Jeemy's Elan Rebuild

[dapinky]

Jamie,

A couple of observations - the bolt which came part out and then got put in again (green on your pic) wont come out! Basically, as you undo the set of them, they end up binding on the cast iron casing for the turbo centre cartridge - the only way to get them out completely is to undo them all a few turns, then seperate the centre cartridge from the turbine housing a few millimeteres, then undoing the bolts a bit more etc etc until the two bits seperate - not easy on the bench, let alone in the car - the addition of heat to expand the turbine housing will help, but i wouldn't fancy doing it in situ.......

...and remember to put the bolts back in before pushing the 2 halves together fully when rebuilding - otherwise you cant get them in afterwards (unless you shorten them).

There is no need to remove them unless youre seperating the turbo anyway to rebuild it.

When i refer to the E8 star socket it's what you need to remove the studs from the head.....

The bits inside the red circle use a 14mm nut, and may bring the studs out with them - if they do, happy days! Otherwise you need to remove the studs which have a 6-point 'star' head (big red arrow!) - this is the E8 size socket i refer to - but i suppose if necesary, a pair of mole grips might do, but it's better to use the proper socket - it makes re-fitting a lot easier if they aint knackered!

[Jeemy]

Right….s**t….I wish I'd never touched that green bolt.

But good post! I had no idea those bolts needed to come out for removal!

So them, and the whole part they are attached to, come out for turbo removal?

I'll add an E8 socket to the list for Halfrauds tomorrow.

[Jeemy]

Ok, so I think I see now. Part No3 is the exhaust manifold, the wastegate manifold is different. Because it doesn't connect to the exhaust directly, I thought that all references to manifold meant the downpipe section. So I will gingerly disconnect that tomorrow and see where I get to!

[HJ2]

Good work so far Jeemy, you're getting there!

Here are some pics of what i took out of the engine bay in one piece:
viewtopic.php?t=16507

Good luck!

[Jeemy]

That was so helpful. As was some new tools. I bought a 1/2" extender set with 3 different bar lengths, and this allowed me to navigate around some difficult areas, PLUS bring the the new Tool of the Day into play - my 4-foot breaker bar.

I also bought a slim, deep 14mm socket, some more step-up/down adaptors and the E8 socket.

The 14mm deep socket and breaker bar allowed me to break off the last part of the exhaust to make the lifting of the section easier:

14mm mixture of bolts & screws came out of here.

This allowed me to get into the oil pipe banjo on the engine; off it came. This area is saturated in oil/grime; there is a lot of cleaning to do before I work out if there is a leak:

17mm socket from memory

I then removed the 2 bolts holding whatever the silver pipe on the right is (scanned the parts manual several times, can't work it out), and the other end of the turbo coolant pipe, and the heatshield bolt this revealed:

12mm for silver pipe, 10mm for heatshield bolt

I was almost ready to remove the turbo it seemed.....but I couldn't get that coolant pipe off; and without it off, I couldn't get my E8 socket onto the stud behind it - catch 22; eventually I solved this by:

- removing the manifold bolt completely (14mm ratchet spanner & hammer to break the seal!)
- loosening all other manifold bolts ~1cm:

Loosen all 14mm manifold bolts, remove one behind coolant pipe

- inserting breaker bar + socket onto the oil pipe bolt (14mm) - I managed to get this located by bracing the breaker bar against the engine block and pushing slightly; this had the welcome side-effect of breaking the seal between the manifold and engine block

And finally, the bolt I'd been struggling with for almost a week was out!

And then I discover there's a second one underneath!

Luckily this one shifted much easier with the top one out the way, and before you knew it I was wiggling the coolant pipe out behind the turbo.

NB; had I had a thinner E8 socket or ratchet spanner to get access to the studs I might have decided to leave this pipe on and remove once the turbo assembly came out.

So thats me! I put new plastic onto the exposed pipes; and replaced the paper on the turbo with plastic. While doing so, I noted this; are the blades meant to be in pairs, not equally spaced, like this?

You can also see the final pipe to be removed; I loosened the jubilee clip from underneath, span it and it should be ready just to pull off.

