A new elan in Australia

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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Mon 16.01.2012, 01:22

Thanks for the link Bob, I contacted the company to check avaliability and cost. They quoted 2 weeks to fabricate a new radiator and a price of $870 AUD to supply and ship it to me. Looks like the Ebay option including shipping halfway around the world is the most cost effective option!

Why are car parts so expensive in this country? I know of instances where people have purchased Australian products from the US and had them shipped back to Aus which ended up cheaper than buying the gear locally. That just doesn't make sense! :bonk:

Just waiting on a shipping price from Boston Radiators prior to placing the order, I just hope shipping time is quick.
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby bobbrown » Mon 16.01.2012, 08:47

Thats a bit expensive, almost twice the price :(
Even with airfreight from the UK it's cheaper, even a new Lotus part is cheaper including shipping (just)!
If the Rad from the UK is shipped via say FedEx express service it will probably take 3 to 4 days to get to you all things being equal, FedEx economy will take a bit longer all down to price.

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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Thu 09.02.2012, 09:57

After a small hickup involving a rag blocking a power steering pump oil line (grr) the car is almost back on the road. Just have to reinstall the front bumper, wheel arch liners and the under tray. Give it a good clean (its surprising how dusty a garage can be) and take her out for a spin :burnout:. I've got almost a full tank of possibly stale fule to get through before I can have some fun, I think I'll add a bottle of one of those octane booting additivies to freshen it up a bit, couldn't hurt.

So after over a year off the road, I've put in Samco hoses, new cooling fans, a new header tank (the 2 used ones I have have lots of stress cracks), a lower temp fan switch, new oil cooler, new oil cooler lines, stripped and Por 15ed the rad support frame, Y brackets and towing eye. And of course the item that took the majority of the time, having all the engine bay plumbing and components of an AC system custom fabricated by my dad who used to do just this kind of job when he was working for General Motors and other auto AC companies. I can't thank him enough for all the hours he's spent solving limited space problems.

Next job, strip the doors and fix the drivers side electric window so it goes up all the way again. I already have replacement regulators and butterfly clips, but that job might have to wait a bit, it's driving time :D
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Sun 19.02.2012, 10:29

WooHoo! I had my first drive in quite some time this weekend! The car feels great (as it should) although there was one moment of panic as I was about to drive it out of the garage. I was running the gear stick though the gears to make sure the new 'Bobs gear cables' were adjusted correctly. 1st to 4 were fine but when I put it in 5th, I couldn't get the stick back to nutral. :twisted: Cursing did ensue!

A quick bit ot research on LEC and the problem was found. When I was removing the selector box to make the modifircations necessary for the new cables, I removed the bolt that sets the reverse gear interlock cam resulting in the spring spining the cam around to the 'get stuck in 5th' mode. Who the hell designed that little set up :bonk: . So the selector box had to come out again, be stripped down and the cam reset to the correct position. Was a quick fix once the box was on the bench. Looks like I'm not the first to make this error and I probably won''t be the last.

The front bumper isn't quite sitting correctly due to having to modify the intercooler and oil cooler ducting to fit in the AC condensor. I'll need to trim about 5mm off the back of the openings in the bumper which won't be noticable.

The breaks were a bit rubbish initially as the disks had a decent amount of surface rust on them. They got better towards the end of the short drive I had and the disks still require some cleaning. Hopefully they come back to being OK (not brilliant but acceptable) like I remember them.

A mate of mine is organising a group of motor enthusiasts for a drive in the local mountains, I'm looking forward to seeing how the litle lotus handles it's self amongst motorbikes and some more powerful machinery. :burnout:
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Mon 13.08.2012, 08:29

After reading through Specky's door strip down and window regulator removal thread, I finally got the time (and courage) to tackle the drivers side window on my elan.

The door came apart quite easily and it was clear that this wasn't the first time the door card had been removed as some of the screws were wrong but all in all a straight forward job. Then came the slightly more challenging job of getting the regulator out. There really isn't much room between the crossmember and the glass! I know this as I pinched my fingers between the 2 when I hit the down button on the switch instead of the up one, ouch! It was difficult to get the glass off the regulator with the limited space, it occurs to me know that I should have loosened the fixing bolts at the bottom of the door first to swing the rail back a bit further. Undid all the bolts and the electrical connection, then tried to figure out how to get the thing out, it really is a tight fit in there!

This is what I found on removal
DSC00145.jpg
Window regulator

Note that the spring retaining tube to the top cable has disintegrated. This isn't a failure I was expecting. :cry:

So where to from here? I've been building a 3D printer for a bit which is almost complete (and I have access to some fully functional repraps) so I've drawn up a replacement in solid works and I'll see if I can print out a usable replacement. If it turns out to not be strong enough, I'll try putting a brass sleeve down the middle of it.

If that doesn't work I've seen cable replacement kits on ebay, they aren't the same as the elan parts but should be close enough to adapt.

