The perfect is the enemy of the good, and after a few months of owning this car, I'm in danger of never getting around to this thread.
Back in December 2020, I bought a house with a smaller garage than I'd have preferred. As a serial automotive ADD sufferer, I was also over six years in on owning a single car. I wanted an uncompromising car this time around, with the sort of design that serves better as a third car. My wife still has the 4Runner, and my neighborhood makes street parking hard.
After some math, it looked like there was a chance to fit a seven in my garage on a Max Jax lift with a compact pickup, on a Max Jax or mid-height lift with a Kei truck, or without a lift with a 1st generation Smart or a Daihatsu Midget II.
I started hunting in earnest with a reasonably tight budget that ruled out most Caterhams. I found a Birkin listed in Arizona.
I found some videos of the car from its former life in Japan:
I found it in Canada: Caterham (possibly Lotus) Super Seven, a right-hand drive model, (imported from the UK?) in Kensington. Weighs approximately 1200 lbs.
I did a bunch of tests, gathering measurements and laying out boxes and furniture to simulate the cockpit, and determined I'd fit. I went back and forth on whether to fly out to Arizona or not, and whether to try a fly and drive, and finally decided to just go for it.
After an extensive delay due to banking issues, the deal was sealed. The car was shipped out, and the delivery driver dropped it in front of a pizza restaurant five blocks from my house.
Ah, the pizza joint. I ran out the door in long sleeves and no jacket in February in the midwest, without telling work, expecting to be home in fifteen. I brought a temp tag and packing tape. I ended up being there something like four hours, trying to get a tow.
The car wouldn't start. I tried the only flood clearing technique I even half remembered, flooring the throttle while cranking. I called the dealer, who suggested the choke. Eventually, I ran out of battery.
Fortunately, my tow showed up before the pizza place called one of their own, and I got it home. Over the next few weeks, I found time to work on the car for a few minutes here and there. I had a bunch of help from you all in the Care and feeding of the Ford Crossflow? thread. Eventually, a new battery and spark plugs sealed the deal.
It shouldn't have taken me most of a month, but time was just hard to come by. I have a few projects coming though.
So, issues:
The side mirrors were floppy. In a strange bit of luck, I found with very little Googling that they're motorcycle bits, and are very much still in production. $25 on Amazon for brand new bits that match existing hardware. Installed in twenty minutes. Win.
There are a number of missing snaps on the body, and some damage on some soft bits. Investigating which hardware I need to address it.
The zipper on the canvas cargo cover and on the tonneau seem to be past their prime.
The seatbelts dont reach around me. I have the seat out presently, working to get them adjusted. They're Willans, with 1985 on the tag, so a replacement might be in my future, though I honestly wouldn't mind an inertia reel belt.
Tires are old. They'll work for whipping around town on the short term, but I need to find some 13" rubber that is a "sport" tire. Hoping for a step down from an autocross and track tire, but better than a touring/all season tire with a really high treadwear.
Want to replace the VDO km/h speedo with a matching VDO mph w/gps, and replace the KP/A pressure gauge with PSI.
I would very much like a bright CHMSL on here, which is likely to involve fabricating a bracked like Caterham offer to hold the light outside of the car so it doesn't interfere with top or tonneau.
I'd like a 12v socket or USB socket, and a wired in jack for the battery maintainer, preferably somewhere non obvious.
Washer runs when I press the button, but I don't see a bottle for it.
In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :
Congrats! A Seven is still a vehicle I need to put in my garage eventually.
Dang! hopefully I get to see this one in person.
Mike (Forum Supporter) said:
Tires are old. They'll work for whipping around town on the short term, but I need to find some 13" rubber that is a "sport" tire. Hoping for a step down from an autocross and track tire, but better than a touring/all season tire with a really high treadwear.
Federal 595 is the 13" tire of choice if you want something short of the full Toyo Proxes R888R. The fiat crowd loves them and the set on my car surpassed my expectations for a cheap but sporty 13".
Mezzanine said:
Mike (Forum Supporter) said:
Tires are old. They'll work for whipping around town on the short term, but I need to find some 13" rubber that is a "sport" tire. Hoping for a step down from an autocross and track tire, but better than a touring/all season tire with a really high treadwear.
Federal 595 is the 13" tire of choice if you want something short of the full Toyo Proxes R888R. The fiat crowd loves them and the set on my car surpassed my expectations for a cheap but sporty 13".
Exactly, the R888R and similar are a lot of tire.
The Super Steel 595 looks like a legit choice. I'm curious why the UTQG is 460 for a couple of smaller sizes, this one included, but the majority of sizes on offer are 240-280.
WalMart sells them at $50/ea through a 3rd party seller, but they're out, and everyone else I checked is out too. I signed up for in-stock notifications, but I'll keep looking for what else might exist.
I have 595's on my Locost - they are absolute slip-angle RIOT and I would buy them again in a heartbeat!
18psi is pretty decent. It skittish above 20psi.
I am definitely looking for a set of those then!
I read somewhere that the wheels are 4x100, but the front and rear have different center bores/rings. I'm going to have to measure and maybe get a second set of wheels. I do like the minilites in matte black.