I am 99% sure that once I get its weight supported, I can remove the manifold bolts, then studs, and lift the turbo out on Monday.

[dapinky]

]While doing so, I noted this; are the blades meant to be in pairs, not equally spaced, like this?

Sort of in pairs, but a rotationally balanced assembly....

Oh, and the pipe you refer to which you cant find in the manual is the EGR pipe (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) - it is in the manual, but could be under the emmissions section, or exhaust, or inlet, or anywhere else for that matter!!!!

[Jeemy]

Cheers Dave; before I call it a night, what do you reckon are the chances, after I have removed the main manifold, of effectively sealing the area by cutting a piece of cardboard to the gasket size, wrapping it in black binliner, taping it up and then screwing it back onto the block. Then running a bead of silicon around the edge. If I did that and similarly wrapped any other areas, do you reckon I could successfully grind all the corrosion off the engine block lower with a fibre disc? The silicon would just peel back off the metal but should seal up the ingress points.......or is it just not worth risking getting any more detritus and powder anywhere inside the system, than the unavoidable side-effect of removing rusted and corroded parts will incur?

I'll definitely be running a hose through to flush the coolant system before putting fresh in. I am confident I could drain and refill the oil and have oil and a new filter on standby.

I'd really like to get the engine gleaming and this is the one part I don't know if I can safely clean cos it would need to be sanded/ground, and would generate a ton of dust.

[norman lovie]

since your this close, have a good look for any cracks in the ex manifold - a common issue - at the turbo flange face and behind it

[Jeemy]

Cheers norman, we'll soon see. I may be sandblasting the manifold clean while its off the car.

[dapinky]

Jamie,

i wouldn't go too mad with de-corrosion of the engine block (well, I didn't!).

I just stuffed rags into the holes in the head, de-greased the block with Gunk (well, Carplan version of it), washed and allowed it to dry and then painted it with engine paint.

Still holding up 5 years on.

[Jeemy]

Well Dave, having looked at it, I'm pretty happy that I can use the old gasket (for £16, I'm going to replace it) as a template for a seal, and clean the whole thing. I am planning a colour scheme for the engine now, haha.

So.......

Buoyed up by news (although it may make me unpopular with others still waiting) that Bob Brown had despatched a parcel to me, and in possession of a little yellow slip from UPS confirming it was real and in transit, on Friday I restarted the project.

I wish, before I'd done any of this, that I had taken the time to read the Service Manual, which I have just realized is not just a manual covering whats to be done for an annual or by-mileage service, but the most useful document ever written by man.

I haven't checked, but I suspect a lot of the stupid questions I was asking would have been answered by this wonderful document. I am going to try and OCR the manuals by way of thanks for all the advice here. More on this later.

Anyway, had I read it, I would have realized I'd missed 2 bolts on the manifold, shown in green.

Idiot. I missed these.

These were not easy to get to but Dave (dapinky)'s turbo rebuild PDF which can be seen here gave me the answer I needed.

I had to remove the top bolt for the power steering pump and loosen the lower bolt (both shown in green) to allow it to drop forward. This removed the tension on the belt, so now I have to re-tension the belt. Well, its something I need to know how to do, but with the ever-expanding task list and panic that I am EVER going to be able to put all this back, the decision was taken. More pictures, and more arrows, and a slower work rate to more accurately catalogue the parts removed.

Green bolts are the PAS bolts to remove (top) and loosen (bottom). Pink is eine kleine tinyproblem.

With the pump loosened, it was time to try and remove all the nuts and studs. You can see from the top pic that I'd got what I thought was them all loose by 1cm approx to try and slide the turbo forward to give me more access to the studs. Now the green bolts were loose, I still couldn't shift it. With my E8 star socket, I started to remove the studs that I could. I immediately sheared the one shown in pink, the top twisted right off. So the next SJ order is now the gasket, a set of studs and a set of nuts. Screw it (ahahaha). The engine is to be pristine, so the new studs will be nicer.

