slomove

I went to a local shop that has experience with Corvettes, i.e. fiberglass patching and prepping. For all 4 wings and the nosecone (disassembled) I paid $850, but this is L.A. and probably a bit more expensive. The paint job quality was excellent but for regular paint/clearcoat, not metal effect or other exotic stuff.

Ahem....I hope you noticed it was mostly not my car with all the mishaps but several others I was touring with. If that all had happened to me I would have given up touring long time ago. My own car was mostly well behaved. Another proven preventive maintenance item that is popular with the biker crowd. May help with Sevens, too ;-)

I think most of the listed items in the previous posts should cover it. Problem is that you just can not prepare for everything and there is always a risk to get stranded. But that is part of the adventure. After doing 4 long tours (USA2005, PNW2007, Rockies 2009, Black Hills 2011) and numerous shorter ones with total >25,000 miles I remember following failures (out of a larger population of cars): - ripped oil sump on USA2005 (some other driver had miraculously a spare) - other oil loss (engine loss, too) - several wiring failures (could all be identified and fixed) - several exhaust and exhaust bracket cracks (could all be fixed with local shops) - lots of leaking hoses (hose clamps and other temporary measures got them home) - leaking oil pan (black silicone is your friend) - broken fuel pump (local auto store) - broken wing stay on my car (hose clamp band aids) - broken alternator (needed spare part shipping) - broken starter (needed spare part shipping) - broken alternator regulator (no action, battery survived) - cracked rim/rock damage (needed spare part shipping) - flat tires (oh, well) - couple of law enforcement encounters (no permanent damage) After all, few really serious ones and those were hard to predict or prepare for.

AAA-plus membership card and a roll of duct tape :smilielol5: But seriously, this is useful. For weekend trips I just carry a tool bag with selected content that has proven to be useful over a few years, and some wire, hose clamps, sealant etc. I have not actually used much of that while touring but was able to loan it to several people who were driving without. On longer tours to the middle of nowhere I also take spare belts and a PC for the ECU.

You can get this also here. I have not tried it but might be worthwhile because the windshield gets pitted as well and mine has already 2 larger star cracks. If that film actually helps avoiding that it may be a few bucks well invested.

Do you have an in-tank pump? That would be unusual for a Birkin (as far as I know) but if so, yes they need to be submerged or at least splashed with fuel to keep cool.

My '98 Birkin had the boot tub also glued with silicone to the skin/frame. I used a sharp box cutter to go all around and cut a single straight slit through the sealant. Now it goes back in and out and still looks reasonable.

Might be cavitation. There have been Birkins of a certain vintage that had a sintered filter in the suction tube. At higher temperatures, the vacuum on the suction side of the pump caused the fuel to bubble. But mostly that led to loss of fuel pressure and eventual stall, too. The only way to solve this was cutting out the filter inside the tank, which must be difficult.

Don't want to troll here or start a 200-post discussion. But after driving or riding in a bunch of Sevens I came to the conclusion that proper spring and shock setup makes a bigger difference in handling than live vs. deDion. No experience with IRS, though. So, while deDion has a theoretical advantage I would not call it "huge". There is probably a reason that mainstream automotive technology practically abandoned deDion decades ago. Yes I know there are a few other deDion cars left like Smart and a special Ranger version. O.K., now I have done it....but I bet there were earlier threads about this topic.

Thanks guys, looks like that is quite normal. The film suppliers just leave one with the impression this solves all the damage problems. I will keep this film on until it looks too ugly and then replace it, maybe with the thicker headlight protection film. And I may extend the rubber shield a bit further up the rear wing. That is what I did and it ended up O.K. But it took me a full 2 days for the nosecone and all 4 wings and made me a nervous wreck Getting it all cut up right to go around the compound curves (especially the wing "flanges" are a bear) and working the lay-up solution to remove bubbles and blisters is a challenge. It requires good planning and making templates. Everything has to be clinically clean. A little smudge or particles on your hands and you have an ugly blemish that can not be removed. But it is entirely possible for a patient person (that is where I have a problem) and I saved a bunch of money.

When I had the car repainted 3 years ago, I covered it all with Aeroguard polyurethane paint protection film. This is one of the 3M retail versions of the ClearBra and apparently 3M has bought up all brands of such films, anyway. After only this short time, maybe 15,000 miles (admittedly with maybe 100 miles dirt road), the film looks pretty ratty on the rear wings (see pics). Obviously from small rock blasting and occasional large rock gouging. Surely better than paint chips although I can not say if the paint below is unaffected. Anyway, I was just wondering if that is common. The thin solid rubber sheet I have in the main impact area below is almost undamaged. Also, the original Birkin gel coat did not look that damaged after 10 years, just a bit sun-bleached.

