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In a further scheme to avoid finishing my LS car as I should be, I've bought a Caterham.
Technically, my wife, dad, and I bought it.
The backstory here is, I grew up listening to stories of British cars and my Dad's want for a Lotus 7. Over the years, he's told the story of the time his father traveled to Britain and he asked him to put in an order for a Lotus Super 7 while he was there. When his father returned, he asked if he had, to which his dad replied, "I thought you were kidding". It's been a pretty obvious regret/disappointment and we've tossed around the idea of buying a Caterham to build in the past. They're bloody expensive at this point though.
A couple of months back, one popped up and I jokingly sent it to him. We laughed about it and halfway discussed it, but I wasn't that serious about it. After it had sold a few days later he said, "Man, we should have just bought it". As it would turn out, the exact same car would pop up again a couple of weeks ago. The guy who bought it didn't have any time for a project and he had originally bought it to fix up for his dad (funny how that works).
Details on the car are as follows. The kit was originally imported to Taiwan where it was built by an American with an auto repair business. It has a 1.6l Ford Kent crossflow engine/trans out of a Cortina and an Escort rear axle with reinforcement ribs. Has a set of 40 DCOES and based on the documentation and letters from the 90s, looks to have a cam and possibly bored out to 1.7l. He was at least inquiring about boring it, but I don't think he ever followed through. The engine hasn't been started in at least 10 years, but it does turn over by hand, so that's a start. The car has some light surface rust in some areas and some minor pitting/heavier rust around the brake hydraulics where there looked to have been a small leak. It will need an entirely new exhaust. The wiring under the dash is completely fuckered and is all getting yeeted. There are a few small cosmetic flaws. The hood was damaged by someone setting things on it and there is a small crack in the rear fiberglass fender. Overall, it seems to be a decent start.
I'm not worried about the engine or much for that matter on the car, they're very simple. But, the fun part is, it's never been registered in the states. Oh boy! This will likely be the largest hurdle to overcome and could provide endless headaches.
Here's some pictures from when we picked it up. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the progress we've made in the evenings, but I'll try to update the thread some more once I get more pictures
I've always wanted one. Drove a completed one before I got the Miata, but it wasn't for sale. I did spreadsheets on costs and parts lists, but the real killer for me was lack of weather protection.
Registration in NY would have been the biggest headache.
I went so far as to buy a couple of hundred feet of 1" square tubing. It's still in the rafters of my garage.
Hahaha - mate and I (he worked for a sign making business) did that when Formula Ford started, at least his employer bought it without necessarily knowing what it was for. We used to have a laugh about this every few years.
You (Scaxx) need a bigger trailer.
Always wanted one of these, closest I got was a bugeyes with no hood ...
Enjoy, I will follow your progress with interest!
When can I swing by for it? Semi-serious about this.
Not sure there's still enough left for an entire chassis, but there may be, as I bought based on a 442 chassis. Probably not worth the trip unless you were already coming this way.
Life has been a bit busy the last couple weeks, so I haven't gotten much of a chance to update threads. The first main thing I wanted to tackle was figure out some way to identify the chassis. (Skip to paragraph 5 if you don't want to read boring stuff about me trying to track down this car) We were starting from a place of knowing that it was actually a Caterham at least based on all the documentation we received with the car, but the "easy to find" places where a chassis number should be seemed to be empty. Curious.
According to forums, there should be a number stamped into the chassis on top of the windshield wiper mount and on top of a tube under the pedal box cover. There should also be an entire chassis plate that has the engine and chassis number on it lol. However, there was no chassis number stamp and when I pulled off the wiper motor, there wasn't anything there either. There's also no evidence of a chassis plate ever being fitted to the vehicle. There are 4 drilled out rivets and those held the coolant expansion tank brackets. We then popped some of the rivets holding the sheet metal above the firewall on, but still no numbers.
