pethier

There was a bit of banging and popping as the car was warming up. I was unsure about where the "choke" (yeah I know Webers use an "enrichment circuit" instead of an actual choke) should be set. The car has always, for the time I was testing it in Illinois and the couple of times I have had it in Minnesota, while fully-warmed-up, had some popping on the overrun, just like my 1600 did years ago. But two things: There did not seem to be a bang associated with the sudden onset of smoke. and There did not seem to be a loss of power associated with the sudden onset of smoke. I had keep the power on to get up the hill a bit farther to get off the road. I made no attempt to restart the car, and I won't until I get it from the trailer and into my shop.

Thanks!

Preliminary info to open thread. Minutes after posting a digression about tying down a Seven in a trailer, I set out to see how my car felt at speed with the "hood erected" and no doors. Going up a short steep hill at neighborhood speed with the engine not fully warmed, suddenly a stream of smoke about as big around as my fist issued into the slipstream from forward/under the forward air cleaner. No strong smell. Switched off, made it off the street and pulled the bonnet off. No fire, thankfully. Could not see much. Reached in my pocket for a penny. Didn't have one. Walked home and fired up my Suburban and picked up my trailer. A friendly local recognized the car as a Caterham and was a huge help in loading. Thanks, Nick! Got the rig home. Tomorrow I will get the Seven out of the trailer, through my garage and into my shop. Depending on what I find, it may go right back on the road or wait for spring.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture and ten words is worth a million. I'd like to see some words to go with this picture. "Cats mating in the wild get a bit rough." I am looking a little closer now and see that the nose and fender are in the air. I assume that they are the left rear fender of the leading car and the nose of the trailing car.

I have good news: The tie-down scheme works fine. I have bad news: I had to use it. Yes, this quickly after my latest post here. I will stop highjacking this thread now and start one about the problem.

That's the one. We LOGers were at Watkins Glen for our Panoramic Photo, Laps, and Lunch during that PCA track event. After lunch I went out to take pictures of the track event. (I had been standing in my trailer at home holding my bin of narrow-tire basket-style straps wondering if it was worth taking them on the trip, as simple straps on the center of the wider tires and wider track of the Elise allowed single strap over each tire. Decided that maybe I would be called on to help someone with an early Lotus. Made the correct choice, as it turns out.) The gentleman who had driven his Lotus Seven to the LOG in Corning from Massachusetts with his young son encountered a stone embedded in an unpaved infield road. The stone rolled up out of its hole and lifted the car via the engine/gearbox assembly, breaking mounts and blowing the hood off of the car. I came upon the scene in my Elise. They limped the Seven over to Craig Straub’s trailer. Craig assessed that MAYBE they could get the car back on the road if they could get a few certain parts off the Seven and get them welded. Parts in hand, I drove the Elise back to Corning with the Seven owner's son to get the welding done for the Seven. The welder sent me to a hardware store across town to get a washer. On my way back, the Seven owner phoned to tell me that further investigation had revealed that the repair was not going to work. Called the owner's son at the welding shop and told him to settle up with the shop and expect to be picked up by a red Suburban with a white trailer. Back to the trailer area at the hotel to exchange the Elise for the rig, to the welding shop, and back to Watkins Glen. Damned thankful I'd brought those "spare-gear" straps. We found a parking spot for the Seven. The gentleman’s brother in Mass promised to scrounge a trailer and come for them after the LOG. Fast-forward ten years: I used these same straps when I drove to Illinois to donate "uncle jack" the Stag to the club that built it, and to pick up the 1700 Super Sprint. Each basket-style strap has rotating hooks. In addition to the messing around getting the baskets on correctly, fiddling with getting rotating hooks into the floppy rings E-track clips is a pain. The single-strap setups came with E-track clips on each strap end and on the pulley. This is much-easier to deal with for every trip. The tires on the 1700 Super Sprint are wide enough for the single straps, but the car width is too narrow to do this safely. As soon as I got back to Minnesota. I laid down four five-foot E-tracks inside the existing tracks. These line up too narrow for the Seven. No worries. One clip on the wide track and one clip on the narrow track puts the strap directly over the center of the tread at the top of the tire.

Are you doing OK with Elise cars, Tony?

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture and ten words is worth a million. I'd like to see some words to go with this picture.

I think I was there. I had to help rescue a Seven from Mass that had had an unfortunate encounter with a large rock in the infield at The Glen.

Gotta love the backup set of goggles!

Not going to do it for me. My mother was 100% Irish, and I am melanin-deprived. In summer, my face fries in the sun. Given a choice between coating my face with zinc cream or putting on the car top, I'm putting on the car top.

I found a great way to defeat the assault on my ears and face. Cover up my head. I own two helmets for autocross: An open Snell SA hemet and a full-face Snell M helmet Drove my Seven on Minnesota roads today in 50-degree-F windy weather.. No top, No doors, No windwings. Wore the full-face motorcycle helmet. Worked a treat. At speed, flipped the clear visor down. Still heard the engine sounds. Was perfectly comfortable, no face-warping buffeting. Low speeds or stopped at at a traffic light, flipped the clear visor up. Felt fine and no fogging.

