Good news (oil pressure, head gasket, radiator, exhaust, air filter), head gasket result, Yoko A032R end of term report, Palm IR HotSync, head gasket, old timer, camber and toe, back to work.
Just to be sure, I've ordered a new sender from Caterham, but they are on back order until mid-April.
The oil seems to come up to temperature more quickly now. That's probably because pure oil conducts heat better than the mayonaise that had been in the engine. I hope there was no damage (other than the head gasket) caused by the high temperatures that the engine was likely seeing.
I checked with Caterham and they confirmed (based on the chassis number) that the law doesn't require me to have a cat. (The current exhaust, 4:1 inside the engine bay, has one just before the silencer.) To allow for future engine upgrades I want a proper 4:1 this time round. Caterham are asking £445 (+ VAT) for theirs, or £595 for the Superlight R's 4:2:1. For that kind of money I'm sure I could get a nice custom repackable one, and I can't afford it right now anyway so I'll have to make do with getting the current exhaust welded, if possible.
Sunday 31st March 2002. Link to this ramble.
Even after doing the head, Caterham said the oil pressure was still low. A common cause of this is that the foam baffle in the sump has broken up, so they dropped the sump and found that was indeed the case. The pressure still seems low to me though. It's 2 bar at cold idle, rising to around 3 bar at 3-4k revs while still fairly cold. Once the engine warms up the pressure drops to 2 bar, or down to about 1 when idling. I'll call Caterham tomorrow to check whether they think this is OK, but it doesn't sound good to me. Perhaps I should keep my eyes open for a decent used K-Series engine.
Caterham noticed the dent in my radiator, and wondered whether this had caused overheating, and hence the gasket trouble. I doubt it, considering that happened a year ago, but I'll be keeping a careful eye on the coolant level from now on. The only other thing of note is that there is a crack around the exit of the silencer, which I guess I will have to get fixed before the MOT next month. It's going to be an expensive Sevening year...
Thursday 7th March 2002. Link to this ramble.
Basically, the 32s are great in almost every respect except wear. I'm amazed how good they are in the wet, although I don't take liberties when I think there might be standing water around. In the dry, they are just fantastic (and the weather's not even warm enough for them to get sticky yet!).
The charts show the tyre wear over 3273 miles of purely road use, which was enough to take the rear left tyre down to the legal minimum. Pressures all round were 16 psi cold. The increased wear in the centre of the rears is apparently "normal". The excessive wear on the insides of the fronts was due to too much camber and toe out. These were put right at 2521 miles.
Longer term I can't afford to stay with 32s, given the mileage
I do. I'll probably swap to 21s, but I do want to experience the 32s on track so
I've got some new rears and I'm hoping that the fronts will last long enough for
me to get my act together and arrange a track day. One thing is for sure - I'm not
going back to ordinary tyres on my Seven.
Wednesday 6th March 2002. Link to this ramble.
I had wanted to be able to sync my Psion Series 7 using IR, and now wanted to be able to use IR to HotSync my Palm and laptop at weekends (I keep the cradle at work). I couldn't believe that Microsoft had been that stupid. There had to be a work-around, but I just couldn't find it.
I've no idea how I missed this earlier, but I found the answer. Palm have a document with the innocuous title "Updater for HotSync v3.1.1 for Windows". Read the section "Setup Instructions for Infrared (IR) HotSync". Works a treat.
Incidentally, if your m505 is suffering from timeouts when syncing with AvantGo, then you need the update for HotSync Manager 4.0.
Monday 4th March 2002. Link to this ramble.
Green Flag have come through again. They've taken the car to a secure compound tonight, to be delivered to Caterham's factory tomorrow because they weren't able to get it there today before Caterham closed. There was no Spanish Inquisition on the phone when I told them what was wrong; they just sent a low-loader as requested.
In retrospect, the symptoms were obvious. They probably began when I had starting problems in December. I'd also noticed recently that the oil pressure was lower than it had been, but managed to convince myself that it was just the sensing / display that was probably wrong (a delusion made more convincing by the fact that I've had an oil pressure sender die on me before). Then, the stuttering problem came back again last night.
I'd decided after the last episode that it was worth replacing all of the ignition leads and the fuel filter. I'd even bought the parts from Caterham, but hadn't got round to fitting them. Last night I fitted the ignition leads, distributor cap and spark plugs. I couldn't get to the end of the HT lead under the intake system, so I didn't do that, and I chickened out of tackling the fuel filter too. Then I made the mistake of driving in to work this morning...
Oh well. I've just got to cross my fingers now and hope that there are no complications...
Thursday 28th February 2002. Link to this ramble.
Friday 1st February 2002. Link to this ramble.
James also questioned my toe out. Apparently, slight toe in is the norm (on the basis that the wheels get pushed out once the car is in motion, making them tend back to parallel). Having toe out is often preferred by the racers because it makes the car more responsive when turning, but on the road it tends to make the car fidgety, and along with too much camber, helps to destroy tyres. Because I liked it as it was, James compromised and set the toe to parallel.
The result is great, on the road. I had a storming drive home tonight, on roads which were dry for a change. The feel has improved - there is less tramlining and skittishness, and the steering weights up nicely as more lock is applied going round corners.
I will post an end-of-term report for the 32s soon, because I will have to replace the rears this weekend. The fronts are also close to the limit on the insides, so I just hope that these geometry changes help to make them last a bit longer. I can't afford to keep the 32s longer term, but I do want to experience them on track, and in warmer weather, before I switch to something slightly more sensible. (I couldn't go back to a truely ordinary tyre now, but I will probably compromise on 21s.)
Tuesday 22nd January 2002. Link to this ramble.
I almost didn't make the first yard up the road. An extra-thick coating of frost lay on the ground, and the 32s are as bad as any other tyre when there simply isn't any grip available. Fortunately there wasn't any traffic, and traction improved when I got up to the roundabout and onto the main road. Conditions were treacherous for most of the way in. Although the main roads were simply wet because of the volume of traffic that had passed over them, the minor roads had many icy patches waiting to catch me out.
I do love these cold winter days, without a cloud in the sky, but I'd like them just a little bit warmer, please...
Wednesday 2nd January 2002. Link to this ramble.