nelmo

Looking good!

Ahh, Ok, that rings bells - thanks!

On the standard GBS main loom, anyone recall where the ignition start ie. the position that activates the starter motor, comes from? Or did the main loom just have a wire coming from the main fuse board, labelled 'starter motor'? I've got all the GBS pin outs I used years ago but nothing obvious on there.

15 years?! That is impressive perseverance - well done

Great, congratulations BTW, if you want to report a post as being in the wrong forum, can you please just check the date of the post? No real point in moving anything that is several years old...

Yes, I vaguely recall that when I went to the Caterham dealer (5 miles down the road from me) - but at the time, with no experience whatsoever, I didn't realise how much they had done. And it is a great manual - like an Airfix kit. Imagine how big the manual would have to be if you repeated that for the whole car (well, almost a Haynes manual, I guess)? I guess if you've got enough cash, it might be nice to do a Caterham first as practice and then decide if you want to risk doing the whole thing?

When I was looking into my kit, no-one offered a build manual from my shortlist (GBS, Tiger and a few others). But I was looking at the Caterham website recently (never considered them at the time; too expensive and they did too much for you) and saw they have a manual. Downloaded it and started going through it; very impressive. Clear diagrams, descriptions, even tells you when to take a photo. But then, it stopped. There were about 2 pages for fitting the engine, 1 page for the steering column, 3 or 4 pages (1 picture per page) for the rear suspension etc, etc. There was NOT

Are those the cheaper ones (around £400 from GBS)? If so, that's what I have and my schematic diagram in my blog shows the dials - not sure if that will help? https://zerolifebuild.blogspot.com/p/electrics.html

When I asked GBS about a manual or video, they said they didn't do one because it was just too difficult to make it useful to everyone; lots of different donors, engines, gearboxes, diff's, brakes etc, etc. To cover everything would need a 5 volume set!! They also said there were enough videos online now to get a decent idea of what you need to do...all true, although I still would have liked a few generic pictures for the main stages. They ended up giving me a 2 page list of what order they did their builds in, which was helpful.

Yeah, I saw that as well but I reckon he's just a troll, wants to cause an argument - better to just ignore it. The other comment was fair enough, though...my flippant comment about planes dropping out the sky probably annoyed any pilots out there

The follow up article is out and, amazingly, is factually correct at last, if not spelt right. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1378478/kit-car-construction-building-classic-vehicle-uk-exclusive

By luck, one of our members is telling us all about his conversion right now - take a look here:

Not sure where you get that from - after IVA, it's like a new car and you have 3 years before you need an MOT. Also, I believe you are allowed to drive to an MOT without any documents (insurance, tax etc).

Very good - you're a poet! :-) Happy Xmas and New Year to all

Anyone else watch the recent episode? Really good, I thought - funnier in the first 5 minutes than the entire last series of Top Gear. I imagine Caterham would be pretty happy as well...

I connected the laptop up last night - it had definitely reverted to the base map. I had this starting problem a year or so ago - Emerald sent me an updated map with some ignition/injection changes which worked a treat. My starter motor has been getting progressively slower since then but it's always been ok to start the car. I had a big gap of 2 months without driving, which I guess mostly killed the old battery so that and the cruddy starter (hopefully just connections) prevented starting. Now, I've replaced the battery but the combination of crud starter and base ECU map without t

Urghhhh, Ok, for future reference, disconnecting the battery wipes the map from an Emerald ECU and sets it back to the default. So I'd lost all the cold start modifications Emerald (and Dan from on here) gave me. I've got them saved so reloaded them but the battery still hasn't got the oomph to turn the starter motor enough to go for a start. So I'll do the terminal cleaning as described by Spare part next - hopefully that will sort it - and I hope I haven't killed my new battery

Re-read line 1, post 1

Not patronising at all - I'm going to do what you suggest next. I think the non-flashing cylinder 1 was maybe just a red herring - I was cranking the engine and trying to see in the cylinder at the same time - maybe i just missed it? Ruling out fuel only because I have a clear filter and I can see petrol moving and I can smell it. Also, car started and ran fine 2 weeks ago. But will reconsider if i can improve the starter motor performance and it doesn't help. Also, it occurred to me, I changed the battery and maybe that has wiped my map out of the ECU. I did have an updated map

Part-built is a tad optimistic

Yeah, I saw that program - £18k it went for!!

Is that the main power light? The ECU is working because the fuel pumps come on.

Ah, that diagram explains the same voltages on all 3 pins, although I don't get how the coil pack works then? But that's not important right now... Yeah, I expected cylinder 4 to not fire as well but it did. I suspect the dodgy little devices I'm using, although I did try 2 of them on cylinder 1. Ok, I think I'm looking at a starter motor problem - it's just too lethargic.

My car isn't starting (2L Zetec, FI), even after a new battery. To check for spark, I used these little gadgets that plug into the HT lead and then onto the spark plug and flash as you crank the engine. On cylinder 1, it was not flashing. I checked resistance and then swapped out the HT lead and the coil pack - no luck. I then checked the voltage on the coil pack plug and found that, with the ignition on (before cranking), I am seeing 11v on ALL 3 pins? This doesn't seem right but maybe it is - can anyone confirm? My car last started about 2 weeks ago AFTER a bit of a re-wire, a

No, all different...