I reached out to Caterham with a long shot email of "Hey, I've got this chassis that I'm 99% certain is a Caterham, bought by this guy and shipped to Taiwan. Any chance you can point me where to find the number?" I figured I was interpreting forums wrong or something and maybe just not looking in the right place. About a week later the archivist reached out and confirmed the paperwork and also let me know, there was a chance that the car never received any sort of stamping or chassis plate. Apparently, at the time, Taiwan was discouraging the importation of cars and therefore they might have left the stampings off to get around import laws (lol). He said that he didn't see any notes about that in any of his correspondence documents on his side but it was possible. I also don't have anything of the sort on my side, but the original owner did import it as "car parts" and got hit with a nice fee from Taiwan when he got caught for evading import duties lmao
Anyway, I asked them if there was any chance of providing a new plate/the number and he said they very very rarely do it, but given the circumstances, there is a chance they would. I sent over all the documentation I have on my end as well as some pictures and now I'm waiting to hear back. Fingers ****** crossed. If I can get documentation from them, I think that will go a loooooong ways in getting this thing registered.
So that's the update on registering the car. I'm hopeful at the very least. My dad is the master of scope creep and subsequently wanted to tear everything apart. (My dad lives with us to clear up any confusion). I'm trying to hold him back as best as I can and remind him that we're "getting it on the road, not restoring it" but that doesn't seem to slow him down much. One of the first things that did need to be addressed was the pedals and primary cylinders. The pedals were pretty seized up and the hydraulics in the car were completely inoperable.
With the assembly off the car, I pulled each component off and put the parts I was gonna keep in the ultrasonic for some de-greasing. I cleaned them up a bit and even took some of the weaker paint off. Then I chucked them in the sandblaster to finish off the paint removal. Fun thing about Caterhams is the chassis were all brazed, so they have that lovely gold finish on the joints. Of course, that will get covered with paint, but it looks neat right now.
Because I wanted to avoid having to pull the assembly out occasionally to re-grease it, I'm drilling and fitting some zerks into the assembly on each side so it's easy to maintain. Ideally, I would have just replaced the whole thing with a Tilton hanging pedal box like in my LS car, but I have to remind myself not to scope creep as well lol. I haven't actually put the zerks in yet, putting the assembly in the drill press was as far as I got.
I was able to find new primaries that looked like they would line up with the bolts and were the correct pattern. Ordered those with the hopes they would be right, and sure enough they were! The outlet ports are in slightly different locations, but that's fine because we need to make new brake lines for the whole vehicle anyway.
Next thing to try was to see if the engine even turned over. I had no doubt that the carbs were full of ****, so I didn't even try to put gas in it. I had successfully spun it by hand, so I knew it wasn't seized at the very least. Put a little bit of oil in the cylinders, and tried cranking it by jumping the starter but got nothing. (Shop tip: buy a 100 pack of shitty plastic syringes, they come in handy all the time like squirting some oil in cylinder without spilling it everywhere or dumping it in)
Turns out, all the grounds on this thing are absolutely fucked. I had planned on replacing them, but I DEFINITELY need to. I ended up just clamping the jumper cable directly on the starter to get a ground and even then, I had to wire brush it off first. With that, it did turn over! It actually sounded pretty decent as well! With the engine confirmed as turning over, I pulled the carbs off to clean them up.
I have finals this week, so no carb cleaning this weekend, but next weekend I should have those cleaned up, and if all goes well, maybe back on the engine!
There's lots more to write on suspension and wiring, but this is all I have in me this morning, so calling it here.
Yeah, haha on evading customs duty, importing something that they don't catch at the border is one thing, screwing with paperwork and values - go straight to jail! Import or export, I know of a WW2 fighter that was seized and the owner never got it back, a complete Bf109 that is now in the Australian War Memorial collection, thanks for the donation mate!!
Brazed chassis was very common here back in the day, mate of mine was running a FF in the national series and I gave him a hand cutting up old suspension arms and building new replacements, seemed to work he missed the title by a poofteenth operating on the smell of an oily rag!.