I used a sheet of thin rubberized cork gasket (cut to size) that I found at the auto store and installed with non-hardening fuel-safe gasket maker for good measure (forgot the brand, but also from the auto store). That held up for a few years now.

O.K. now what? Change the thread title to "Caterham for Sale" ? :rofl:

Some of the real tall Birkin owners either cut the windscreen down to a kind of aeroscreen (like Bernie Long) or installed a lowered floor with racing seats. Birkin does not offer this from the factory (as far as I know) but it is not difficult to do.

That beats my last trip across Switzerland with 3 nice passes but in a lame rental Focus. Although there was ample adrenaline when one of the tires blew. Sometimes I need to go there with a Seven. I lived in Switzerland for 3 years and the roads are really spectacular.

I have one, the cheapo version from the auto store. The camera is powered from the rear running lights. It works with occasional flicker and is kind of useful for backing up so that you don't run over a pedestrian or fire hydrant. But I had hoped it would also help as digital rear mirror while driving and for that it is completely useless. The fisheye lens reduces anything over 30 ft away to a fly speck and the tiny monitor is anyway too small. I will see to get a better quality model with bigger screen and not-so-wide-angle camera.

I run the ignition switch supply voltage through 2 pins of a DB9 connector (Submin-D) in the dash. To get the car going the key (i.e. DB9 plug) connects these pins. All other pins are grounded so if somebody experiments it will short the wrong pins and blow a fuse. If I ever lose the key (happened twice), it takes a trip to the next Radio Shack to make a new one. I did learn to remove the metal shroud around the front end of the plug to avoid inadvertent shorting of the pins while engaging. Cheap, reliable and few people would suspect the computer connector in the dash is a key (if anything probably a data logger). On top of that the whole wiring is non-standard and pretty inaccessible under the dash. The ignition relay is self-holding so even if the plug should fall out, the engine keeps running until turned off. When I park the car overnight in the open (e.g. hotel lot) I usually string a heavy duty motorcycle cable lock through a wheel and suspension and remove the steering wheel to make it more difficult to roll away. I also prefer old fashioned motels with the car in front of the door over big box hotels with dimly lit lot.

Snooping around on Youtube I found we even have a band , well kind of :cooldude: But I did not see them having another hit than this one. Oh, well.

A question to Southern Oregonians or Northern Californians: For our mini tour in August I am looking at driving this road (among other major highways). It looks pretty nice on Google Street view but it is officially just a Forest Road. Any more information about the road condition? Anybody been there? Thanks!

Darn, and I thought Se7ens are unstealable here in the US but I guess not every thief would know about the community dragnet. I hope you get it back in one piece or have good insurance.

Thanks John and Jim, it will be a Friday, so I hope traffic is not too bad and the route suggestion looks good.

Keep in mind, the AFR for most wideband systems is just calculated from the lambda values as the oxygen sensor sees it. That means, the different values for alcohol mixes are kind of compensated for. Alternatively you need to tell the wideband meter what the mix is and interpret the values accordingly. But that makes it only unnecessarily complicated. I leave mine on 100% gasoline and no matter what the alcohol mix is the AFR 14.7 should indicate a lambda of 1.0. Anyway, I assume the AFR of 10.0 at 2500 rpm means WOT? That may be O.K. and nobody does that for long time, anyway. But if that would be also true for cruising with minimal throttle you would foul the plugs in no time.

Touareg are denizens of the Sahara desert. I guess VW wants to suggest a suitability of this car for the Paris-Dakar rally. Well at least while that still took place in Africa....

Thanks John, that would be interesting. We did however decide on a route and booked the hotels already. So there may be limited wiggle room for changes. Anyway, here is our plan: Date Day Route Miles 08/11/12 Sat Home-Visalia 286 (Lake Isabella, Kern River, Sequoia NF) 08/12/12 Sun Visalia-Lee Vining 295 (Kings Canyon NP, Yosemite NP, Tioga Pass) 08/13/12 Mon Lee Vining-Oroville 296 (Mono Lake, Sonora Pass, Gold Country/Hwy49) 08/14/12 Tue Oroville-Alturas 244 (Northern Sierra, High Desert) 08/15/12 Wed Alturas-Grants Pass 234 (Goose Lake, Klamath Lake, Rogue River) 08/16/12 Thu Grants Pass-FortBragg 332 (Hwy199, back roads to Hwy96, Redwoods, best part of Hwy1) 08/17/12 Fri Fort Bragg-Santa Cruz 249 (Hwy 1) 08/18/12 Sat Santa Cruz-LagunaSeca-Greenfield 97 (Historic Races) 08/19/12 Sun Greenfield-Home 286

Hello John, I tried to make this work and would love to do this. But Rosie must be back Monday. She is in charge of the high school library and this is the week of hell with 7000 text books to be checked out. So, given her schedule and my remaining PTO I don't have a choice.