Project Black

[Rambo]

You're doing some excellent work Par. I wish I had your skills and patience !

Hopefully you will be back on the road soon. Get it running for the Scottish summer ie 1 month and then lay it up to sort out the rear end

[par]

Guaranteed when I do get it back on the road it will pour down solid for at least a month

[Rambo]

Well, at least all that money and time spent on the POR15 won't be wasted. With that amount of treatment you could park the Black Beastie in the north sea and use it as an oil rig

[chrisP]

Par, just a quick note for when you put the rafts back in.... make sure the front thin head M12 is in place before you bolt them up - you cant get them in afterwards if the drive shafts are in place.

Chris

[par]

Further unplanned replacements fitted

The fans were not on my list of things to change but they were quite grotty when removed with the metal shrouds heavily corroded. I ordered a set of universal fans which had similar dimensions to the originals. They needed a little bit of modification to fit, the mounting blocks were trimmed off and the connector swapped over, the fan on the right is how they come out of the box:-



The pitch of the 4 mounting holes is almost identical to the originals and the weight is a lot lighter:-



Once the blocks have been trimmed they fit in place quite easily:-

[par]

Now the real memory test starts as I start to put all the pieces back together!

New upper wishbones fitted with new poly bushes. A quick tip if anyone is thinking of getting new wishbones: from SJ's the Wishbone Upper RH forward is £16.10 and the Wishbone Upper LH forward is £88.32 - you can modify a RH forward into a LH forward by cutting off the brake pipe braket and get it welded so it hangs the other way as that is the only difference:-



Freshly powder coated TCA's with new balljoints & bushes:-



Injected some Waxoyl into the TCA's, the previous bungs had been destroyed during the sand blasting so improvised with some Honda panel scrivets to seal them up:-



Replaced the gearbox oil, all was going well until I could hear running oil and realised I had forgotten to fit the passenger side driveshaft



Fitted the brand new passenger side driveshaft (bargain on the Lotus after sales list) and finished filling the gearbox, 1.8 litres in the gearbox and exactly 0.2 litres on the floor! Also fitted the hubs which have new wheel bearings.



The drivers side drive shaft that was removed from the car had excessive play in the inner joint and I struggled to find someone to refurbish it. I managed to source a second hand driveshaft which had a damaged outer joint but a good inner joint so fitted a new outer CV joint to get a good unit:-





Prongeron refitted and fixed to the rafts and chassis:-





Not too far away from sitting on all 4 wheels!

[Jamie N]

Some great quality work going on there Steven, It's going to be like a new pin by the time you have finished .

[par]

Thanks Jamie!

I notice in some of the photos the sump is kind of letting the side down, time to give it a coat of Hammerite. Really should have done it before fitting all the parts around about it. Doh!

[par]

Keeping the momentum up to try and get it back on the road by the end of the month.

New upper ball joints fitted, have put the shims and camber blocks exactly in the same position they were removed from but with so many parts having been changed will need to get a full alignment done. Replaced the track rod ends with new parts at the same time:-



New Protech dampers with new springs fitted to match those on the rear which were fitted during Scotts ownership:-



New anti-roll bar fixing using the Dapinky method, laying it side by side with the old part it looked like it would need 10 washers to get the spacing correct but I ended up going with the advised 6:-



Powder coated anti-roll bar fixed in position and brake discs and calipers refitted:-





I have used the steering rack boots that Jamie kindly provided for me but not in the way originally planned. The gaiters from the original dampers were not the right size to fit the Protech units but these seem to be an ideal fit:-

[par]

It has been a long time coming but the car now sits on all 4 wheels, looks a bit Mad Max style at the moment:-







New radiator lower frame assy fitted with powder coated towing strut:-



It is easy to check the position of the brake lines in relation to the wheels with the clamshell removed (a bit paranoid after reading the issues on here) and they sit well clear of any rubbing action:-



Going to leave the car sitting on its wheels overnight before I start adjusting the height, it sits uber low at the moment, dont know if it needs to settle as such but time was getting on anyway. Once the height is set I will torque up all the bushes into position. The 10mm or so play that was present in the old rack has now gone so pleased with that

[Jamie N]

Loving the cost free alternative uses Steven, way to go!. Cant wait to see it back on the road .

