Paul Richards

My car has passed MOTs for 5 years with a stick on front number plate (on the nose cone - between badge and grill). Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional Edited by - Paul Richards on 6 Jan 2010 12:23:03

Tom You beat me to it. Let me know if you don't want them. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Nick Think it's a standard Rover part. I have a usable second hand one if you want one today. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Stu I think Dave Horridge has found someone who can do it to a good standard - drop him an e-mail. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Not sure that your older seats would easily adapt to fitting on the floor and it would be quite some fabrication to fasten seats to the chassis bearing in mind the chassis will be 2 inches higher than the floor. Also not sure why you'd want to still fit seats to the chassis. The later S type seats fit directly onto the flat floors which have strengthening channels below. The lowered floors are much thicker alluminium and also have stiffeners which fit under the runners. Tried and tested and appear to be perfectly strong enough, especially as on lowered floor half the rivets are in "shear". Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Charlie Just removed my floors and there was no silicon. Simply drilled the rivets from underneath and floor almost fell out. Outer part of floor is sandwiched between side skin and chassis. Inner part simply butts up to chassis. If there is silicone or similar, can you get a sharp knife or scraper between chassis and floor to cut and prise. This is what I had to do in other parts that were siliconed in. Good luck Edited to say- Assume the honeycomb simply sits on top of normal floor and presumably held by silicon. Perhaps when was floor fitted silcon ran out between floor, honeycomb and chassis sticking the lot together. Can you get a sharp knife vertically between honeycomb and chassis from insiden the car? Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional Edited by - Paul Richards on 4 Dec 2009 14:24:47

If you're really stuck and not in too much hurry, I am taking my footwells apart and could draw a template for you to copy. Blatmail me if you need me to do this. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Don't forget new rack or stops on rack to limit movement if you're moving to cycle wings from clams. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Stuart You can get various mesh patterns and in self coloured black from many accessory shops especially the ones that cater for boy racers. As has been said you can just get 2 out of a piece and you can use cable ties behind the lip of the grill so that they can't be seen. E-mail me if you need a pic. By the way I also find it better to secure the 7 grill with cable ties instead of the clips. Need to drill 2 small holes though. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

I'm still a yes. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

First thing to say is that the oil pressure gauge on a K series caterham is unreliable (mainly due to por senders) and readings will vary from car to car. Most important reading is around 3 to 4 bar when hot and running. Could probably be around 1 bar when hot on idle. When cold on start up will probably be 4 to 6 bar. These are however only rough figures - don't read too much into them. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

CageyH Your car must be an earlier model with the delay. They dropped this on later cars (post 2002 I think). Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Phil I may be wrong, but I seem to recall the reason for pushing the stick down is nothing to do with the pins, but rather to get the step on the gear lever just above the fork past a horizontal metal piece in the top of the gear lever housing. The step is shown clearly in your pic. Perhaps trimming the top of the rubber doughnuts (mmmm ) may be possible??? Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Gear lever is sprung loaded. Can't remember whether it is an actual spring or a piece of rubber. If you remove the gearlever you can 'weaken' the spring by moving the retainer at the top. This is either a circlip or the gearlever is 'swaged' to form a retainer. You would need to move this up a little by either removing the circlip or filing off the 'swaging'. You could then possibly use a small jubilee clip or similar as a retainer. To remove the gear lever is just 3 bolts, but you'll need to remove the tunnel cover which involves firstly removing gear knob and then adjusting hand brake so that lever can be moved into an upright position. You may even find that a little lubrication may help, but you'll still have to remove the gear lever. Probably easier to feed her 3 weetabix 😬 Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional Edited by - Paul Richards on 26 Oct 2009 11:00:03 Edited by - Paul Richards on 26 Oct 2009 11:00:36

Bend the pedal Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

OK I'll start you off. Coolant - you'll need to drain it, so may as well replace it. Gearbox oil Coppa grease and Threadlock always come in handy. Worth considering changing Clutch release bearing. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Dave Sounds like good advice Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Too much tread at the front? - I think not, I'd suggest that if you had less grip at the front there would be more likelihood of locking up. I would suggest that whatever you have changed you have altered the balance of the brakes from back to front. If you've not changed the front and have changed the back, my thought would be that the back brakes are not as effective as previously. What have you changed at the rear? It could simply be that the pads need to be "grippier", or it could simply be that the rear brakes are not yet bedded in. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Simon Earlier models had a different pedal arrangement with no cover. I assume Greg's car is one of these. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

I'm interested if Tiny Tim doesn't take it. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Looks like a scrapyard will be your best bet. Normally open on Sunday am. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Just to add - NEVER failed to start after all this time (7 years+). Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

