Ownership Verified: We can rebuild it... we have the technology (7 - take two)

Went to measure wheel angles with proper equipment. Right side camber was spot on, left side off by 2/3 of a degree, which is too much. I guess my setup with strings and a ruler wasn't that great.

Now it's adjusted correctly, and I also determined that one revolution of the track rod end is about 15 minutes of camber. Good to know if I want to change it some time :)

Also, it feels like the rear is too soft now. Rear shocks are also adjustable for damping, so maybe I'll play around with it a bit during tomorrow's .fi-meet :)
 
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Preeeeeeeeetty! Glad to see this car back on the road, man. Must be a blast to drive (this coming from a guy who owns a car that the majority call a street-legal go-kart, but I think your 7 is truly fits that description!)
 
A little update, the shocks I haven't adjusted at all. Left them at the their guesstimated values I've set when installing - it feel alright. Needs more controlled environment to assess the performance of the suspension probably.

And the fuel level sender arrived


And was installed


The gauge works \o/ I still need to "calibrate" it, ie run the tank dry and note the reading, and maybe bend the arm a bit, and then fill it up and do the same.

As well, I need to start prepping the car for the ringtrip. Let's see, in no particular order of significance I need to do:

  • Fit the boot floor
  • Make a list of minimum amount of necessary tools to take with me
  • Wire up the power feed for accessories (phone chargers etc) into the boot and under the dash
  • Wire up the fuel cut-off switch (triggered by vertical g-force, e.g. rolling the car)
  • Install the intercom and find a suitable PMR walkitalkie to interface with it. It needs to have a push-to-talk wire, all the cheapest ones don't :(
  • (Maybe) connect the heater to the cooling system, atm it's just a blower without hot water running through it. I doubt I'll need it in August, my only concern is to keep the windshield mist-free with the hood up. But maybe there are some chemicals that can do it?
  • Change oil once again just before the trip
  • Have the carbs adjusted on a rolling road
  • Buy a helmet
  • Fix the fire extinguisher somewhere in the passenger side, for now it's just resting on the floor :)
  • Pre-wire chargers for phone and navigator, I hate wires hanging from the dash, and in this car especially
  • Measure the sound pressure level at the exhaust tip. If it's over 95dB(A) I might have a problem at the ring
  • Sort out the insurance (I only have 3rd party atm)

Phew.. Now that I've written it down it seems like a significant amount of work is still to be done. Just over 3 weeks to go...
 
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Installed the boot floor today. It was a lot of hassle to fit it, had to remove the filler hose and drill some holes to secure it, but in the end I finally have some wooden parts in my car!

For those wondering what's the actual capacity of 7's boot:





It's not insignificant :) My next step would be to wire in the intercom, headsets, make the feed to the front for the mobile phone, and connect the walkietalkie I bought, but something else came up. I needed to remove the wheel at one point, and one of the bolts felt immediately weird. It started to come undone easily but became hard after quarter of the turn. Not an unfamiliar feeling :(



I removed the hub to see if I can find someone to change the stud for me. Or maybe I'll try to do it myself in a vice after I find the replacement. I wasn't feeling confident enough hammering it out while on the axle :/

 
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Just hammer the old one out and hammer a new one in through the back, I've snapped 2 wheel studs on the Sierra, and it's a 5 min job to get a new one in :)
 
3/8" UNF, ugh.. And it's the same as in Triumphs. At least one place in .fi sells them, for 8 euros a piece + delivery. Oh well, at least the next week looks somewhat rainy.

Posmo, yeah, I guess it's not a complicated job, I'm going to try it myself at first.
 
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I wasn't feeling confident enough hammering it out while on the axle :/
But that's the easiest way to knock 'em out! :lol:

Always glad to see any progress in this thread; that little car seems like great fun.
 
Yeah, it was pretty easy to extract in the end. Aaand I still don't have a replacement. The fucking shop I ordered the bolt from mixed something up and didn't send it in time, so the car is still stationary at least until Tuesday.
 
Fucking great weather; still missing a wheel :-x

Took this opportunity to do some wiring work. Firstly, I added 2 power sockets under the dash. One to charge the phone and one for the navigation (possibly). They are those two black barrels on the next pic. The view angle is from above, through where the windscreen and the scuttle panel normally is.



The wiring for accessories goes directly from the battery through the relay, which is activated by acc position of the ignition switch. It's spliced into 3: two for those power sockets under the dash and one goes into the boot (I've pre-wired that when I made the whole loom). Nothing else sits on the acc pin of the ignition switch, so I can turn it there to charge the phone, without worrying that the (tiny) battery would flatten any time soon.

View from below, when the windscreen is on, the sockets are accessible from the passenger side, right above the relays and fuses.



HTC's charger connected and tucked away. I guess I'll keep it there permanently, no reason to disconnect this charger.



