, but no help for the upper. On the (Birkinized) Caterham, there was plenty of room to reach all the bolts with an 8mm driver mounted on a 3/8" ratchet handle.

I have news. I stumbled into what looked like the right thing at O'Reilly and found one in stock, stuck it in my (Birkinized) Caterham and it cranks. There was one review there and the vehicle shown in the review was a 2000 Ford Ranger, so I went through all the engine choices until I found the one that returned the model that I already know works. Surprise: It's not the Ranger four-banger. Ford part that was in Steve's driveline he sold me: F32U-1131-AA - search for 2000 Ford Ranger XLT - V6 - 3.0L 2986cc 182ci GAS MFI vin U - 2 valve OHV or 2000 Ford Ranger Sub-Model: XLT Engine: 6 Cylinders 3.0L Vulcan GAS =========== Confirmed works, cranked the Zetec in my "Birkin-equipped" Caterham: O'REILLY BesTest Starter - Remanufactured - V613177 =========== Probably works: - Ultima Starter - Remanufactured - R613177 - Ultima Select Starter - New - N613177 Part # N613177 Line: USL - Bosch Starter - New - SR7559N Part # SR7559N Line: BOS - Bosch Starter - Remanufactured - SR7559X Part # SR7559X Line: BOS - Duralast Remanufactured Starter DL3264S - TotalPro Remanufactured Starter T3218 Shop All TotalPro - Raw Power New Starter ES3218S Part #ES3218S - AC Delco Gold Starter 336-1113A - NAPA Starter - Reman - Standard Part #: RAY 2449308 - Starter - Remanufactured Denso at NAPA Part #: DEN 2805104

I have had at least two Lotus cars.

bingo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/ Birkin in garage, backed up to shop door

The starter from the green Birkin has lots of Bosch South Africa notations and a little Ford oval. It has no number on the part of it shown in the photo below. =================================================================== The starter from Steve's Birkin has a Ford number. F32U-11131-AA

The starter is on the left side of the engine as shown in the 11Budlite photo. These starters were held in with M10x1.5mm socket-head cap screws. On the Birkin one of these bolts is loosened with a long extension setup 8mm hex drive in the cockpit through a hole in the footwell. This was a surprise to me, since the (Birkinized) Caterham footwell allowed me to reach all the starter bolts from under the car. I think on the Birkin I am going to replace that socket-head cap screw with a hex bolt that can be tightened with an open-end wrench.

I do not blame you for not following the bread crumbs. To recap: The original Caterham 1700 Super Sprint engine, bellhousing, and T9 transmission is now in another state, destined to be installed in a Lotus 7. My autocross friend Steve is building his Birkin into an electric car. He sold me all his gasoline stuff, including Zetec, Birkin bellhousing, and T9. I had a problem (too goofy to recount here) with "The Steve Engine". "The Steve Engine" is from a 1996 Contour. Ron, another autocross friend, is an engine mechanic and dyno tuner. Ron is going to clean and balance "The Steve Engine". To fill in, I bought a junkyard engine from a 1996 Contour (after learning my lesson by buying the wrong Zetec). Alerted by our fine friends here on USA7s, I checked out a Birkin for sale up north in Minnesota (no, not in Lakeland where others had assumed), and bought it. This Birkin has a Zetec, Birkin bellhousing, and T9. I am soon going to provide more information and photos on these starters I have.

I have done that also. It has the advantage of not needing to buy Race Ramps, and the disadvantage of putting more strain on the trailer jack and the person powering the jack. Another factor to toss into the mix is how you get the car into the trailer: Push it, winch it, or drive it. For me, the best way for me to get any kind of car into my trailer is to winch it. With my 3000-pound Champion ATC winch, I can get my 3000-pound Cayman or one of my 1300-pound Sevens in placed exactly on the E-tracks by walking alongside the car with the steering wheel in on hand and a little wi-fi remote controller in the other. When the Champion remote died, I bought a two-pack of remotes of another brand from Amazon for lunch money. I devised a system using E-track parts to change the lateral position of the winch to suit the placement of the "extraction" connection on any car. The Elise is on centerline. The Cayman and Sevens are offset by various distances. Winching allows one to observe how everything is clearing. Also handy for cleaning the stones off your tires while the tread is still warm. If I was going to put a Seven into a motorcycle trailer, I'd want to winch it. With a light, narrow trailer, a smallish truck, and a Seven, the Taber10 method makes sense. Even if the trailer floor is uphill, the winch method makes placement a breeze. After you get the car placed, put your straps over the tires and disconnect the winch cable. Be careful when selecting the winch. I started with a 1500-pound winch of another brand from Horrible Freight. The design was faulty: It allowed the cable to climb over the rim of the spool and a get jammed between the spool and the frame. Don't bother with trying to wire the winch to your rig. A substantial jump box runs the winch just fine. I have my trailer set up with lugs inside near the right door to connect a jump box (or in a pinch, jumper cables). My trailer has a recessed step inside the door, and the jump box rides and operates there. The jump box is easily recharged in my shop or motel room.

I don't know the origin of the parts in my green Birkin, but the engine certainly looks like a 2000cc non-VCT Zetec like the one in my (Birkinized) Caterham. The non-VCT Zetec engine in my (Birkinized) Caterham is from a 1996 Contour. This is the junkyard engine bought to temporarily replace the "Steve" engine. Steve built HIS Birkin from a new kit and sourced the non-VCT Zetec engine from a 1996 Contour. The T9 transmissions and the alloy bellhousings in both my Birkin and my (Birkinized) Caterham look identical. None of the engines I speak about here are VCT. I will make some measurements and take some photos and get back to this thread. ======= By mistake, I bought from a private seller a Zetec VCT from a 1999 Contour. That engine is is still at Ron's shop and has nothing whatever to do with either of my Sevens.

In your next-to last photo, it looks like your hinges might be too low. Photos can deceive. If you slap a yardstick against your trailer ramp and side it forward, does it hit your trailer floor? Put another way, does the yardstick strike the vertical surface at the back of the trailer? I believe if I put such a such a yardstick flat against my trailer ramp and pushed it forward, it would pass over (the beavertail portion of) my trailer floor. I'm not going out at midnight to check it.

I want to replace the starters in my 2 Sevens, but don't know what to ask for at the parts counter. The two starters look interchangeable. Do I need to ask for some sort of Merkur starter?

You beat me to it. I don't really need my Race Ramps for my Sevens, but I believe that's because my trailer has a beavertail. The nose cones of my Sevens easily clear my ramp. It is nicer to use them because it is smoother. The trailer belonging to savagete2860 appears have a flat floor. I originally bought the Race Ramps because my first trailer had a flat floor and I would catch something on the bottom of my wife's TR4. I originally solved this with Rhino Ramps under the back wheels of the tow vehicle, but that's a real pain. For the Elise I needed the Race Ramps not for high-centering but because the front overhang on my Elise would hit the trailer ramp before my front tires reached the ramp. The little flip-up wedge with the piano hinge on the end of the ramp did not help. I took off the wedge and the trailer ramp fits well in the notches in the Race Ramps. This also made my little winch work easier because instead of two planes to get up from street level to trailer level (trailer ramp + beavertail), I have three (Race Ramps + trailer ramp + beavertail). The inclination of the trailer ramp is reduced. Bonus is that the trailer ramp is easier to lift without the weight of the little flip-up wedge. I can toss the trailer ramp up with one hand and then use both hands to shove in a Race Ramp before the trailer ramp falls down again. For savagete2860, Race Ramps should eliminate the need for the little flip-up wedge with the piano hinge and solve the high-centering problem.