There are no pictures for what ensued. I bought an E8 spanner after the first day of weeping, sobbing and trying to get parts out. This was very helpful and would have saved me loads of time, so thats a protip for anybody viewing this in the future.

Once all the studs bar the sheared one, and the third from the right which just wouldn't bloody shift, were out, there was a bit of give, and I realized the only thing that was preventing it sliding out was the EGR pipe. This extends about 15mm into the body of the turbo, and after an hour of gingerly experimenting, I adopted another new policy - if these things can handle high temperature gas, oil, water, pressure and so forth, a little brute force from me isn't going to bother them. Ping! the pipe was free and with my new E8 spanner, I managed to take the difficult bolt out. The sheared one was a different matter, I tried to hacksaw it in half, molegrips, etc; there was no access to cut a new thread but somehow, I think the hacksawing free'd it and I got it out with molegrips. Hey presto! the whole turbo assembly swung free. After 2 further solid days, the blimming thing was out! An E8 spanner would have made this job much easier.

Green arrow shows the depth of the EGR pipe locator. A little gasket was also removed.

So I now have (aside from the vinyl, more on which later) a part of the car I can work on indoors! This should start to make me more efficient, as the weather-dependency of all of this was starting to frustrate.

Given that Saturday was dry and not too windy (otherwise the bonnet blows shut!) I decided that as my next plan is to bore out the wastegate and fit the new exhaust, and before I do that, I need to clean the engine and replace the coolant hoses, I decided the next plan of action should be to remove as much stuff as I can thats in the way. This stuff can then be catalogued, obtaining new bolts, hose clips, and cleaning, sandblasting, painting etc can be done on weekends away from the studio (the only place I have to work, so I've been limited to Mon-Fri, around my work, in suitable weather).

So I decided to start with the Samco hoses, identifying each one and removing the old hoses.

First up, the very big hose. I'd already removed the base to drain the coolant, and it was pretty obvious where it went. It replaced the joined pipes (not visible in green) so the part thats been commented on here before, which is terribly rusty, is not needed to be replaced, or refinished. The pink double arrows show where it will locate.

Pink arrows show replacement, green shows roughly where the joined pipe that can now be ditched is. I can't for the life of me remember where the right hand pink arrow ends up; bottom of the coolant tank??

Probably. So next was the coolant tank. I want that out, clean, and I hate that yellow plastic; its getting pimped. So the pipe to the coolant was next. Fairly obvious where that goes; and although its a lot thinner at the front end, the pipe it mounts to is minuscule. Unfortunately Samco never gave me a shiny hoseclip for the front end; I will need to chase them for that.

Easy

So adopting my new "if it can handle hot water under pressure, it can handle my womanly tugs" motto, a couple of americans, and out they came:

All these old hoses are boxed and kept for others if they want them, reference, or parts.

You'll note lots of hose ends being covered in plastic and rubber-banded; I'm doing this as I go using white tie-handle bags, and just cutting squares off the ties for small parts. Hoses are all being bagged in white bags and the bags labelled with a marker. Despite this extremely anal approach, I can guarantee there will be over 9000 nightmares where I can't remember what goes where if I EVER put it back together.

Using an approach we stole from the Americans in teaching audio, I worked onwards using the guzinta/guzouta approach. Everythings pretty simple really, it guzinta one thing and guzouta andother.

So I knew coolant guzinta here (green), so the next coolant pipe guzouta here (pink).

Guzinta green, guzouta pink. Simples.

However, captain, I cannae get to the back of her. So off came what I think is the start of the EGR system:

Bye-bye, big pipe. May you return cleaner.

Whilst removing this I noticed that while others have 2 solenoids, I have one and a blank blue plug. This is to remember me to deal with that later:

What are you?

There's another obvious replacement pipe under the air box from where that one locates, and I need to get better access to remove things evenly, and fix the wobbly airbox, held on by a single screw...... So the two air (start of the vacuum system?) pipes attached to the air box, they had to come off. One goes left, one goes right.

Bye little pipes

[HJ2]

Good work and good progress

[Jeemy]

Loads more to come!

With these free, there is still not enough access to the bottom of the air box.