While I was there I also re-mounted the ignition switch / steering lock. In its default position I keep hitting my left knee, so I moved it further forward and turned clockwise, so it sits behind the dash. Still can be easily reached. You can see the hole in the tube for the steering lock there. Don't worry, I didn't lose the steering lock due to this mod - I never had it. The steering column is smooth.



The little 3.5mm plugs in the pics above are for music and phone connections into the intercom. And the intercom itself sits in the boot, which is why I needed power in there as well. It's velcro-ed behind the rear bulkhead. It's a common type of intercom that bikers use, as far as I understand.



It's not fully "plumbed" in yet, there will be two more little boxes for galvanic isolation of phone and music leads (fighting ground loops and noises), and also a Cobra walkietalkie. The headset leads from the intercom are passed forward and are hanging behind the seats.



And into these leads I plug my headsets :)



Now, this is how the whole thing is supposed to work...

The intercom's basic function is to allow conversation between the driver and the passenger. The intercom has VOX function, so mics are activated by speech level. The music input is for the mp3 player, and the music is immediately muted to 50% when mic input is triggered. The phone input is, sadly, mono, and works in such a way, that when input is detected, all other inputs (music, and radio) are muted to 0 until phone conversation is over. In my case this wont happen, I'm using phone for music (stereo) as well, so I made a special cable to combine both inputs. The phone will mute its own music with incoming call anyway. Will see how it will work.

Then there's the radio input. For that I made a cable to connect the aforementioned Cobra walkietalkie. The radio will be turned on all the time and will sit in the boot. It starts transmitting when the intercom gives the PTT (push-to-talk) signal, which happens when one of the mics on the headsets are triggered. But there's another trick, the cable I made has an extra 2 wires going to the front of the car and into the switch on the dash. The switch is a "privacy" switch, which allows me to disconnect the transmitting side of the radio so I can talk to the passenger or on the phone without broadcasting it. I will use one of the unused buttons on the dash, possibly the foglights switch :)

It may sound overcomplicated :) But that's a fairly standard setup for bikers I guess, and there are certain similarities between them and the 7s. For example, there's no way I can pick up the phone and have a conversation when driving, or talk to the passenger normally, or use the walkitalkie to talk to daboom on the trip. Now it's all automated, I just sit in, put the headset on and turn the ignition.
 
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This is an epic setup :D
 
I am already waiting for the tales of how it went horribly wrong. :)
Where do you put your phone btw?
 
Neat set up!

https://pic.armedcats.net/m/mx/mxm/2011/07/30/IMAG0558.jpg
OPERATOR'S GONNA OPERATE
 
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Cobra radios ftw.

Yeah, but they are still limited by PMR spec, 0.5W is the limit by law. I should've probably gotten one of the chinese CB radios which are 4W and can work on same frequencies :) But Cobras are enough for 1km easily, more with open line of sight. For the rest there's GSM :)

I am already waiting for the tales of how it went horribly wrong. :)
Where do you put your phone btw?

As I said, all accessory power is isolated from the rest of the car, and nothing is powered (except lights, hazards and horn) with the key out. So don't expect catastrophic failure :p The only real potential problem I see, is the fuel pump and alternator noise making it through the system, which will make music listening not entirely pleasant.

And the phone will be in HTC's own holder with the windscreen mount. I checked, it doesn't obstruct the view, only part of the bonnet and the left headlight. I'm thinking of mounting a separate small tomtom unit into the hole vacated by the speedo, gonna try and see tomorrow if I can attach it easily.
 
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The stud arrived. And it's 5mm too short, ugh. That's the default length for Triumph, and apparently Caterham's is not. I was still at work, so I didn't test fit it on the car, instead I panicked and immediately ordered a few correct ones (made sure they measured them) from UK, to maximise the chance of its arrival before the ferry (next Tuesday).

I tried it on the car this evening:



And with the wheel on:



And this is what the normal one looks like, for comparison:



I managed to get 6.5 revolutions of the lug nut on the short stud, which I decided was enough. In fact, after some digging I found out that Caterham used the shorter stud as default before changing to longer ones some time in the 90s. And I found this quote on the 7 forums: "CC still maintain that my short studs (which engage the nut by 4 threads) are quite safe". I'm not sure I'll sign that, but it gives me some peace of mind :)

Also, as I took the torque wrench out to tighten the lug nuts, I decided to check the torques on the hub center nuts. Curiously, they are right handed on both sides of the car. So the right side tightens as the car is driven and the left side undoes itself little by little. Which is why previous owner has painted a line over the nut and the axle on the left side so it's easy to check if it has moved. The line was still matching. But the torque was way off! I tightened it by a quarter of a turn before the wrench clicked.

And then I test fitted the TomTom.



Love it!
 
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Hah, love the TomTom. How awkward is it to control it through the steering wheel, though? Or can the wheel be removed super easily?
 
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