Rob Walker

Andrew, This seems a common problem, my car does it and I haven`t got to the bottom of it. The weep is so small I have decided to live with it but keep an eye on it untill the winter. The leak could be a porous belltank or sump pan, defective seal between the sump pan and block or more worrying the rear crank shaft oil seal is defective or has moved. Another theory is that running with the engine sealed the vacuum created distorts the rear crank oil seal when the engine is shut down and the vacuum remains for several minutes after the oil pressure which supported the oil seal has been lost, I suspect the latter. You can remove the sump pan and this gives you a restricted view inside the bellhousing but its not possible to see clearly if the crank oil seal has moved. If you sort the problem let me know. Rob

Why not get Caterham to supply you with the wheels you want. If you ask nicely but be firm that you do not want the kit supplied with the 15 inch wheels they will either supply with your requirement or supply the kit minus the wheels with a cash adjustment.

The clutch cable does not enter the box you are getting mixed up with the speedo drive cable, and yes they all leak a bit from that spot. Stop worrying.

Caterhams policy must have changed then, when I bought my kit back in 97 they would not let me collect the kit said they had too many problems with customers turning up with the wrong sized vehicle and claims of damage. It cheesed me off a bit having to pay £229 for delivery. However when the nice chap delivered the car sorry the bits, he spent time and helped me set it up on the axle stands gave me some usefull advise on assembley, this changed my view on the delivery charge, I now feel it was a reasonable charge for a good service. Top marks Caterham.

I wouldn`t worry too much about the static noise testing at Oulton, it has been just A token effort and not to be taken seriously. They do however monitor on track and if you have a seriously noisy car you may have to lift a little on the straight passing the pits.

Peter, I chatted with Graham Fuller last weekend at Castle Combe, unsurprisingly he was giving nothing away on the bearing front. He did however say be wary of the rear crank oil seal moving. Rob

John, Bearing upgrade can you be more specific. Have Minister fitted a new type of bearing if so please can you tell me what they have fitted and to what or have they finally decided to run with 5 plain bottom and 5 grooved top main bearing shells instead of the stock Rover configuration of 7 plain and 3 grooved main shells. Or is this just fittment of the Vandervell big end shells. Rob.

Ah 1997 that would be an early six speeder with the long input shaft, I had to sorten mine of that same vintage to gain clearance into the blind spigot bearing hole on my steel crank IIRC about 25 mm. I have also had problems with QED and their attitude is we don`t fit engines into cars so we never get invloved in all that your on your own. The problam I have with this unhelpfull attitude is that even when you give them feedback in writting they will still sell to the next punter and claim ignorance. I have to say that both Ken and Paul at QED have been very helpfull with advice its just the sales side that sucks IMO. Hope you reading this SIMON.

Why not run with the Comma SynerG 5W 40 thats what most of the racers use, its also cheaper.

I doubt you`ll gain much probably not worth the trouble and expense. You could fit a better exhaust say 4:2;1 and lighten the car where possible. Until someone comes up with a reprogrammable ECU that will run the VVC mech you will be struggling, Emerald are working on an ECU but when it will be available is not known.

There are two different lengths of input shafts available for the six speeder. The early ones up to about serial number 800 had the longer shaft. The later boxes were 25-30mm shorter, could this be your problem?

Simon, Im interested could you give me a call. Rob

If there is a hex spacer nut on the new dampers between the top cap and the screw on eye then the dampers have been extended for widetrack use, you will have to remove this hex spacer.

Thanks chaps for your replies, so no horror stories, I will now treat myself to a set when funds allow. Rob.

R500 pistons are Cosworth, the rods are Farndon steel H section but run with a interference fit little end.

I am in the market for a new set of wheels and fancied a set of R500 mags. I would be interested in any users experiences regarding durability of these rims, of both structural life and corrosion of the cast magnesium centers???????? Thanks Rob.

Dave, Red is 12 volts or positive side of the coil. Blue is negative or chassis and Green is the trigger which you can either connect to the negative switched side of the coil or tacho or directly offa the ECU the later being estential if your going twin coil wasted spark. Rob

Hi Adam, As others have posted the 6 speed is very oil sensitive. Try some Redline MTL in the box. The only external adjustment is to the detent spring which adjusts the centre weighting of the stick, I doubt this will effect revers selection. The only other thing that could effect selection is your clutch adjustment, make sure that there is no drag when the peddle is fully down, this would effect selection. Rob.

Chelspeed, I have the RS14`s fitted all round on the advice of Hyperion and John Freeth and can confirm that they work very well and seem to have good durability. They work well from cold and get better as they heat up. The RS14`s were the pad that I was advised to fit as I want good road performance and also want them to work well on track days and not cause high disc wear. I would advise you to contact John Freeth of Performance braking he will advise you which is the best pad for your application. One problem I have noticed with the pads is the dust that is given off after hard use needs to be cleaned off the wheels if the car is to be stood as any moisture this dust bonds to the wheels and is hard to remove. Apart from that they are an excellent product. Rob

Sold to Mrs Pisspot.

The Caterham adjustable platforms are all ali and have an anodised finish. The Spax are steel on the threaded sleeve and ali on the platforms. Should do the job but be sure to treat them with some wax oil or similar. Rob.

Peter, No twaz on the ali race spec dampers. Come on spill the beans what are you up to? Rob.

Peter, I recently built a VX race car for a friend. 370 lb fronts were used on narrow track suspension and yes the car had to run with no spring preload and about 20mm of slack when the suspension was unloaded. Helper spring should have been fitted. I run my widetracked K without the hex spacer in the damper, the reason being that it is my opinion that when running with hex hut fitted the car runs on the bump stops when cornering hard as there is only about 9mm of travel left on the damper when the suspension is loaded. The down side is that there is little droop on the suspension and the dampers can knock against the stops when unloaded, bump in the road or hump back bridge. I run with 250 front springs and 5/8ths FARB 150 rears and 3/8ths RARB. Rob

Still available, can one of you please e-mail or call me on 0117 9239941 to progress this sale. Thanks Rob.

Try QED or PTP