[par]

When I removed the housing for the oil cooler it had some damage to it, I have been delaying repairing it for a while but cant really put it off much longer and as today was a nice bright dry day I gave it a go.

Cleaned up the edges and made a temporary brace for the missing section:-





Mixed some resin with hardener and cut some glass matting to size and left to harden. Once cure was complete ground it into shape with a dremel, not the prettiest but is functional and will be well hidden away:-



Gave the clamshell a good clean in all the nooks and crannies while accessible:-



Trial fit of the clamshell to refresh my memory of where the cables run:-



Starting to look like like a car once again

[par]

Drained the fresh GL-5 gearbox oil and replaced with the correct GL-4 type (bit of a glitch on WikiLEC which has now been corrected):-



Second hand replacement oil cooler fitted along with the hoses and new Dowty seals into the repaired cooling duct:-







Clamshell refitted with new stainless washers and bolts with a touch of PU sealant at the windscreen edges (reused all the spacer washers in their original positions:-



Fed all the wire harness into position and connected up the light pods and refitted the motors:-



All was going well until I tried full beam and the new lamp that was fitted wouldnt light up which had me scratching my head as I tried a new bulb, new H4 bulb holder, had +12v and good earth and lamp worked on the other side! After sleeping on it I figured it had to be earth related so removed all the paint from the chassis where the wiring loom is grounded to and cleaned up all the contact points and refitted. When I first re-tried full beam it still didnt work but after a few seconds it burst into life almost as if it had to overcome some form of capacitance threshold and has worked ever since

[par]

Next problem I had was trying to bleed the coolant system. With the cap off the expansion tank and using the radiator bleed point under the light pod it just kept boiling over. I then noticed it was only cool air that was being blown into the cabin even with heating on full and spotted that the direction control wasnt working either so checked I hadnt disturbed the hoses at the vacuum reservoir and found them all to be connected. Traced the hose to the intake plenum where I could hear some hissing and found the right hand connector was totally perished and split:-



Using some vacuum tube and an elbow connector I made up a replacement which meant I had good vacuum to operate the heating controls which then drew all the air out of the coolant system. Unfortunately I had to top up the water level so often I think the anti-freeze is diluted to about 1% so need to get some more.

Finished up the last few bits and pieces and dropped off at the MOT station on Tuesday, unfortunately the new tyre I had ordered only turned up today and the had to order in a length of M4 rod to sort out the handbrake travel so wont get it back until tomorrow. Only drove it a few miles to the MOT place but the steering felt good even though the alignment was out and no more 10mm of play at the steering wheel so the new rack has done its job. Looking forward to getting it back to have an extended drive to compare with how it drove before.

[par]

A couple of pictures of the car all back in one piece with a fresh MOT.

A few areas of fettling still required around the fit of the A-panels and the bonnet release pop up pin but at least it can be driven again.

[Giniw]

Wow, congratulations!!

[Rambo]

Well done Steven. What a great result and we have the good weather at last. Will we be seeing the Black Beastie at Bo'ness on Wed ?

PS When do you start on the rear suspension rebuild ?

[par]

Well done Steven. What a great result and we have the good weather at last. Will we be seeing the Black Beastie at Bo'ness on Wed ?

PS When do you start on the rear suspension rebuild ?

Thanks Mark. As long as it is dry I will be at Bo'ness this week - cant have all my new stainless bolts getting wet!!

Still waiting on the wishbones for the rear suspension, actually intended to do the rear first! I have new hubs/discs/pads & wheel bearings waiting to get fitted once the wishbones finally arrive.

[chrisP]

Hi Par My clam will be going back on soon, I'm pretty sure I have everything marked up from when I took it off years ago, but are there any washers that sit under the clam where it joins the chassis (apart from the spacer ones at the back near the top door hinge)?

Cheers
Chris

[par]

Chris,

Yes there are spacer washers at the front of each chassis leg, you can see one in this picture where the blue masking tape is. I actually kept the tape on the washers just trimmed back a bit to stop them moving when refitting the clamshell.



Dont do what I did and cleaned all the clamshell before refitting as it cleans off all the witness marks as reference ponts when refitting the hinges and bonnet release mechanism. I still dont have everything lined up correctly yet