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The Scalextric Caterhams and Lotus 7 are some of my favorite slot cars, so I couldn't resist their latest Caterham, a real beauty in metallic green.





Upon running and a visual inspection, I did some minor mechanical and cosmetic improvements.

Mechanical:
- CA glued rear axle and driveshaft bushings to the chassis
- Reduced rear axle slop with CA glue applied inside the axle/bushing points
- Trimmed flash from front axle holder and lubed
- Sanded stock tires

Cosmetic:
- Painted with Tamiya acrylic bottle paint:
silver - steering wheel spokes, gearshift base ring
white - front signal indicators
black - front shocks
light blue - driver suit





Now it runs and looks to my liking. Stock, it's just fast enough and the added small paint details make a difference for me.



Dan

Fine job sir, looks great. Those are some special little cars.

Also good write up on this, appreciate that.

They can be an awful lot of fun. Some days I can pick mine up, put it on the track and run lap after lap with no problems at all. Other days and I just can't dial into it. I tend to run the Targa at 12v.

But I think I've found this car's natural habitat with the hill climb. The climb needs to be run at only 8-10v. But the Caterham/Lotus 7 is just great on the climb.

Really nice work on that! A buddy has one of these in white and it is a blast on my old track.

Nice looking car Vtec
Oh Yes! I remember the Chatterham. Think I got a video of it somewhere. Keith my SLOP II car is the same as it was also. :D

Would agree that these cars are not the quietest on the block, but with some playing around with the position of the pinion gear and constant lubing and running, I've got it down to an acceptable whizzing rather than whurring tone.

After running on Luf's Targa Burnaby wood track yesterday, I needed more traction, so I went with urethane replicas of the rear tires from the MRSLOTCAR Mazda 787, almost identical in width, diameter and tire rib width to the stock Scalextric tires.



While working on tires, I applied nail polish on the fronts to cut down friction.

Runs even better now.

Dan

I have often heard them referred to as the "Chatterham" and that had put me off on the purchase of one of these cars.

But after reading your commentary, I might just have to acquire one of them and have some FUN with it.

Thanks for the write up.

The wheels are about the same as the Scalex BMW Mini. I must admit I had to change out the rear end on one of mine because the wheels were drilled off centre. It's now running on the smallest size Sloting Plus Americana wheels. Looks awesome and the ultrasmoothness of the Slot.it gears is a joy. His Lordship's still runs all its original bits though. His needs a little weight in the back.

Nice job, details look great!

Nice write up, I really like the looks of that Metallic Green. Reminds me, I've got my Lotus7/Caterham in the repair bin waiting for a new pinion gear. Time to move it to the front of the line and get it back on the track… These cars are great fun in my opinion.

I just got my 1st one of these little beauties. I got the metallic green #600. Now I need some PG urethanes.

One of the few cars that have run better with weight up high (at least for me) - some lead in the drivers seat. Those stock tires are pretty awful on Ninco track - lots of slippin' and slidin' going on. Still, I like the looks of these cars. Would have been a cool model to have front and rear lights, though I realize there's no room to make it happen.

I have one "pre-owned" one. It had a bent motor spring. So I took the spring off and installed it reversed to take out the wobble. It only chatters on overrun. Which I'm sure could be fixed with some heat shrink tube. Or at worst a BIC pen ink tube.

Edit: Have now done the BIC pen refill trick. Much better.