Anthony Here is the article I put in Low Flying a long while ago. It seems you have the relay working, but not sending the power to the starter. Suggest you carefully re-check your conections. You have connected 30 on the relay to th positive side of the battery? K Series Starter Problem – The Cure? I have a 7 fitted with a 1.8 K series engine which I built new and since it was about 6 months old I had problems with starting when it was hot. This was cured by the fitting of a couple of new starter motors, but kept on returning after a while. It was at it’s worst when on a long motorway trip and the car got very hot. This was most embarrassing when filling with petrol at the services. You can picture the scene:- Approached by the driver of a tin top and the questions/comments are usually – “Is it a Pinto engine?” “What did it used to be?” “That looks well for an old car” I’m sure you’ve all had similar experiences. I usually reply with:- “It’s actually almost new and its’ fitted with a sophisticated, all aluminium, fuel injected, 16 valve, double over head cam engine etc.” This seems to impress them, but oh the embarrassment of ……. “Before you go, could you give me a push?” I’d never noticed until this time that few filling stations are built on slopes!! The problem got worse, but like a lot of problems, was difficult to diagnose as it was intermittent and more often than not, my journeys start and end at home with no need to re-start en route when hot. The symptoms were a click from under the bonnet when turning the ignition key to activate the starter motor. Repeated trying would often result in the ECU fuse (the bottom one) blowing. This was a 20 amp fuse and I replaced it with a 30 amp fuse on Caterhams recommendation. This seemed to cure the blowing of fuses, but did nothing to coax the starter motor into life when the car was hot. Eventually I managed to get my head under the bonnet when the problem was occurring and discovered that if I connected a temporary fly lead to the solenoid on the starter and touched this to the positive terminal of the battery, the engine would burst into life every time. For a couple of weeks I ran with a fly lead permanently connected to the solenoid. At least this helped cure the embarrassment of the filling station. I could now pretend I was removing the bonnet to check the oil and at the same time start the car. My good friend and fellow 7 owner John happened to mention the problem at a local auto electricians and they suggested a relay be fitted as they had cured a number of other cars of various makes which had similar problems. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and a relay was fitted straightaway. Wow!! What a difference!! The car became a joy to drive. No parking on hills and no fly leads!! From that day on the car has never failed to start. I posted a topic on Blatchat and received a number of grateful e-mails from other Blatchatters who fitted a relay following my experience and also found the cure, often after buying rather expensive starter motors with no improvement. If you too have a K series engine with similar problems, then this may also help you, but I must stress that there may be other reasons!! If you are unsure, try the fly lead method out and it will tell you whether a relay is the answer to your problems also. Fitting the relay It will cost about £10 or £12 in bits and take about 45 or so minutes to fit. You’ll need :- • A 30 amp 4 pin relay – available from virtually all motor accessory shops at around £6. • A couple of lengths of wire – suggest about 1 foot of black and about 3 feet of red. • An in line fuse – preferably waterproof. • Electrical terminals – 2 ring type to fit the battery terminals, and 4 female spade terminals (3 to fit the relay and 1 to fit the starter solenoid), although I understand some solenoids are fitted with a ring terminal also – please check. Method:- 1. First disconnect the battery. You should disconnect the negative (Black) lead first. You will normally need a couple of either 10mm or 11mm spanners. 2. Attach the relay to the ‘ledge’ in front of the battery in the centre i.e. around middle of battery. The relay is attached using a tag with a hole in it, which is normally fitted to or supplied with the relay. I prefer to fix using a pop rivet, but you can use a self-tapping screw or a small nut and bolt if you don’t have a pop rivet gun. 3. Detach the smaller wire (i.e. NOT the big red one) from the rear of the solenoid on the starter. It may be stiff, but should just pull off. 4. Reconnect this wire to the terminal on the relay marked 86. 5. Connect a long red wire to the terminal on the solenoid (where you previously removed the wire – see 3 above) and connect the other end to terminal on relay marked 87. 6. Connect the wire with the in line fuse to terminal 30 on the relay and the other end to the positive terminal of the battery (using a ring terminal) along with the wire(s) that you originally removed. ****** It is important to reconnect the positive terminal first ****** 7. Using the short length of black wire connect terminal 85 of the relay to the negative terminal of the battery along with the wire(s) that you originally removed. 8. Check that all connections are secure and “tidy up” the wires using tape or cable ties, making sure that wires are kept well away from the exhaust. 9. Your car should now be ready for use. Start in the normal manner, but don’t forget that you’ll probably have to reset the immobiliser after disconnecting the battery. This is normally achieved by pressing the ‘plip’ about 4 or 5 times – I’m sure you’re all familiar. One other thing you might need (if you have eyesight like me) is a magnifying glass – the markings on the relays tend to be very, very small!! HAPPY STARTING Paul Richards

I had a problem with mine and replaced it with another. Problems seem to be with core where tubes are crimped to sides. Understand that Radtec are just moving to a new supplier of cores which are slightly thinner but a little wider and hopefully an improvement. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional

And you never wash the car?? And there's never any moisture in the air??? Moisture is definitely the killer for these senders. I found a great improvement by sealing with silicone around the gap where the electrical terminal fits. It also does no harm to remotely mount the sender away from all the dirt and wet. Paul Richards Area Representative - L.A.D.S. (Lancashire and District Sevens) LADS Website Growing old is compulsory - Growing up is optional