Rob Walker

Pump it full of cv joint grease and back off the pinion clamp until its not too stiff. The racks are infinately adjustable shouldn`t be knackered. Its a trade off between having the pinion pushed too tight into the rack and having it too slack , ie out of mesh and sloppy/play. Jack the front of the car up and gradually adjust 1/4 turn at a time until you get the mesh right.

I always thought KY jelly was used with rubber jonny`s and therefore safe with rubber.

H beam or section are the strongest as they have a greater cross section area than I beam. In this country Arrow are generally considered to be the strongest and highest quality. In the USA carrillo are good.

Yep or WD40 works also. Silicon grease is the pukka stuff though available at plumbers merchants.

Boss, Steel wool will not do the job. Firstly you can set it on fire with a blow torch , try it. Secondly it will rust away in a matter of days. Rob

Firstly I would not go down the Caterham route on a cost basis and that The C400 installation is not nice IMPO as it is a compromise, it is a kit of parts to convert an outgoing R400 K engined car with 2L Duratec. The choice between 2L & 2.3L is really down to what you want to use the car for and how deep is your pocket. In low levels of tune 230bhp ish the 2L is the one to go for as can acheive this power level with little modification and cost. If you want more then the 2.3L makes more sense as this engine needs modifications even for modest power levels but if you are in a position to spend money on this engine big power levels are attainable. Great engine. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 11 Oct 2006 20:42:04

Mark, Just being tight I guess the s steel wool is £32 per Kg plus carriage. It also outlasts other types of packing. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 11 Oct 2006 15:45:28

Paul If its of the same construction I would say its almost indestructable. I would remove the outer skin to be replaced with one made from ali or titanium. It should be possible to carefully unravel the s steel wool wrapped around the perforated center tube. If this was then held out flat on a board with nails it should be possible to powerwash the carbon out and blast with compressed air/ allow to dry and re-wrap . I have reused a small amount of the s steel wool around the perforated tube the remainder of the box I have filled with e-glass wool. I have not noise tested the box yet but it sounds quiet. Rob

Paul, You got it . The carbon build up is preventing the sound waves from penitrating the s steel wool and passing straight out of the perforated tube and tailpipe. It would be an interesting experiment to see if its possible to wash out and restore an old noisy silencer using solvents or even hot water. Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 11 Oct 2006 14:28:23

Roy. Yes there is a perforated tube roughly central, the offset being to increase ground clearance allow the silencer box to run parrallel with the side of the car. It is a massively strong construction and certainly made with durability in mind. The removal/replacement of the outerskin has reduced the overall weight of the silencer by 3KG. Rob

Richard, I doubt using angle would present a problem. One small advantage of the u section is that it holds the washers and nuts captive . Also if you are using the same thickness of metal the u must be slightly stronger but as you pointed out there should be only small loading on the channel . rob

Hi, I have an SLR silencer box on my car that has become too noisy. The plan was to cut off the outer skin and make the box repackable by installing a nice aluminium outer sleeve in place of the stainless steel sleeve. I cut off the old sleeve using metal cutting discs in my angle grinder, no problem. When opened up I was surprised at the construction of the box and hence my query. The outer skin was made up of two layers of 2mm thick rolled stainless steel sheet spot welded together. The ends of the box were of a double skin design with a 10mm gap between and the box was filled with rolled stainless steel wire wool. Now I am puzzled why Cheesmans who make the exhaust systems for caterham went to all that trouble constructing the box in this way? it would seem they wanted to make it as heavy as possible. Why double up on materials and why have an 10mm void between the double skin on the ends of the box. BTW the box had abviously become noisy due to the build up of carbon within the stainless wool in the silencer as non of this packing had burnt away or deterorated. The carbon had reduced the sound absorption properties of the ss wool. Rob.

Caterham recomend using silicon sealant onthe Dry sump pan. I have always used RTV silicon without a problem. Bathroom quality sealant is not up to the job as it dissolves on contact with oil. The best stuff to use is the Ford black silicon sealant used on the Duratec engine, this stuff is unaffected by oil contact.

ZF no longer make or supply the LSD for the serria diff. They recently sold the production rights to Michell Cotts the same people that manufacture the Caterham six speed gearbox.

For sale a new lightwieght Titan steel flywheel for any K series engined Elise. I am looking for £180 for it. TEL 0117 9239941 & 07963 834138 Rob

The one to have is the 421 system designed for the left hand drive SLR. The older system with the offset looped 4 primary gives clearance issues with some starter motors.

The diff should not chuck out its oil if its not been overfilled. If the oil level is correct then the plastic breather must have been incorrectly fitted. The correct orientation is with the cut off taper facing the rear cover.

I have seen power runs at emerald with and without the cat and there was only 2bhp difference on an SLR.

With a foam seat you should fit Dave Jackson is about your height and fits. If you use tillets etc then you may need a lowered floor Tom Hood is 6` 2" and needed this to fit under the caged r400 cage with his helmet on. Edited by - Rob Walker on 21 Sep 2006 08:57:30

I have changed a couple of R400 head gaskets and they have both had plastic dowels.

I went look at an R500 that was for sale it had a screen along with the hooped slr/r400 cage. The owner had fixed some tiny fixings onto the cage tube and attached his doors off the cage, twas a neat job. Obviously the standard hood/weather gear will not fit but I recon the Jill Judd half hood would fit. Are you getting soft Mike.

The fact that the oil flow is through the filter then the oil rail that feeds the crank and the small drilling up the block to feed the head makes it impossible for this 12mm bit of debris to have found its way through the engine and back into the sump bye this route. So its very unlikey its come from the oil filter.

You don`t need to take the head off to check the spring retainers just remove the cam ladder and cams.

Mike Satur 01709 890555 can supply you with a competition HG and steel dowels or you could fit the New Freelander HG available from any Landrover dealer. Edited by - Rob Walker on 25 Aug 2006 18:32:56

Does not sound like the water pump to me. It is hard to imagine how the water pump could fail as its a pressed steel impellor on a common shaft with a toothed pulley driven by the cam belt. Obviously the only way the pump could fail to pump would be if the impellor had come away from the shaft this is unlikely. Over pressurizing is usually down to either and airlocked coolant system, stuck thermostat or corrosion of the head around the headgasket fire rings or headgasket failure. Run the engine up from cold for 30sec-a minute at tickover. Stop the engine and unscrew the coolant expansion bottle top carefully with a rag, if it releases loads of pressure then suspect the HG or head and the head will have to be lifted. Edited by - Rob Walker on 25 Aug 2006 09:24:36