Only 2 bolts hold it on!

So I identified another Samco hose, which would give me better access. This one goes to the top of the radiator:

Another pipe down!

The bottom was tricky to remove. To get the wiggle, I had to cut 2 of the ties shown in green, VERY carefully.

Green got cut, pink is the hose clip thats to come out.

This is the other one. I need to remember to put its little friend back:

Other tie and attached pipe

Lots more corrosion and grime becoming visible. I stopped to place an order with Frosts for some Plastidip for the coolant tank, another 6-pack of mini POR15 pots, and some radiator spray paint.

The radiator wiggled and I don't know if the shown attachment, should attach to anything on this car. But hell, its a strong system, I wiggled with all my might, off she came:

Top threaded attachment. Perhaps I can reinforce it here.

There's two of these attachements, and you can see the fibreglass is bent out of shape from the lower impact that the oil sump shows was suffered at one point, and just a casualty of war with these low cars I guess. This will need to be brought into line, perhaps I can consolidate the two. A little bit of missed rust also. SO much to do!

Buckled fibreglass and a wobbly radiator. Sigh.

So thats that pipe off, and some more hose clips to clean and reuse if I need them.

Old pipe, we hardly knew ye

Finally, using a wee 4" ratchet and something like a 13mm socket, off came the airbox. I will remove the clips, de-corrode and polish them, maybe even paint them red, and clean the box and Plastidip it, black or red, I dunno:

To the left you can see my trusty plastic tub with a brick in it, so I can drain fluids in high winds! Mountain men are big and strong. And to the right, all the hoses still requiring identification and removal. On we go, weather is nice:

I'll need to take a closer look at the bolts arrowed. They have thin heads, but it would be nice to get then neat. I have 4 bolts, just only 2 nuts. In fact, I'm even more confused. Looking at the pic the 2 I removed from underneath ARE bolts. So possible from the top down, they are bolt-headed sockets. Frank knows. I will have to revise some parts manuals.

So next, back to the guzouta principle. I want to refinish the coolant tank and check it for cracks, so out it comes. My previous bafflement as to why it wouldn't lift out is made much easier by the removal of some of these pipes - it was only held on by a little tab that fits into the slot arrowed in green. For some reason I appear to be poking the pipe in the pictured arrowed in pink....this is why I shouldn't wait 3 days before cataloguing things.......anyway, I can only guess that I removed the pink arrowed pipe:

Green arrow shows mounting tab. Pink, a pipe I must have removed?!

...and that this is where it goes. However you can see the green double arrow points to another pipe that doesn't look like it came off the coolant header tank. Ho hum, gawd knows. I'll work it out when I work backwards through this thread putting it all back together.

Another pipe identified, I think this is the top (heater in) pipe, from the coolant header tank lower exit. This marks the start of another major creep to the project.

[Jeemy]

So yeah, it appears I've already broken my New Year's Resolution of documenting things so accurately, I can't make a mistake. I'm pretty sure that pipe in the last pic does not go to the coolant tank. Perhaps what I was seeing was the 2nd pipe in the thread. The last pic shows where it goes, they are all different sizes, I will sort it!

This step was the next in a major part of project creep. The goal through most of this has been to get all the work done that might cause damage to the bodywork (by accident) before the respray, and to then respray before doing any work that might be affected by overspray. I am concerned as to how on earth I can do the respray itself with the hood, which will need to be away from the hood compartment cover, but I can't leave the car open, can I? Thats for another day.

These pipes going to the in-cockpit heater were RIDICULOUSLY rusted on. To clean up the visible corrosion inside and out of these pipes, I'm going to have to go into the dash and take off the fascia. It needs some repair anyway, so well, thats my next step. I had to cut this pipe off, to reveal the second lower one. Its also getting me close to decent unimpeded access to the gear cables:

Pipe coming from the heater inside the car. Wrecked.

At this point, I found the vacuum valve, its in pretty bad nick, and my heating wasn't working. In retrospect I should have replaced and checked this before the removal of the entire system, but looking at it, for £20, I got a new Volvo one off Braydon:

Not worth trying to rebuild.

