Rob Walker

Exhaust valve guides/stem seals are the most likely. The K engine is canted over in the Caterham installation resulting in up to 3/4 of a liter of oil is being trapped within the head pooled over the exhaust valve stems. Its a fair guess that some of this oil will find its way past any worn valve stem seal when stood resulting in a smokey exhaust on start up. If it were worn piston oil control rings expect smoke under hard acceleration

Still for sale

Mike, Can I have first dibs on the clutch cable please. YHM. Rob

BTTT.

For sale Caterham 8% uprated steering rack in very good condition with steering rod spacers to use with widetrack or standard track £125. Brand new standard brake master cylinder £75. Brand new Caterham fine mesh grill for the nosecone stops stones damaging your rad £20. Tel 0117 9239941 . Rob Edited by - Rob Walker on 1 Sep 2004 11:59:56

Mike I suggest you send the calipers to John Freeth of Performance Braking Tel 01600 713117. Its only too easy to scratch the caliper bores when inserting the pistons by not being able to keep the piston in line with the bore. He will be able to supply you with the correct seals if you want to do the job yourself. Edited by - Rob Walker on 27 Aug 2004 11:42:49

Sorry Paul you have lost me MSDS ??????/

Mike, I had what I thought was disc runnout and returned my uprated front discs to CC for replacement under warranty. I fitted the new discs and the problem remained. I traced the fault to the hubs and ended up removing highspots of the hub disc mounting flange until the disc runout was minimised. You will need a dial test indicator to determine where the high spot is. It should be possible to get runout to less than .010". On my latest car I have the new uprated hubs which are machined from billet Ali and run bigger bearings and massively strong stub axles. These are great but have one massive flaw in their design ie CC had a very course thread machined on the end of the stub axle and this makes adjusting any bearing endfloat very difficult . Why CC did not spec a metric fine or UNF thread I do not know? Rob

Anyone know if the Valvoline Synpower 5W50 is a true fully synthetic. It retails for under £20 for 4 Liters.

Not as naff as it sounds Ken. Most coaches and comercials are painted with a roller and also a lot of vintage cars.

Also worth putting a couple of addiditional small screw fixings into the block to ensure the seal doesn`t move

I have had good results using the Repaint or Tekoloid coach enamel and the correct short pile roller. Done one mini and two vans very easy and cheap. Biggest snagg is a dust free place to do the job which also applies to spraying.

Uprated 5th gear, uprated top breather and stronger gear selector arm. There is nothing really special about the 6 speeder I personally use Phil Stewart but if Steve Perks was on my doorsep I would probably try him. All the box will need is a new set of syncro rings.

The OE Rover liners are also cast. Your forged pistons should come with a set of rings, I am surprised that Scholar did not request you send the pistons along in order that they hone the bores to suit? Edited by - Rob Walker on 12 Aug 2004 14:12:46

Its the standard sorry.

Brand new Caterham Brake Master Cylinder. Bargin at £75 they cost £110 from Caterham. Rob

If the level is rising significatley in the expansion tank then this indicates that the cooling system is not sealed . Could be you have a duff pressure cap on the expansion bottle or a loose hose. With the system sealed the pressure build up prevents the coolant boiling in the hot spots like above the exhaust valves.

Are you sure your wheels are 7X13 front and 7.5X13 rear, they do not look that size to me. You are measuring the tyre bead seat and not the outside edges of the rims ? Edited by - Rob Walker on 5 Aug 2004 12:06:19

Simon, The minilights are the wrong offset/backdepth. Not a problem on the narrow rims but if your going 8" or wider they will protrude beyond the wheel arches. Apart from looking naff it could fail its MOT.

Remove the adjustable plaforms and refit the fixed platforms that come as standard with the caterham bilsteins. Then set the ride hieght by setting the fixed platform on the highest circlip groove that is machined into the damper body this will give you a ridiculously high ride hieght.

Any cover over the TB`s/airfilter will reduce the noise significantly hence the R400 race cars have a blanking plate to fill the bonnet induction hole at noise sensative venues.

I was plagued with what I thought was a weeping rear crank oil seal. I formed the view that it was due the vacuum remaining after the engine was shut down pulling the seal inwards. Well it wasn`t before you blame the rear crank oil seal do a simple test, stand the dry sump tank on the bench leave its pipes connected but set them pointing verticle and fill the bell tank with oil and leave it to stand for a couple of days, my problem was a porous casting and it weeped from one of the through holes for the bolts that attach it to the gearbox. The belltank had to be ultrasealed to cure the problem. I must add that I had replaced the crank oil seal twice before finding the true fault and tried running with the engine vented and sealed. If you remove the sump pan its possible to have a fairly good look at the crank rear oil seal and determine if the oil is coming from that area, if its leaking the back of the flywheel will be covered with oil.

Magnecor direct or QED tel 01509 412317

I use White spirit, it softens it a treat and will not damage paintwork

It doesn`t Dave all valves are closed on the firing stroke. Edited by - Rob Walker on 3 Aug 2004 08:26:20