I am running Sumic GT200 on my X1/9. They are a Malaysian Sumitomo and are very good in the dry if above 40 farenheit. Good in deep water too. 175/70-13.
I finally found enough time to let the ancient belts out enough to fasten them. I had to remove the seat, and then loosen the brackets and remove the belts completely to adjust them. They'll get me putting around the neighborhood, but I'm thinking an upgrade is in order soon.
What is this even? It's behind the driver seat. The hook is connected to a split ring to a chain that is in turn connected by a split ring to a hole in a plate welded to the chassis. The top of it comes pretty much even with the level of the tonneau. It looks like there might be another behind the passenger seat too.
Mike:
I don't know what your 13" tire profile is, but I've found that a 50 series 15" tire has about the same rolling diameter as a 70 series 13" tire.
Is the chain to hold the top bar on?
Sweet car, btw
wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) said:
Is the chain to hold the top bar on?
Sweet car, btw
Thanks! The chain really only comes up high enough to reach tonneau level, but if something had straps to reach down and meet it, it would make a cohesive retention system.
I posted elsewhere about this, but I finally went to the DMV and got plates. I took the car out for it's first drive, just a few blocks to the nearest grocery for a Coke.
It was great on the way there. Getting back in after about five minutes, it wouldn't start. Acted like a dead battery. First crank was a couple of sad ticks, then after that, absolutely dead. No needle hop on gauges. No click of relays.
Walked home, grabbed my box of electrical tools and parked the 4runner nose to nose (backwards and in handicapped, ugh) and put the meter on the battery terminals. 12.5v. On a whim, hopped in, and it started like nothing had happened. I left it running, reparked the truck and drove the Birkin home. Once there, my garage door was offline, and I killed the car trying to get it out of the way... and it wouldn't restart. Electrically dead again.
I left it crossways in the alley, walked around and opened the garage, and, with the help of a neighbor who was shooting baskets back there, got it pushed back inside.
A little while later, the power was back on.
What?
Beyond that, and much less critical, I figured out how to get the rivets in the snaps to install properly, and I used water to stretch some of the shrunken canvas back to size. I used some pliers to close the zippers that weren't engaging, replaced a snap that has pulled out of the full hood, and now I have a working tonneau and cargo cover.
Check the grounds. Sounds like a heat related main cable issue ive seen a few times with old battery cables that got corroded
Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:
Check the grounds. Sounds like a heat related main cable issue ive seen a few times with old battery cables that got corroded
That actually makes sense, and tracks well to symptoms. I'll give it a look.
Mike (Forum Supporter) said:
Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:
Check the grounds. Sounds like a heat related main cable issue ive seen a few times with old battery cables that got corroded
That actually makes sense, and tracks well to symptoms. I'll give it a look.
I went out there with some tools and an ohmmeter, and poked about for a bit. No smoking gun, but I got a sketchy reading a few times on a lead running from the negative terminal to the frame near the firewall. I loosened it, wiggled everything around and re-set it. The battery terminals were growing green and white fuzz. I had some terminal grease in my box with the ohmmeter, so I cleaned everything up with the battery terminal cleaner, and gave it all a coat of Ideal Noalox. I didn't get to test it, but I'm hoping that's it.
Tested and mounted the motorcycle USB port, but didn't wire it in for the moment.
Looking forward to the weekend, when I can test it out a bit better.
By any chance, how close are the starter, power or ground leads to the exhaust? I agree that a bad ground, or starter power cable is a logical starting point. Next order issue would be to check voltage drop once it gets toasty.
If the power leads all look good, exhaust isn't nearby and you don't have voltage drop - may want to look into ignition timing. If it's really advanced, I think that can cause hot start issues, but it may also knock in high load, lower rpm cases and you'd probably have a slow crank as opposed to just clicking.
Also, congrats on getting it registered! Good luck, keep us posted.
This is a pre-sale photo. I've replaced this battery with a larger, higher rated one, though wire routing is essentially the same.
The starter is pretty close to the header. The ground leads split inside a loom, right below the cabin air duct. A smaller gauge wire terminates at the frame bolt at the base of the coolant bottle bracket, and the larger lead runs straight below that, connecting to a bolt on the transmission housing.
I should note that, when in the state it was in the other day, there's no/almost no power. The fuel gauge may or may not twitch, but doesn't lift. It's not only that the starter won't crank.
When I drive it this weekend, I'll have my multimeter and my IR temp gauge with me.
For what its worth, the bad cables didn't show up as a smoking gun to me either. More of a process of elimination and hunch. But when i got them out, and flexed on the bench, you could feel the crusty inside the insulation.
Hopefully cleaning fixes it, but id bet youre going to wind up at full replacement.
I have seen those battery mounted green knob main disconnect "switches" fail repeatedly. They make Lucas look really good. To the point I wont allow one on a customer car. Install a marine grade ground disconnect switch on the firewall so the operating lever is in the cockpit and all of the wire is in the engine bay. Just under the header tank would be best to reach from driving position.
