Jim 123

Stephen, good photos, and from what I se the wiring connector for the washer pump is in the boot as well. Best of luck with your engine installation.

Re 7 Wonders comments, as I said in my earlier post, I willingly stand to be shot down. I agree with 7 W's observation about the intention of the bleed pipe, but I suspect that on the later Caterhams we may have an issue because of the unique location of the Coolant Reservoir. Normally, in say a range Rover, these bottles are located under the hood at the highest point in the cooling system, and the "bleed" does what is should do. Because of the Coolant Bottle's low position in the Caterham, the bleed pipe does appear to cycle a larger-than-conventional volume of coolant back into the bottle. If you observe this, you can see the coolant flow is greater than a normal bleed pipe function; especailly before the Thermostat starts to open. When coolant is flowing back into the bottle via the bleed pipe it p*sses in, and coolant from the bleed pipe doesn't flow around the bottle (to avoid gassing) as per the design intent. The other thing that I found a problem with, is that the Max and Min Level markings on the Coolant Bottle face to the front of the car, and can not be observed without popping the nose cone off. I'd suspect a number of owners may not pick up that the coolant level has risen above Max because they can't actually see the Max Level marking. On my car the Max Level indicator is front-facing and it is below the moulded center band around the Coolant Bottle. After a coolant fill up to the Max marking, followed by some driving, the coolant level tends to rise above moulded center band, but if you can't see the Max Level line on the Coolant Bottle you don't pick up that the level has risen.

Is the wiring for the washer bottle pump also in the boot? That may be a clue to a change in location. The wiring is normally in the lower engine bay LH side. The connectors are pretty clear as they don't match with anything other than the washer pump, The bottle mounting bracket should be pre fitted at the factory to front of the passenger foot box (low down) and bolted to the foot box skin.

Here's my theory on Duratec/Sigma air locks to be shot down in flames...... Having tried to bleed air from a valve (as Dave suggested) fitted at the heater, and also bleed the top of the radiator as well, the coolant level continues to fluctuate after driving.. When the engine runs, you can see there is a constant flow into the Coolant Reservoir from it's top inlet pipe. Because the inlet pipe is so high above the main body of fluid in the Coolant Reservoir, the "returning" coolant gets aerated as it drops into the main body of liquid in the Coolant Reservoir. The "gassy" coolant then gets immediately drawn from the Coolant Reservoir back into the engine cooling circuit. Air then builds up at the high points in the circuit, and you note the Coolant Level creeps up. As air builds in the system, the Coolant level rises above "Max." With a higher Coolant Level in the Reservoir, there is reduced tendency for aeration from the inlet pipe, and things start to balance out, albeit with a high Coolant Level reading. If the return pipe was placed below the surface of the main body of fluid in the Coolant Reservoir, the system would not gas up.

Great diagram Nigel, I'm sure it will help lots of other builders. Jerry as your car has a heater, just to mention that you should take the hose from the "submarine" into the bottom heater connector. The hose from the rear of the "modine" goes into the top heater connector. You might also want to put a couple of turns of PTFE tape around the temp sensor before you fit it to the "submarine" as there is tendency for a slight weep to develop.

Get in touch if I can help Jerry. Meantime enjoy your build!

I did my 270S, but have nothing legible that I can send you. If no one comes up with a diagram I can talk you through what goes where.

47Nm according to the manual.

I've a 2016 S3 with 5 speed Mazda box. The Manual and GTY are not up to date and you may find your car is similar to mine. Firstly, if you climb headfirst into the passenger foot well, and peel back the carpet, you may find a large blanking grommet that lines up with the gearbox level plug. On my box the level plug is not a recessed hex, it is a square end section that sits proud of the gearbox casing and an appropriately sized socket should do the job from the footwell. Directly below the level plug is a hex bolt that goes into the casing. Don't touch that bolt. Also, the gearbox turret can need topping up separately, this is done by removing the gearstick.

I made up a couple of protectors using som left over packing cartons to protect each side of the perspex. They are taped along the top and one side so they go on and on and off easily. I usually put some newspaper on the screens first of all to stop any scratches. I like Andrew;'s idea though.

I use 25Nm on my Sigma wet sump.

Many OEM approved body repairers for performance cars like Porsche / Merc are required to have laser alignment jigs as a condition of them holding the OEM approval. This type of kit should be able to check chassis members, ditto hub centers for for longitudinal, lateral and vertical symmetry. Perhaps a Google search for Porsche Approved Body Repairers will turn up someone not far from your part of the world?

Thanks for taking the initiative and providing the helpful feedback Geoff. My gut tells me that the jury is still out on defining the root cause but at least CC acknowledge there is an issue.

Thanks both, I'm intrigued about the large expansion relate difference I am seeing on my car's dipstick. I wasn't expecting to see quite so much relative to the volume of oil in the sump, and I hadn't thought about metal expansion in the alloy sump pan. On my Sigma it looks like the bottom of the dipstick enters the sump at an angle as opposed to sitting vertically into the oil, and this will also exacerbate the hot / cold dipstick readings that I have seen. Wikipedia and a calculator to do some thermal expansion estimates may satisfy my curiosity.

