pethier

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.

A search locally turns up BCPR6ES. which MAY be the same thing in a "resister" plug. Is this OK?

PM sent

In Minnesota you can buy 100% gasoline for your lawnmower or your old car. Gasoline sold here for modern cars is 10% ethyl alcohol (E-10). Ethanol is an "oxygenator". 100% gasoline has no added oxygenator (ethanol), so is often called non-oxy. Non-oxygenated gasoline is kinder to old-school cars and small engines, stores better, and contains more energy. The flip-side is E-85. It has less energy per gallon, but nearly immune to pre-ignition knock. The turbo crowd loves this stuff because they can turn up the boost. Of course, to keep up, they need huge fuel injectors. In any case, you can buy both these kinds of fuels here.

Went to drive it around the block without bonnet and nose to test. Seemed to run just fine. I stopped to help some folks pack up a borrowed easy-up. While I was helping them put it in a car, one of them made an unexpected move and injured my thumb. I noticed I was bleeding. No good deed ever goes unpunished. /s Bandaged the thumb. Installed nose (love those push-buttons), popped on the bonnet, and snugged-up the outside mirrors. Tomorrow I'll go to Kwik Trip for 91-octane non-oxy.

You never know. The best alignment tech in the Twin Cities is impossible to reach on his shop phone, Email works the best. You just never know.

The job looks essentially done. The car up fired on the first try. Lots of oil pressure indicated No leaks noted so far. The car is still on ramps. I need to move some stuff around and get the car back on the floor before a test drive. Checked the compression while I was there. Looks OK, but my compression checker is past its prime years (well, decades), so I will revisit that later. I posted about spark plugs. I'll go check again to see if anyone answered.

I assume that is Houston Texas, not Houston Minnesota. Do you ever see/hear Hamilton Loomis playing around town? I met him in Saint Paul at a crossharp seminar he ran. He's a great musician with an interesting backstory. He's from Galveston, but I think he lives in Katy now.

I had no difficulty getting the oil pump past the engine mount. I had thought that maybe I would have to move the steering column (RHD car) out of the way, but that just cleared. I had originally thought I could get the oil-cooler sandwich-plate to come out the top without taking the hoses off of it. It would not make the corners around the steering column. Since the plate was already loose, it was not practical to break the hose connections at the plate. I solved this by removing the hoses at the cooler end. With all the oil drained from the cooler and hoses, I re-attached the cooler to its mounts so I could get enough torque on the hose connections to disconnect the hoses at that end. Threaded each hose back through the bottom of the car and plate came easily out the bottom.

If I were to use the car the way I have used sports cars (pleasure driving on the road and USA-style autocrosses) AND also do long-session big-track days, I would certainly want to go with a thermostatic oil-cooler system. Since I won't be doing long-session big-track days, I have decided that the oil cooler is not worth its weight in the front of the car. I have it boxed up and on the shelf. I had originally thought I could get the oil-cooler sandwich-plate to come out the top without taking the hoses off of it. It would not make the corners around the steering column. Since the plate was already loose, it was not practical to break the hose connections at the plate. I solved this by removing the hoses at the cooler end. With all the oil drained from the cooler and hoses, I re-attached the cooler to its mounts so I could get enough torque on the hose connections to disconnect the hoses at that end. Threaded each hose back through the bottom of the car and the plate came easily out the bottom.

Yes, there were three bolts holding on the oil pump. Two had very-tired lockwashers. The third had a useless-looking internal-star washer. I have fresh lockwashers on-hand.