Mid June and my good friend Matt H and I set about replacing the standard, rather under dampened dampers with the ex-Superlight dampers I had purchased in May see entry no. 2 here. I knew the car had a soft set up; Caterham specifically made it soft in an attempt to make it more of a tourer than a racer, but I had put this down to spring set up rather than dampers. Personally, growing up on a diet of French cars, I really appreciate relatively soft springs and stiff dampers. It gives you a lot more feel for the limits than an overly stiff set up. However my experience on track and on the road in the 7 was that the factory set up on the Roadsport was too soft leading to huge amounts of roll on track and poor wheel control on bumpy roads. My intention was to uprate the dampers and then think about spring stiffness.

I had put off changing the dampers until I had access to a 'flat' floor as the Superlight set up is adjustable allowing the car to be 'flat floored' or corner weighted, a bit tricky on a bumpy back street in Manchester. Flat-flooring the car allows the car to be fine tuned for handling balance. Raising the rear of the car relative to the front increases its rake and can tune in less understeer and more oversteer. It also means I can raise the height of the car overall, compensating for the smaller wheels I have fitted and raising the battered sump away from further damage.

My Dad's workshop provided a suitable surface; the only problem was getting the car in there through the standard size - i.e. not designed for cars - double doors. With ½ an inch to spare either side we rolled the car into the workshop. The great thing about working on the 7 is that there is easy access to everything and in a short evening we replaced the dampers and roughly set the car to a rake of 20mm using a tape measure. I did want to change the position of the rear swing arms which locate the rear axle from 'comfort' to 'handling', but the holes in the chassis weren't threaded so I need to source different nuts and bolts.

The ride home was very jiggly. The dampers had not been on a car for well over a year and the oil was rather stiff. The car felt more 'alive' but I didn't want to pass judgement until the dampers had bedded in. I was surprised how stiff just changing the dampers had made the ride though.

After a few miles the dampers settled down and I readjusted the platforms to take up the slack, though I could only do this from the base set I had done in the workshop so a professional flat-floor session is probably required.

The car felt much better on dampers that dampen! The ride was a bit stiffer but the whole balance of the car felt improved, with turn in and throttle adjustability improved as well as grip on bumpy roads.

I set off for the Peak District to meet up with some good friends and drive the great roads around Buxton. Unfortunately DNF didn't make it. After a gentle drive out of the city the roads opened up and I made good progress up one of my favourite roads (A5004), enjoying the extra body and wheel control and the positive response to throttle inputs into and out of the corners. Less than 6 miles later the windscreen was soaked with the contents of the coolant expansion tank and I coasted to a halt, "Not again."

After the previous months of diagnosing and fixing oil feed problems, I was feeling rather despondent at having to diagnose and fix the cooling system, notorious among rover K series engine owners as it invariably leads to Head Gasket Failure (HGF).

I was near my parents' farm so my Dad came out and towed the stricken car back to his barn. DNF was starting to live up to its name. I spent half an hour looking the coolant system over and decided the thermostat had failed as the water wasn't circulating. This was not a good month to fail though, home renovation commitments and an upcoming wedding meant I would have to leave DNF in the corner of the barn, looking a little unloved, until I had time to look at it.