This one has left me scratching my head and I'd be interested to learn if other 270 Owners have the same observations. My car runs has the standard, wet sump, 1.6 Ti VCT engine. As per the handbook, if I check my dipstick with the engine reading "hot" i.e. after a run, having left my car for 10 minutes. The oil level reads maximum. If I repeat the dipstick reading after the car has sat overnight and the engine is totally cold, the reading is halfway between maximum and minimum. I've put this phenomenon down to a small amount of hot oil expansion; as well as a possibility that some oil is "backing up" into the dipstick tube whilst the engine is warm and cooling down. (The latter point is a speculative guess on my part). I'm going to err on the side of safety and top up the oil based on "cold" dipstick readings, but I'd appreciate it if anyone with a similar configuration has seen the same.

Double check the floor plan on the Sprinter. Remember you will have some pretty large and heavy items to get in securely so as not to damage your body parts. I.e. Chassis with bonnet in place, 4 wheels with tyres, painted nose cone, 2 seats, a dressed engine on pallet, gearbox in a big box, diff, around 7 other boxes that take up a lot of load cube and floor area. Tyres can probably go in first, with the chassis on top, but I'd be careful about putting any boxes underneath the chassis. If you haven't already done so, you may also want to check arrangements for your kit to be insured during the movement from Dartford. Enjoy!

From my Sigma build, the cable came in MG Rover bag. Sorry but I didn't note the part number. Maybe there is a club member who has yet to fit the cable during build.

Andrew if your stripe covers the centre bonnet louvre, and it isn't lifting or bubbling, it'll be painted. I'd suggest your easiest option would be to call around either motor factors who supply paint shops with their paint; or ring around local car painters. You should be able to find one who has a paint manufacturer supplied "colour library". These are simplisticaly, a large inventory of sequenced painted cards that you can match against if you take your bonnet or car along. The bigger paint manufacturers (Glasurit, PPG, or Sikkens etc) continually update their libraries with subtle variants of known paint codes. This should let you home in on the best match, and then the "colour library" will produce the correct paint mixing formulation you need. A web search on the paint manufacturers web sites might help you chase down your local distributor or paint shops.

Andrew, from your original query. If the car has parallel stripes on the bonnet, they will be vinyl if they were done in the factory. (Visually vinyl is easy to identify as it has a more matt finish than the main body, and if you look at how light reflects from the surface, vinyl has a rougher surface appearance). Factory painted stripes are one piece applications, and unlike vinyl, I believe that the painted stripe carries through on on top of the centre bonnet louvers where vinyl won't stick. If you are looking to only add a continuation stripe to the rear panel of an existing car, any batch related colour variance due to different vinyl batches will not be discernable. You should be able to get a sample from the extensive 3M colour range that you can evaluate this against before you buy.

I had a similar glitch. You may find that if you follow Jonathan's instructions starting at step 2 (assume step 1 is already in the system memory), through to 4 you will get your first transponder tag programmed. This may involve having to wiggle the tag in the area of the ignition to ensure the transponder receiver identifies the tag. From memory, recall that I did not remove the ignition key before offering up the 2nd transponder tag but can't exactly recall the sequence I followed, but if you get one tag working let us know.

Glad to be able to help Rob. If you are not planning to do so, and help avoid your neighbours being disturbed by streaming profanities from your garage, I'd suggest you fit the headlamps and indicators to the brackets before offering the brackets to the wishbone mounts. It is a lot easier to route the associated shrink wrapped wiring through the headlamp mounts whilst the gubbins is on your bench. After you thread the wires through the grommet on the wishbone mounts, do a double check to make sure no wiring gets pinched as you put the headlamp mount into position and bolt it all together.

Re your headlamp bracket fit. If you look at the headlamp brackets ,you will see that the upper most lips are bent back through 180 degrees to slot over the wishbone mount. You should find that, by opening up the fold on the headlamp bracket by a very small amount, everything will fit without modifying the holes.

Having checked the link you these might not work without modification to your washers. You will need washers that can sit flat on the uppermost internal face of the gearbox mounting plate. From my notes, the max space you have in this area between the chamfered internal sides of the mount plate is 25-27mm (best leave a couple of mm wiggle space to line up all the holes). Your spacers will centralise when you slip them in. You might want to pop out one of the gearbox mounting bolts beforehand to check as the manual could be out of date. From my notes, I am pretty sure that, as a proof of concept, I used 14mm half nuts that allowed the gearbox mounting bolts to pass through without engaging the threads of the half nuts. These half nuts were 22mm across flats.

Marcus to lift the box off the LH chassis rail get a couple of half nuts that will allow the 2 large fixing bolts for the gearbox to pass through without touching the bore of the half nuts (I can confirm the correct half nut size when I get back tomorrow). The half nuts will be about 7mm thick. Use these between the underside of the box and the face of the mounting plate with the fixing bolts passed through the half nuts. You should be able to do this by jacking up the box with the large fixing bolts removed and avoid the hassle of trying to access the cap head bolts and nylocs that fix mounting plate. I think you'll find this can prove your theory. After a road test if you think you have a few mm too much clearance you can get a plate fabricated. The angle change to the driveline should be comfortable.

Marcus from my experience the latest Mazda 5 speed does contact the heat shielding along the inside of the transmission tunnel, but this may not be the source of your "vibrations". I'd suggest you check the chassis longitudinals that run along the bottom of the transmission tunnel and see if there is a constant gap between the gearbox casing sides and the top edges of the longitudinals. If the clearance at any point is only a couple of m.m. you might be getting a touch condition when on the road.