Lotus Elan Central

Morning all!

I've been not active on the board for way too long, so time to change that.

As usual I'd like to post a lot of pictures, but since tinypic went 'poof' ...
What is the easiest platform these days to share pictures here?

My own car still goes like stink and all is well, well... (almost all, but hat is not what this topic is for)
Also my new garage is now 95% ready, so time to take on a bigger project to see what needs to be changed in the garage to get it to 100% M100 proof

To skip the intro further, I have now in the garage a steel blue M100 with a lot of jobs to be done. The main jobs:

* Head gasket & everything related since the head is off anyway
* complete service with all fluids and filters
* Oil Pan
* Brakes all around
* 1.000 other little things to

Once I have a reliable way of hosting the pictures I'll go mad here.
It feels good to be active here again!

Sounds good HJ, look forward to seeing the pictures, not many in steel blue.

As for picture hosting have a look at Imgur.... https://imgur.com/ , been using this for years, never had any issues or reasons to complain.

Thanks!

Testing testing, one-two!

Hmmmzzzz. do i need to resize before uploading?

Hey, try this, you can add little modifier letters into the link to change how it will show up. Add an S to make it small, M for medium, L for large, just before the '.jpg' in your link.
For example:
['img]https://i.imgur.com/aCdVtH4.jpg [/'img] will show up at the size I uploaded it.
['img]https://i.imgur.com/aCdVtH4m.jpg[/'img] will be resized to medium.

Great, thanks!

Wow!, what a fantastic and very tidy workspace you got there HJ. Looking forward to seeing that steel blue machine.

Great news Henk, you have always provided reliable and sensible advice in the past and having met you a few years ago I know its genuine.
Great garage and good luck with your project.
Trevor

Thanks both!

I hope to be able to attend to more international trips again as well.
Perhaps till then!

So, this is where this new story starts.

After a visit in Belgium and a successful start over there, the buyer brought the Steel Blue to my little village next to the city of Delft









Good to go!



I knew that the head gasket was shot, so before getting the car to my garage I picked up a replacement head that was prepared in the mean time. This so i did not have to wait for skimming the head from the steel blue.

First: Dismanteling of the donor:
(don't mind the mess)



After removing all the bobs and bits, the head was ultrasonically cleaned, New valve stem guides installed and the valves were cleaned and the seats were polished so they move and close as new again.

Then it was time for the camshafts to receive a well earned overhaul. Not much to do here besides disassembly and ultrasonically clean them, as well as the bearing caps. The cams were visually painstakingly inspected and found to be good. Also after a mild (very mild!) polish the hardened outer layer appeared to be in good state, so they were ready to put on the head again.




Also the Lifters needed disassembly, cleaning, polishing and priming with fresh oil:



Don't mind the rusty bolts they are (quite literately) a paper weight



More pictures about this little job, that needs to be repeated 16 times! later

First it was now time to remove the head from the Steel blue. As most jobs, the devil is in the detail and a lot of jobs must be done before the head can be lifted.
Enough topics already on the forum concerning this So: all the guts scooped out of the way!
Time to remove the rocker cover or what's it called



And the dreaded Engine Support, that came out easily with my custom tool (see the topic below this one for pictures of the tool)


But before anything else i needed to fix something.
Since everything is a one man operation here and a motor lift would not fit, and i needed a lift to place the head back (more control then just lift it in!)

The very complete, but tiny garage does not have room for a lift, not in height or footprint. So I had to come up with an alternative solution. Then my eyes noted the pile of old cambelt parts... This is the result! (needs painting though). As you can see my son is happy with it as well







Now that we have the proper tools: Time to lift the head!





Not hard to see where the gasket failed.



After a little cleaning:
(This is a real good time to change the oil filter as well, which I did).

Now would be a good time to drain the transmission oil & refill it again:





Looks just like new!



And Head Gasket in position:



And the donor head good to go:



It was time to use the lift again to put everything back in position.
New gaskets everywhere, and everything nicely cleaned off course!





Presto!









Enough for one night. More of this later!

Great pictures ! thanks for taking the time, your doing a fine job

Great story (and documentation) so far! Love the car and workspace

HJ2 wrote:
Not hard to see where the gasket failed.

Yuck! What symptoms did it have because of this? And what are you planning to do with the old head? Looking forward to seeing more.

I don't know what the symptoms were. It was purchased as a car with HGF, that was the entire story.
It did run nice though when bringing it from the trailer to the garage

The old head will be skimmed and treated like the nice one that is now in the steel blue

Edit: Pictures added above!
Reads like a comic now

In with the refurbished Valve lifters again:



Camshafts back:



CAM seals back



CAM Wheels back



New Idler, tensioner and waterpump, and belt back!



Clean the Rocker Cover



New gasket:



Covers back & exhaust manifold bolted back



Other bobs & bits back and admire your handy work while having a cold one!
(Brand translates as 'rusty blonde')



Fresh air filter



Look at this! Dirt due to a leaky oil pan I did not see a whole lot M100's without dented oil pans...



Time to get the oil pan off, so removed the subframe, banjo, Prongeron or whatever.
Gives good access to do some cleaning as well
The exhaust needs to come of as well (partially)



This is a good time to inspect and clean the oil pickup sieve



This will stop the leak!



To be continued soon, First I need to work on the car a little
Did you see the new pictures in the opening post as well?

Marvellous work there HJ, Car looks lovely in the steel blue. Fantastic .

HJ2 wrote:
Look at this! Dirt due to a leaky oil pan I did not see a whole lot M100's without dented oil pans...

Had the same problem and solution: cause? Driving too fast on undulating Belgian B roads.

Great work though HJ2

I've been to Belgium too often then... I must have 4 pans like this meanwhile!

I just added a few extra pictures above.

Unfortunately not too much time now, but still a little progress:

Cleaned the Banjo first:



The tool that I used to remove the allen bolts of the engine support. I have a second one (12mm, extra long) to have easy access at the tensioners of the aux. belts, works like a charm! The little piece of Allen Key is epoxy-ed in position so it does not fall out all the time





And finally the rubber grommet that holds the boost pressure sensor (or whats it called) just kept on popping out, so i replaced it with an aluminum one. I know, it should be rubber to accommodate some movement, but I think it will hold nicely, keep you posted on this!

Slow evening tonight.

I sprayed the welded oil pan with 2K paint and put the lot back under the car.
Cleaned a bit as the leaky oil pan coated the entire space under the bonnet.
Then filled her up with high grade full synthetic 5W40 so I won't start her up without the liquid gold

Yesterday I fired the engine up again.

Instant on, and after 2 seconds or so the engine was quiet, as are the valve lifters
So the biggest job done!

To be continued.