I detached the 3 hose clips which seem to form some kind of cushion arrangement to support the otherwise unsupported vacuum valve:

Cleaning these is an indoor job, phew!

And the lower of the pipes going to the heater seems pretty identifiable:

Left side not sure on!

I think this pic shows where the other end goes, to some kind of T-joint. It also reveals a place where the 1st pipe in this section, meets a T-joint pipe supplied by Samco. This interior metal joint, I *will* need to replace.

Green shows where I think the last pipe meets. Pink is the next section to replace.

So the T-pipe is obvious, if not from this pic:

Hit and hope with this one....

During this period I discovered a disconnected electrical plug. Possibly related to the socket from earlier?

Tell me! What are you!

This left me with the newly replaced vacuum actuator, and I am pretty sure I have found where this ends up and solved the problem. I will use the rust in this pic to remind me how to put it back!

No wonder the heating doesn't work....

The second one of the in-dash coolant hoses was even harder to remove. Its not an easy place to access, especially with the car in the air. I had to cut it off and have saturated it in WD40 to aid pulling off the last bit of pipe, later:

Not shown: 1 hour of tugging trying to free this.

[Jeemy]

So onwards, these next set of pics I have to say with the onset of frustration, don't make much sense. Hopefully they will when I come to put it all back together:

Looks like a reminder of how to connect to the actuator

Looks like a reminder of placement of the T-piece

Looks like a reminder of where the hose joint goes, but hoses aren't pictured?!

Looks like a reminder of how/where the jointing piece to the T-section will go once cleaned or replaced.

And this is where that jointed pipe goes?!

So this is what I was left with to identify:

The first one seemed obvious at the time, but now I can't place in my mind if it was the right or the left. Hopefully I removed the one its to go to (actually, thinking about it, it was getting dark so hopefully these are still in place and I can revised again)

Second one was obvious:

Third one was obvious:

Fourth one almost so, not entirely sure on the left fitment:

[Jeemy]

Second to last pipe seemed kind of obvious, I don't know if I'll need to refit the heatshield thing on it:

This left me with one pipe, and I think I know where it goes:

It started beating it down with rain, but I thought I'd get the fans off, thats another job i can do indoors, so I disconnected the electrical plugs:

I managed to shear one of the bolts off. I started a different thread, and Jim (muley) looks like he will sort me out with 2 plastic replacements. Its unclear as of now if the fitments remain the same, somebody else kindly linked me to a very confusing link to a massive fan store all of which appeared circular. Hopefully the replacements will mount in kind:

Sheared in green

Second one came out fine:

And here they are ready for their fate:

And this completed the weekends work!

[Jeemy]

Monday morning, and a very exciting package arrived. Thats dealt with in another thread. I checked it over but was too busy to do anything else:

Tuesday: Following the advice of my new best friend, the Service Manual, I had limited time today so decided to remove the fascia to get to the heat unit and clean it up. It needs done anyway and I need some access for the short shift kit fitment.

So the horn button, who knew, came out super easy, push and twist:

I tried and failed (and I've done a lot of car radio installs) to remove the old radio easily. I gave up and moved onto the next stage.

Using a stubby screwdriver, I loosened the glovebox retainer to let it drop down:

Screw not related

This gave me access to the back of the radio where some bright spark had forced the retaining clips from the metal surround virtually to right angles. Some bruised fingers and swearing later, out it came.

This immediately exposed a disconnected vacuum hose. Unless I disconnected this, I'm pretty sure this is why the heating never worked.

I spent another happy hour fiddling with the clip that lets the "climate control rod" detach from the heat control. Eventually, turning it to full heat gives the closest access, stripping down to bare arms gets you in there, and after a variety of plastic tools were employed and lost down there, I detached the plastic clip, the rod came out, and tomorrow I should be able to proceed to remove the fascia for rebuild.

[cliff]

More good work. The parts guide can also be useful for identifying stuff.

As you already have the cooling fans off, it might be worth lowering the radiator support frame and hanging brackets for some POR 15

rad frame.jpg (12.21 KiB) Viewed 8110 times

Mine was pretty badly corroded.