Of course as the door is open I'll be replaceing the speakers, regluing the brush srtips that have fallen to the bottom of the door, generally cleaning things up, might even remove the window and replace the rollers. Works will continue 8)
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Bugeyed » Fri 19.07.2013, 13:34

Sorry you had such a problem getting on the road. A lot of us locals say because the roadworthy check is only done when buying or selling then the mechanics see it as their only opportunity to make money and really get stuck into charging. I lived in Victoria for 40 years and put up with it. When I moved to NSW I found it was completely different. Its a common sense check, minus all the over zealous nit picking.
Victoria has a reputation for it. Be careful of the over officious, draconian, authoritarian cops. Since shifting to NSW I have been pleasantly surprised to find they are just normal people doing their jobs.
Also beware the extreme number of intersections that have speed and red light cameras, its getting out of hand down there, it feeds itself - more fines mean more money to put in more cameras and more helicopters in the air.
Can you believe that they think the reduction is road deaths are due to this set up, and use money gained from the public purse to fund an advertising blitz to justify it.
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Mon 22.07.2013, 14:29

Hi Bugeyed,

I'm Melbourne born and bred so I'm very familure with the local police attitude to speed and the road worthy system. I don't speed myself, but when driving a car like the Elan, I find it's not about speed as much as not slowing down through corners. Straight line speed isn't exciting, cornering G forces are :D. Re the roadworthy, I have some family that had connections that put me in touch with a mechanic who had a much more realistic aproach to cars and could see that I wasn't an idiot. Thank fully he over looked a few minor problems that really aren't going to affect the safety of a car on the road. The statistics show that the majority of car accidents are caused by human error or poor road conditions and very few (in comparison I think it's almost none) that result in injury to a person are caused by mechanical problems.

The sad truth about my Elan is that the door is still in parts (although some of it has gone back together) and I haven't been able to work on it for some time as I'm currently building an extension to my home with my own 2 hands! I don't have a lot of spare time at the moment. Once the house is water tight (and funds are depleted), I'll dedicate a chunk of time to getting the Elan back in one piece, I might even get that AC installation complete! :P
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Bugeyed » Sat 27.07.2013, 18:00

Hi Fetnas,

Hey if you want to sell it be sure to let me know.
kerlin88@nospamyahoo.com.
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Wed 28.02.2018, 11:52

Resurrection of an old thread!

I've been doing quite a bit of work on the car recently which is detailed in other areas of the forum, primarily break line upgrades and now head gasket replacement with all the project creep that sort of work leads to.

But as a sept forward, I had my wheels restored as they were the saddest looking part of the car. I just need a set of centre cap logos from Dazza in black and silver to finish them off. They look pretty darn good now.

Wheels.jpg


I'm looking forward to driving her again, the 3 weeks I had of daily driving the elan weren't enough. It'll be running better than ever once it's back together.
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Fri 04.05.2018, 13:56

As part of the head gasket replacement I've been undertaking, I've also tackled a number of rust issues and had a lot of the steel coolant and oil lines zinc plated and yellow passivated.

DSC_0064s.jpg


I also removed the oil cooler lines that go from the oil filter to the rubber hoses under the right wheel arch. I didn't get any before photos of these pipes. The rust wasn't bad, but considering the lack of access to them, I though it best to get them sorted now.

DSC_0095s.jpg


These bits look so much better after plating.

I also got the coolant bypass pipe that runs behind the turbo plated. I hadn't realised it was removable before I had the other parts done. It was probably a good thing I gave it the treatment as the rust was getting stuck into it. The small pipe on the side was worst for ware. I'll have to use a sealant on the hose joints to make up for the rough surface left by the dissolved rust, but I happy now I don't have to worry about rust in the cooling system.

DSC_0154s.jpg
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby John_W » Fri 04.05.2018, 16:08

Bling! 8)
Looks good. :smt023
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Re: A new elan in Australia

Postby Fetnas » Mon 16.11.2020, 14:06

It's been a while since adding to this thread!

Ever since the head gasket job and general project creep in the engine bay, the car just hasn't seemed quite right! Hard starting when cold and very reluctant to start when warm. I'd basically left the car unused for extended periods as I didn't want to drive it with something not quite right, not helped by the demands of a young family.

It was a bit of a process of elimination which I think I've finally resolved over the past weekend. I was pretty sure the car was getting a spark as all the major components, including the cam angle sensor, had been replaced with new prior to the gasket work. The car also had a new fuel filter and injectors installed and a new old stock fuel pressure regulator with the head gasket work, so I though fuel supply should be OK. More recently, I noticed that the fuel pump didn't sound quite right, the tone it made seemed to change pitch and sometimes it was quite, whilst other times it seemed quite loud. So I assumed that the pump was on the way out and sourced a replacement uprated pump. I found time to install the new pump this weekend. Not quite a direct fit as the inlet and outlet are clocked slightly differently, so it's sitting at a slight angle, but otherwise it's fine.

I put the pump assembly back in the tank and turned the key. Lots of cranking but no start! At this point I was a little miffed! :censored: I took the pump out again and rechecked the wiring and electrical continuity, all good. Briefly applied 12 volts to the terminals on top of the assembly and the new pump worked, so the actual fault seemed to be electrical. I put the pump back in the tank, hooked up some clear PVC hose to the outlet to confirm if there was any flow, connected the wiring and turned the key, again no pump action! :smt013 I had checked the voltage at the wires supplying the pump previously and had a little under 12V, so there was power, but not enough current to get the higher capacity pump running, so the only thing left to look at was the relay! So I swapped out the fuel pump relay with the one that powers the mobile phone connector, crossed my fingers and turned the key once more. The pump primed, the car spluttered a bit, ran rough for a couple of seconds and then settled into an stable idle.

I'm now confident I've finally fixed the car, it just needs some fresh fuel and the interior put back together, and then a good clean. I wouldn't be surprised if the relay failing was the primary cause of the head gasket failure as I know it was running lean on a few occasions due to high revving. I was pretty sure there weren't any major vacuum leaks. :bonk: It's pretty annoying thinking that a $20 relay has caused all this hassle, but on the bright side, I now know that most of the active components in the ignition system and fuel system are essentially new. All I need to do now is install the closed loop IC and O2 sensor I have waiting, pity my car doesn't have the necessary wiring in the loom, that's a job for another day.

Now I just need to drive the thing more! :burnout:
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