Seems caterham are not questioning yours is a genuine car, so I reckon you are halfway there, fingers crossed they go the other half.
That's pretty funny on the plane! Although, I'm sure the (previous) owner finds it a bit less funny
And yeah, I've really got my fingers crossed. The archivist email bounce back said he'll be back in on Monday, so hopefully I hear some good news soon!
That's pretty funny on the plane! Although, I'm sure the (previous) owner finds it a bit less funny
It had been sold, was crated up on the dock, so I'm thinking the owner got his money, and the buyer was the loser. It was classed as 'moveable heritage' and needed a permit, probably would have got it, but they painted it as, and documented it as, a P51!!!! I think someone tipped Customs off, they should have picked it up but I would not put money (or a piece of 'moveable heritage') on it! It was part of bloke called Sid Marshall's collection, included a Ki43 'Oscar' and a Supermarine Walrus amongst a lot of other stuff. The Walrus ended up at Hendon in the RAF Museum, don't know where the Oscar landed. Obviously the buyer was a foreigner, I think he was a Pom, and I think he was well known in those circles in UK if the gossip I heard was correct.. There was a court case, he challenged the seizure (as you would), I don't know how that went but the fact that it is still here is all I was/am interested in. It is possible there was some sort of settlement, these cases can turn on details though on the surface they had the shipper bang to rights.
Been attempting to get this written over the past few weeks, but been lagging. If thoughts seem super scattered or contradictory, it's because I wrote it out over the course of those weeks and things change
Not gonna lie, the suspension geometry on this thing is kind of a mess lol. The upper control arm is kept in line by....the swaybar/swaybar bushing. It's certainly a choice. I'd like to replace that with something other than rubber cause....yikes, tbd here. The next fun one is that before the bumpstop even engages in the front, the swaybar hits the headlight bracket and there's evidence it's kissed it a few times. I thought at first it was maybe something the original owner screwed up, but it seems like they all have the same design. I think if you did engage the bump stop, the tire would hit the fiberglass fender and destroy it lol. So, gonna clearance the headlight bracket some and decrease the height the bump engages at. It actually makes my life easier since it opens up compressed shock length a bit for choosing shocks, so that's helpful.
The rear is less bad, although I suspect under full droop, dynamically, the axle might kiss the frame. It once again doesn't hit bump before something else hits. Something else being the driveshaft flange and the transmission tunnel. Maybe cycling suspension without springs wasn't a thing back in the 60s? Lol, idk, this **** seems very basic.
I was really hoping to pick up something that could be rebuilt by me so I could play with the tuning at home, but I'm not sure if I can find something that will fit that bill. Most of the "racer-rebuildable" shocks come in 2.25/2.5" spring flavors and the ones that do come in 1.88" springs generally don't have the right shaft/body combos. In the rear I could come up with a longer top mount/stud that would space the spring down to create clearance and I could get away with a 2.25" spring. In the front, there's a chance I could reduce the boot size on the ITR to fit a real boy spring. I've got at least a couple options it seems and some more time to internally debate it before I need to get them ordered.
In the front it looks like it came with a spring rate of 100lb/in and in the rear it's 60lb/in according to my super accurate spring dyno. Tbh, I've had pretty good luck this way in the past, I'd just like to build something a bit more proper in the future and a bit more contained.
I finished cleaning the carbs last night. They're re-assembled and just waiting on some orings to go between the manifold. Those show up today, so I'm looking at filling the bowls with gas and trying to start it this weekend! Before/after is significant. These were fucked. Took multiple cleaning cycles to get the **** out of the bodies and there was about a .040-.060" layer of varnish on the entire thing. Turrible. But clean now. Fuel fitting is backwards in this picture, but nothing is tight tight yet
Wiring parts are also rolling in, my pops and I pulled the original harness and it had....2 fuses. I'm going to insult Colin Chapman and add weight and complexity in exchange for longevity and serviceability. The horror!