Good you got your brakes, must have put a smile on your face.

[Jeemy]

Yeah, why the hell not. Off it comes.

Today, I started on the dash.

The Service Manual is no longer my best friend. Some of the information is downright dangerous if you are an idiot like me.

I started by continuing to follow the instructions from page 492-494 to get into the heater, which cover the fascia removal, with some notable exceptions (!).

First, to remove the steering wheel, they say to remove the centre bolt then tug. Its a 19mm socket:

Off it came, and I pushed the horn ground off with a plastic tool:

I pulled, I tugged, I saw the thread about the trick where you hold from the top and pull towards you and down, and then I saw Zaria's comments, and when I removed the 6 allen bolts (3mm from memory) holding the horn boss on (under the foam in the above pic) it just lifted right out. I hope I didn't damage the steering column….I suspect I am too weak:

I misread the column shrouds as the column switch shrouds, and removed those, couldn't see the tabs easily (they are directly atop and below the switch base), and so I decided to go off-piste and remove the steering column shrouds instead:

The bottom one has about 9 screws which come out with Tool of the Day, a stubby Philips screwdriver. Actually sliding it off is facilitated by pushing away the height adjustment lever and letting the column drop - this remains useful throughout the process:

The two middle screws in the bottom shroud locate into two long pins which affix into the top; these just need a turn with a circa 7mm socket to break the seal and then screw out with your fingers. Don't let them fall, remove them carefully, because there are two washers atop each which can go flying. 3 hours later I retrieved the missing washers and was ready to go on:

With the shrouds removed, the two switches come out by pushing the tabs at top and bottom. In fact I had to push the top shroud to the left, loosen the right switch, then push it to the right, and loosen the left one, to get it off easily. Green arrows show where the push tabs are. The Nardi logo on the boss is a welcome touch of class amongst the failing plastic, sticky hot glue and sad neglect/general turmoil.

The left switch (indicator) is mounted to some weird fall-apart bracket - purple wires at top. I suspect this is something to do with the indicator click-back:

I played with this for a moment like a child might. As you push the switch up or down, it pops out. Something in the steering column hits it as the wheel returns to centre, and this releases the switch and it pops back in. This never worked and I will fix it on the return journey in the year 2025:

[Jeemy]

Onto the fascia removal. After removing the two screws and lifting out the top cover, step one is to pull out the speedo cable, easier than one might think. You can just see it, arrowed in green. Some contortions are necessary to give the reacharound, hehe, but pushing down on the metal retaining spring and pulling it back, it just pops away.

Noting that they mount directly into the copper PCB(?) type thing (arrowed green) and are fragile, I pulled out the the thankfully uncorroded connections to the rev counter, and petrol gauges.

These next pics show why I can't have nice things. I'm pretty sure this one is the right hand side as you're into the vehicle and shows how the portrait petrol gauge cable comes out, with the dark green/black wire to the top:

But then I'm baffled by what this one is; maybe the speedo has power connections too, and this is the left. Anyway, this shows how whatever it is, will go back in to wherever it goes:

Removing the blanking plugs at left, right of steering wheel and down by cigar (because nobody smokes cigarettes in a Lotus, it has to be a Cuban) lighter, was not easy. The whole thing is getting refinished which is giving me some leeway to be rough, but after a variety of plastic radio removal tools clearly conforming to the ancient Chinese principle of "sell cheap, use once, break" where employed, I ended up having to gouge these out with metal hooks and VAG radio tools.

Once out, its obvious the screws are way to the top. The fascia is sitting about 1cm too low, and I'll refer to this when I come to try to improve the fitment:

Talking of fitment, its clear that not only does the fascia bend away and require some strengthening - I'm thinking of inserting a wire or alloy strip to the back of the green line - but the whole steering colum sits angled about 20-30 degrees to the left. Its bloody obvious sitting in the car - and correcting the fascia is going to make it even more so. So question for the day; I wonder is it possible to adjust the angle of what is after all, the top of the steering column and could rotate without affecting much, surely?