This photo implies that there is no need to unlock the steering to pull the shaft, as the forward end of the locking slot is open anyway. Of course, they might not all be built like this. On my car at least, this locking collar can not be seen on the assembled car.

I think that by the time you are bulging the bushing that the larger-diameter overlay that engages the anti-theft lock is aft of the lock and no-longer a factor. if you can spin the wheel with the ignition key out of the car, I believe the lock is no-longer relevant. I have stopped trying to remove the shaft since it looks like my "negative spacer" trick is going to work. When I get my spacer made, I will photograph everything. Using Socket Head Cap Screws to assemble the quick-remove gizmo. Figured out that by drilling 9 more holes in the male half and the stock boss and then counterboring all 18 holes I can make the screw heads all "disappear" into the boss. This means that all I lose for arm-reach is the half-inch thickness of the male half of the removable gizmo. I think I have moved the shaft forward that much, so I think I will be able to make the wheel removable and still have the wheel in its original position. After moving the shaft, I bolted the wheel to the boss and I think that with my gloves on I would foul the headlight high-low switch. A half-inch aft of that should be abut perfect. The irony here is of course that if this system pans out, there was never a reason to pull the boss off of the shaft in the fist place. This is what happens when you design by degrees... If I do wind up pulling the shaft someday, I may run a pulley to the rollbar crossbrace or some such trick to get more power. Have to think about a setup to catch it so as not to damage anything.

There is no actual red line on my tachometer. I have not noticed a rev limiter kick in. (I test drove a Rover K Caterham and there was a hard rev limiter at 7,000.) I don't expect a 1700 crossflow to rev to 8500 like my Elise did. And I don't want to over-rev it either. Anyone have any guidance for me?

Not me. I'm not hammering on anything before I try a puller. If the puller is on and not doing its thing, I may then tap the puller straight on. I recall that I had trouble once with a ball-joint separator on my Lotus Elise. It was tightened up and just sat and looked back at me. I left the shop and went in the house to get nastier clothes on before getting rough with it. When I arrived back at the shop, the ball joint had popped while I was gone. Of course I had had the nut on loose, so nothing flew around.

It should be the outer edge, IMHO. Dunno if there is a real standard. The way I see it, what you want to know is where the wheel interacts with the driver. The important metric laterally would be how far apart the driver's hands are. This will be determined by the outside diameter of the wheel. In the context of the concern of the author of this thread, the OD would be the logical consideration, as each inch of reduction in the OD would net a half-inch of thigh clearance. I do recall that my Lotus 65 Europa fit me perfectly, but my daughter's then-boyfriend had the same thigh-clearance problem as the thread author. That Europa came to me with a Grant GT wheel which was smaller and fatter than the stock wheel. (A guy in Nottingham sold me a NOS original Lotus button that perfectly replaced the ugly Grant GT button in 20 seconds without tools. This gentleman had somehow acquired two boxes of these buttons, one box yellow and green, one box black and silver.)

Mine has 9 screws outside the center cap. Makes my "negative spacer" trick possible. My boss has places to grab with a two-jaw puller. Would have worked if I had left the steering wheel on. I needed an impact wrench to get the big nut off first.

Thanks! I guess that's what I imagined. it explains how there is the same dimeter on both ends of the Secret Tunnel. I have to admit that this is the first car I have ever had in which I could not see the ignition key from the driver seat. (It being on the left side of the wheel is no problem; it is on the left in my Cayman, but I can look around and SEE it!) My previous Caterham was from 1971, and the key was directly in the middle of the dashboard. I think I will continue on with my "negative spacer" project before traveling farther down that road. When I get this first phase done, I will post pix.

260mm is about 10-1/4 inches. My Moto-Lita is about 11-1/2 inches OD.

I have a 1700 Super Sprint now. Not sure what my other Caterham was, but I think it was a 1600 crossflow.

I guess what I don't know is what is sticking out on the shaft that is hitting the bushing? I thought the shaft was the same diameter on both ends. Is there another layer of tubing that holds the shaft together that I can't see because of the enclosed steering column?

Hmm. Maybe I can get it out. The stop seems really hard, but the movement of the bushing, and the fact that I seem to be well-past the key lock seems encouraging. I just don't want to break stuff. If I can't get this shaft out, plan B is to add my new removable-wheel kit (bolts to Moto-Lita 9-bolt Caterham boss and bolts to Moto-Lita 9-bolt wheel) so the release mechanism sits AFT of the steering wheel. I want the wheel to wind up in its original position. This is possible because the Moto-Lita central hole is big enough to clear the release mechanism. A spacer 1.5” thick gets me within a half-inch of the original position, and I think I have enough slide room on the safety clamp to do the rest. I think I have designed a method to work the release from the driver side of the wheel. When the car has to be pretty, the Caterham-Logo plastic wheel trim should cover the workings.