Bought my first Caterham in 1988 and bought my current one in 1992. Other than at the annual MOT no mechanic has touched either of my cars except for Roger King when a mapped ignition was fitted to my x-flow and the chap who made my exhaust manifold.

I have made all the brackets for fitting 3 different types of gearbox to my current car and modified existing parts to suit different installations but I know where stop. If the component is safety critical or under extreme stress I buy the correct part from a reputable supplier.

Even then you are in the hands of that "reputable" supplier. When I fuel injected the car all the pipes between the swirlpot and the engine (and return) were made with TFE hose and fittings from Think Automotive. This is not the easiest pipe to work with especially on tight bends and some fittings need to be fitted in situ thus at the back of the car where space is limited and it was all low pressure I used correct spec rubber hose from a "reputable" national seller. What a mistake. After 3 years I was out in the car one day when the smell of petrol became overwhelming. I stopped and checked and 3 of these rubber hoses had failed and petrol was pouring out, the carpet under my seat was soaked in petrol. The supplier apologised and offered replacements FOC but I declined and replaced them with hose from a different supplier which was supposed to be of a higher quality and suitable for all modern fuels. Wrong, after 3 years I checked and those new hoses had hardened and started to crack. With great difficulty (ant at some considerable expense) I replaced all the hoses except one with Think Automotive TFE hose. The one remaining rubber hose will be replaced every 2 years but its is easy to access.

I have just replaced the standard VDO gauges Oil ,water ,fuel on my 7 to latter Caterham ones found in 2001 cars but now they are reading incorrectly it has a VDO oil pressure switch and a raceline water rail.all in a black top.Zetec
What switches oil and water have you used?
Regards Robert.

CatZ
I had similar problems with 'Professionally' fitted pipes, mine were the oil pipes to remote filter, despite getting a 'Pro' to measure and fit'em they leaked after a coupla months, after returning car to the 'pro', he re-did them FOC, yep 2 month's later they leaked again! I got a full refund, and made up some stainless Braided pipes myself - sorted, even now 10years later they're still oiltight
I hate letting The So called 'pro's' anywhere near my car, I've even sprayed it myself for a fraction of what the 'So called' Pro's charge.
You can't beat DIY you know it's been done correctly

The senders need to match the gauges, don't think the later Caterham gauges were VDO. The manufacturers name will be on the gauge, alternatively give Caterham a ring, they should stock the correct ones.

Caterham Zetec

Thank you but as Caterham never fitted the Zetec I need the water temperature for the Raceline water rail I tried fitting a 2003 Focus oil pressure switch today but that didn't work

Caterham did not sell a Zetec car but they sell parts for Caterhams. The Zetec oil pressure sender is the same thread as a x-flow one, when I installed the Zetec I simply reused the x-flow sender. Same with the Raceline water rail, its designed to use a x-flow water temp sender.


No point fitting that at all, its only designed to light a bulb and not power a gauge, no Focus ever had an oil pressure gauge did it.

What you need from Caterham are the oil and temps senders for a x-flow fitted with 2001 gauges.

I saw in the book Magnificent Sevens (or something like that) that Caterham actually did make a Zetec engined 7 but only for the USA - think I'm right but I'd never heard about it before...

That is correct. Pretty sure they used Raceline parts to fit them. If I recall correctly at the time all Sevens were K powered and the K was not approved for use in the USA. The Blacktop Zetec was (fitted to the Focus) thus problem solved especially when Raceline and others had done all the development work.

Caterham can be an odd lot, back in the late 80's an acquaintance of mine had a written of XR3i on the drive with a known good engine. He wanted to buy a starter kit from Caterham but with CVH engine mounts instead of x-flow ones and a loom to suit the injected XR3i engine. Should not have been an issue, this was the car Caterham sold in Europe at that time to meet their regulations. Caterham refused.

He bought a Westfield (they were happy to supply the parts) and fitted the CVH.

Back in the 80's Caterham told me that I couldn't fit Dellorto's to my X-flow regardless of the fact that I had them already fitted on the car since 1980
Also told me in the late 80's that I couldn't fit a 5-speed type 9 gearbox to a standard (now I suppose short...) chassis. Umm yes you can with a modified mount.
As you say, they can be a little odd