Back On The Road

[steve in stockport]

After struggling to beat the clock - thanks to the local spares shop taking 5 hours to make four brake pipes - and having to admit defeat when the caterham master cylinder from ebay leaked like a broken tap I missed the chance to go to the NW meet for the maiden voyage.

 

So on investigation it seemed the 'good working order' didnt apply to the reservoir to cylinder seal with the big chunk missing from it. Anyway the old sierra cylinder was pulled apart and the seals and reservoir fitted to the caterham cylinder and the leak was cured

 

Put everything away last night and got up to nice weather today so the first proper drive was 3 miles to work and it got there with no leaks, nasty noises or bits falling off.

 

wheres the exhaust gone?

its on the other side, but needs replacing as its pretty noisy

under the bonnet

carbs and master cylinder

modified pedals

 

 

 

First impressions are very good, very responsive even when being gentle as it needs running in, throttle is a bit notchy as its a bike brake cable affair and gave head jolting acceleration when i got it all wrong on the way home.

Brakes are non servo but seem pretty good with a modified sierra pedal, feels a bit springy as if theres air in there but can still lock up the front wheels.

 

6 miles gone and no dramas just hope it carries on this way for the next couple of hundred and beyond

 

Steve

[Guest Leaner]

Looking good Steve, ask Andy (Grim) about a quieter can, his new one is pretty good. Look forward to seeing it in the flesh

 

 

Lookin good well done hope everything work ok and you get a few miles on it and we can all have a good look at it at the next N.W meet

 

Bernie

[Mitch]

excellent Steve, hope you got the drive cleaned up then,look forward to seeing it soon

 

Mitch

[Guest salty_monk]

Looks good

[Andy Spencer]

Very tidy job Steve, well done. Enjoy!

[st3v3nw]

Nice job Steve. I noticed you aren't using a header tank. How is the cooling with your set-up. I took mine out the garage and ran it up without a tank and it *bleep* most of its water out when it got hot so have now fitted a corsa header tank and solved the prob.

 

Ste

[steve in stockport]

Steve

 

I'm using the same system as i had with the pinto, Seat Marbella radiator with an expansion bottle from the spigot on the filler neck. Water gets heated, expands into the bottle and gets drawn back into the rad when the system cools.

Seems to be working ok, I've fitted the sierra temp sender to the engine expecting it to run with the needle higher up the gauge as the vauxhall runs hotter than the ford and the needle is firmly planted just at the top of the 'R' of N O R M when driving, have done 44 miles so far at all speeds up to and just over the motorway speed limit - sorry officers

 

Just had to retighten all the sump bolts as it had a bit of a leak and also the dipstick/crank breather bolts too, hope that cures them or it'll all have to come out and new gaskets and sealer will be fitted.

 

Steve

[Bob Tucker]

Hi Steve,

so far ive tried.....

SBD's VERY expensive twin sump gasket.....useless, leaks like a seive.

Standard twin cork gasket......almost impossible to fit laying upside down....slight leaks.

 

Eventually a MANTA rubber one, U shaped channel which fits round the windage plate.

Found it on Ebay so I dont know the number.

Id read that they weren't so good, but mines been AOK all last year, 4500 miles, no drips at all.

 

HTH Bob

[steve in stockport]

Just over 100 miles done now and i've made a couple of changes, tightening the sump bolts seems to have done the trick, fingers crossed, the dipstick/breather still leaked so i made a new gasket then put some extra washers on the bolts as i think they were bottoming out - that cured that leak.

after the first decent run i did a plug check and they were a bit sooty as in running rich so i whipped the tops off the carbs, pulled out the diaphragms and needles and moved the circlips to the top of the needles to lean off the mixture, just come back from a 60+ mile run and the plugs are nice and brown.

 

I've taken the fancy red breather off the cam cover as oil was getting into it then dripping down on the inlet manifold and carbs, and have piped the breather to a drinks bottle fixed to the block where the alty originally went.

 

so far so good, fuel consumption is up a bit on the efi pinto but seems to be around 30mpg at the moment, but i suppose you've got to pay for the power increase somewhere.

 

Steve

[Guest Dan_Beeston]

Looks really good Steve, such a neat engine bay! You'll be ironing your underpants next

[Nigel Rogers]

Steve,

 

Looks great, see what you mean about the amount of space infront of the engine. That top rad hose makes mine look short

 

Cheers

Nige

[steve in stockport]

another slight improvement today, the old robin hood exhaust just wasnt up to the task so had this one built on the car, sounds much nicer now

 

[Bob Tucker]

Hi Steve,

who did your inlet manifold & M/C carbs?

Bob

[steve in stockport]

hi Bob

 

i did it all myself, the manifold is the injection manifold cut down and fettled with a file and the bike carbs are from a kawasaki zx7r, respaced myself, jetted to 1.75mm and needles at the weakest of their range.

still running a bit rich but giving about 32mpg so i'm quite happy with them at the moment

 

Steve

[Guest salty_monk]

Having the needles at their weakest point may not be the right thing to do.... Bike carb needles relate to mid throttle positions. This means you could be rich at WOT but still lean at lesser throttle positions. It's quite unusual to have them set at the extreme like that, on a bike anyway.

If you're rich at small throttle openings then that's to do with the pilot circuit, pilot & air jets. Bike carbs can actually idle with no main jet fitted at all.....

 

I presume they are Mikuni or Keihin CV's??

 

Dan