pethier

I forgot a step. Give it another shot.

... and hope they see you. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/53932561666/in/album-72177720319624972 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/53932561661/in/album-72177720319624972/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/53931658517/in/album-72177720319624972/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/53932804638/in/album-72177720319624972/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/53933008540/in/album-72177720319624972/ In Bob's Cycle Supply in Little Canada (yes, you folks in New England, here in Minnesota we have a city actually named Little Canada) to pick up an extra helmet, I saw they were selling dune-buggy flags for less than twenty bucks including sales tax. I had just been wondering where you go hereabouts to buy such things. This ain't Pismo Beach. The inside cut that I had had to saw out of the 1/4-inch aluminum plate for the cone-redirector (the outside cuts were all sheared by Metal Supermarket to my pattern) yielded a chunk from which I could fashion a place to mount it. When I first road-tested the flag (which is sold in two halves that the user is to simply press together) I wanted to test it on the freeway to see if it would stay together. it didn't even get to the freeway. I was cruising through Cherokee Park at about 25 MPH and it separated. This suggests the question: How slow do they think dune-buggies are? Did a U-turn, picked up the top section and headed for home. I made a little wooden block to drill a hole for a hair pin. I was astonished at how accurately it came out. The drill was only a few thousandths larger than the hairpin, yet I could rotate the shaft 180 degrees in the coupler and the hairpin still fit. I road-tested it again. At 30 MPH it waves all over the place, and I was a little concerned about the freeway. I needn't have worried: At 70 MPH on the freeway, it calmed down considerably. I have since knocked off another 5 inches so it clears the trailer and also is not too high for folks in pickups and vans to see.

Picky clarification, and I am certainly open to education. Plexiglas = Acrylic = Perspec Lexan = polycarbonate You can shove Lexan through a table saw. Much tougher, more-forgiving stuff.

I drive with the top on, no doors. Help a bit with the buffeting, and a lot with the sunburn. I'm lucky that my rear window zips open. I took the advice of another member here to wear lightweight 3M headphones. This one model has half the sound reduction of the full-depth ones. I went one step further and took out the foam. https://www.amazon.com/gp/buyagain/ref=pd_hp_d_atf_rp_3?ie=UTF8&ats=eyJleHBsaWNpdENhbmRpZGF0ZXMiOiJCMDBDUENINjU4IiwiY3VzdG9tZXJJZCI6IkEyTVFJNVMxSk5TT01PIn0%3D&pd_rd_w=VvIDg&content-id=amzn1.sym.847e5829-7b9f-4dac-b414-6765cc1ef5a7&pf_rd_p=847e5829-7b9f-4dac-b414-6765cc1ef5a7&pf_rd_r=R6MR1X5MTKE1V14C5G9A&pd_rd_wg=gJ1Bk&pd_rd_r=9346b236-a6fd-404c-81b5-1a31b258044e

Yes, I got a new RR fender from Caterham in Firecracker Yellow gelcoat. Took it and all the other fiberglass parts to the body shopand had them scan the new fender. They mixed paint to match. They painted all the other parts and returned the gelcoat part unchanged. In retrospect I imght have been well-served to scrounge a new fender in any color and have them all painted a more-common-in-USA yellow. More to your question: Some years back, a Menards guy in Indiana sold me some white paint for my trailer to cover bare aluminum spots where stickers had been removed Rust-Oleum brand WATER-BASED spray cans. He said the stuff sticks well to bare aluminum. Well, it seems to. Maybe a grey version of that is what you seek. I keep the stuff in my trailer. Remind me tomorrow. I need to get the trailer for something else.

Yeah. I did it.

Just for laughs, I checked the Caroll Smith page on Wikipedia this morning. It reports that Mr. Smith himself insisted the story was true and gave out stickers to cover the title on the book with his first choice. Caroll's website is still up, and there is a lot of interesting stuff there. https://www.carrollsmith.com/https://www.carrollsmith.com/ "As of 1/1/2023, we are now handling all orders through our Amazon Account."

A-frame is a great way to lower rear roll center. Agree that welding tabs on a pumpkin looked dodgy. Caterham De Dion use of A-frame geometry looks better. Suspension arms are longer as the De Dion tube is aft of the driveshafts.

And that clears your long (clamshell) fenders?

Anybody else willing to try this? Installation has been worth the effort!

The trick for me is to see the coming and have enough time to get the doors out of the boot and zip the rear window closed. When I had a 1979 Caterham 1600 crossflow, I discovered it was easier to get in the car and then put on the door. Those doors didn't fold, and I have not yet tried this with the foldable doors. I have found that it is easier to mount the doors quickly if one has shortened the upper hinge pins by about 1/4 inch. This allows one to align the upper hinge after the lower hinge is already started. Aligning both hinges at once is difficult enough when I am standing outside, but doing it when I am already seated makes makes me entirely too much fun to watch.

Thank you. You have been very good to me on this site, and I appreciate your efforts.

The way I prepared for some occasional rain to get in the cockpit is to remove all the cockpit carpet except for over the transmission tunnel.

I have the full hood with the zip-open rear window. My Irish skin likes shade, so I like to have the top on when it is sunny. With this setup, I have no need of a half-hood. I do have to roll the rear window, since the roll bar prevents the window from just lying down as i did in my Stag and my Miata. I have discovered that the folding doors that came to me with the car can be put into and out of the boot through the back window. The FIA roll bar does not prevent this. I carry each door in a huge pillowcase. Of course I have removed the mirrors from the doors. A loop of cable-tie through the tiny zipper tab makes it much easier to operate the rear window if rain threatens.

Sidebar: I have not been able to independently confirm the story that Mr. Smith wanted to call this book "Screw to Win" to continue the title-pattern of his previous books. The story goes that the publisher refused...

I bet this one works better. You should be able to click on the photo itself and be taken to Flickr itself where you can punch it out to full resolution.

The first one (from the shop looking into the garage) looks perfect here. I posted a second photo in exactly the same manner just a few minutes later and it did not work at all. Worse yet, i can't seem to find a way to erase the duds.

IMG_6541 Still wants to play 74PHIL as I am about to push it from the garage into the shop. It looks like it does not want to go into the shop. Come on, I need to put the truck in the garage. You can go outside and play again soon.

Would not have helped me. The first cone hit pulled all five of the rivnuts on the front half of the fender out of the aluminum body. I knew the solution had to be attached to the frame and not depend on the fender itself.

My quick solution was a piece of 1/4" aluminum plate. Held in with all four of the seat-rail bolts. For future convenience, I ditched the stock metric bolts for SAE hex bolts. Much easier to deal with than the Phillips-type originals.

I tried to find Vaseline (or any brand) Petroleum Jelly in a squeeze bottle at the drug store and struck out. Scooping the the stuff out of a jar would mean I would wind up having to re-clean the oil pump face. Easy way out, i just bought a tube of assembly lube at O'Reilly. Squirted assembly lube into the pump whilst rotating the pump gear. Got instant oil pressure running on the starter motor. Non-Seven experience: My Renault-engine Lotus Europa could lose prime during an oil change. The filter was horizontal, the filter mount was a vertical wall on the side of the engine. With the the filter removed, I could use a pumper-can to shoot fresh engine oil into the small hole until it was full. Install new filter, and Bob's your uncle.

Shipping is always the problem with me. I have tracked down some BCP6ES to be delivered to 2 local NAPA stores.