Got the carbs on the engine a couple weekends back. The problem with cleaning things is, when you clean one thing, it makes the rest of everything look like ****. I...lost one of the intake plates? I can't find it anywhere in the shop. My dad or I probably stuck it in some random box, it'll turn up eventually. Until then, it will drive me absolutely nuts.
With the carbs rebuilt and back on the engine, it was time to see if it would fire. We had changed the oil and gotten a new drain plug that actually sealed earlier that week, so we pulled the plugs and started cranking it over to attempt to build oil pressure. It still had the mechanical gauge on it which was actually pretty useful since we could see when the oil started to travel up the clear tube. After a few sessions of cranking over with no plugs, we were able to achieve 30psi of pressure. Pretty solid! As a side note, I'm taking the mechanical gauges out of the car. While I like the dual oil pressure/water temp Smith gauge, I despise the idea of a plastic (or other material) tube running through the engine bay with oil in it.
We put the plugs back in, put fuel in the carbs using my handy little aux fuel tank I got for working on the bike and started turning it over. Nothing much happened so I gave it a kick of starting fluid. Got a couple coughs and some horrendous smell of burning oil at which point I remembered I probably dumped 2 tablespoons of oil down each cylinder before turning it over originally lol. Better than the gear oil I used when starting the last BP I fired up at least?
After some more cranking it was coughing a bit more regularly, but not on all cylinders. I felt the headers and 2/3 were warm-ish but 1/4 were still stone cold. At that point we started double-checking spark and then eventually realized the PO who had replaced the plug wires might have messed up the order. Sure enough, with 1 and 4 swapped, it started firing on all four cylinders. Because I was directly powering the starter only, as soon as I took the negative jumper off the battery to stop turning the starter, it would (obviously) die. So I can't say that it completely ran/idled, but you could hear it outrunning the starter by a bit, so I'm pretty confident it will just be a matter of tuning it a bit once I get the wiring sorted.
With us confident that we will be running this engine in the car, I had the green light to pull the disgusting headers and start building some for the car. Still finishing up the design on the flanges to keep heat away from the flange and hopefully minimize warping as well as transition into the header tube nicely. Haven't done any stainless on the new mill yet, so this one should be an interesting challenge. I can always make the flanges super simple and not complicated like I have as a backup, but where's the fun in that? These shouldn't actually be horrendous, just need to get some new tooling for the SS.
Also started running some of the wiring. Mostly in the engine bay. I'm putting a disconnect on the firewall which should make future work on the vehicle easier. The plug is a bit of overkill, but there were a couple of items in the engine back pulling high-ish amps and it satisfied all of my requirements other than the main battery cable which will be on a DTHD. I had originally wanted to run the wires to the lower area of the firewall instead of on the upper area, but after sitting my dad in the car, we realized it would eat up some extremely valuable leg room on the passenger side. As it is, he's about half an inch from not being able to extend his legs all the way and if I put wiring down there, he's sure to kick it or have to bend his legs slightly. So slightly less clean, but more comfortable for the passenger is the route.
I should have all the connectors and such that I need to finish the wiring this week. I need to order a pressure switch for the brake lights and temp switch for the fan still though, hopefully get that ordered in the next week or two, but in the meantime, I can run the wires to where those components will go and just put them on connectors when they arrive.
My hope with the wiring is that by eliminating any British parts of it and using a range of sealed sensors and connectors, I'll be able to minimize the classic British car problems. At least in regards to wiring. I'm at least doing my best, hopefully it makes some improvements. I supposed it can't get worse than the **** show that was the original wiring.
Great news on the registration! Caterham has given me the original chassis number and I should be able to purchase a new chassis plate for it! They're also sending me a letter to certify origin of manufacturing, so that's a pretty huge step in the right direction. I still have a bit of a road to getting it registered, but I think this is gonna be a huge help!
03-02-2023 | 12:54 PM
Stort makes increasingly questionable decisions
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