Caterham Super Seven 1600

With the car still in the garage due to the cold weather and salt on the roads, now is a good time to do some anti-corrosion therapy. I'm using ACF-50 which is an aviation-grade formula. The basic idea is to apply a light coating to the chassis tubes, rails and underside of the car. Mostly I sprayed it on to a cloth, but some parts were sprayed directly. Cleans everything up nicely! I also took the front grille apart and cleaned the black metal mesh. At the rear of the car I did the whole underside. It should last up to a year, but I will see if it needs a fresh coat over the summer.

So after 6 months and 2,000 miles my factory supplied wheel nuts are looking pretty bad. Most of the chrome finish has come off, and they are starting to corrode. Poor show really. Luckily Sevens & Classics do a proper set of stainless steel ones. They're not cheap at £85 for the set of 16, but they are quality items.  Look great and should last slightly longer than the old ones !

The car has very nice individual throttle bodies, made by Jenvey.  Today I got a synchrometer so I can test the balance across the 4 bodies. This measures the airflow in kg/h. Jenvey provide instructions on how to balance them. Having warmed the engine and removed the air filters, I set the idle adjuster screw down a couple of turns to give a fast idle. Normally this screw is out and doesn't affect the idle. I tested each body and got a reading of almost exactly 4kg/h from each one. I'm happy that the balance is correct so I didn't adjust the idle bleed screws.

It turns out that my car has a proper Malfunction Indicator Light (MIL), which is the amber engine icon on the rev counter. I went out for a run earlier this week, the first time since November. As I was coming back down the A127 the light came on! The engine seemed fine, but I limped home and pondered what to do. These situations are where the owner's club really comes into its own. A quick message on the local WhatsApp group and the next day club member Chris Collins very generously came round to diagnose the problem.  Although we could not get Easimap to connect to the car, a standard OBDII scanner worked just fine. Turns out the warning light was due to a flood of speed sensor warnings. The speedometer had been jumping around and I just needed to adjust the sensor gap on the rear wheel hub. No major drama!  I've now purchased an OBD scanner that plugs into the port which is located behind a rubber grommet above my right knee in the cockpit.  £50 from Halfords, but it works

I spec'd the car with the regular black leather side screen armrests. However, what I really wanted was armrests in biscuit beige to match the dashboard. I ordered these direct from Oxted Trimming, and after a 2-month wait I received them today. Fitting was straightforward as the holes were already drilled and matched up exactly to the existing holes in the side screens. They look really nice, and finish off the interior properly.