Jeemy's Elan Rebuild

[Jeemy]

I had to spend a little time pulling the gear lever off because some dipshit had wrapped gaffa tape around it to fit their stupid aftermarket halfords gear knob.

Thankfully I have an even more stupid aftermarket chinese gearknob to replace THAT with.

I had another look at the rust and am convinced I have caught it in good time. If I am correct, the picture below shows the jacking point and it looks fine, with just a little surface rust. I am not 100% sure how to clean it off, but it will get doused in Dinitrol and last 10 years or more, of that I am sure.

However, the area around it is pretty corroded. There are 2 big holes. There also seems to be an angled strut coming up from the jacking point. For now, I am taking the attitude that this is the structural part, and the outrigger panel with the circular holes is almost cosmetic, and simply a danger if allowed to feed rust to the jacking point and strut. Whatever the case, I have to treat whats there now; if I get a panel welded over this I don't think it would help much; in Bob Brown's documented case the rust from the picture shown above had fed into the jack point; mine hasn't.

Gaiters came off, console came off, and as the rain was setting in, I decided to try and fit the battery brain I bought. Unfortunately as there is no clearance above the battery, I'm going to need a cable to do so.

So the tub is empty as much as it can be, and I am a bit unsure what order to do things in. Rethinking the order of things all the time, but this is the current plan:

- grind away all the rust
- treat with phosphoric acid
- paint with POR15
- clean everything thats off, coat parts with Plastidip if I feel so inclined. I am unsure how to treat the damaged vinyl-coated plastic parts. I will make a seperate thread about this.
- cavity wax the inside of the outriggers
- put the drivers' seat back in and a temporary gear knob (i can't find the one I bought)
- fit battery brain
- detail and protect the hood
- drive the car onto ramps
- get in under the suspension and body and spray everything with dinitrol, hoping not too much comes up into the engine bay, I'll have to try to mask somehow.
- clean and rust-treat wishbones
- to do things right, i'm then going to have to respray, which means an untaxed drive or hiring a trailer to take the elan to the sprayshop, then remove all the light fittings, spoiler, wing mirrors, washer jets, badges, number plates, mesh, and rear lights, properly wrap and protect the hood from the spray job, will need advice off the spray guy here.
- work out what to do with the nasty rippled numberplate surrounding piece of the back bumper before spray.
- respray car, another untaxed drive (aargh) or trailer back to my studio, opposite a garage so maybe I can have an MOT "scheduled"
- finish destroying the doors, fit the weatherseals, and start testing the waterproofing, work out how to fit the speakers finally, and dynamat everywhere.
- then remove each wheel, replace with the new Oz wheels while cleaning the wheel arches and coating them in black Protectakote, cleaning up the overspray inside the arches, and changing the CV gaiters outer (still not found correct inners)
- then my brakes should have arrived, I'll get the Piper 2.5 exhaust, fit brakes & shortshift myself, then drive, genuinely on the way to the MOT, to have exhaust fitted
- hopefully then it will pass the MOT
- during this time I will have finalised plan for door card speaker fitments, built sub boxes,
- remove steering wheel, send steering wheel, gaiters, door cards (i need new door lock surrounds still) and seats off to be refurbished
- while steering wheel is off, remove dash panel (and fix heating), fix the spinning dashlight strength control, fix the breaks in the dash, together with fixing up the other plastic parts, fit the subs, wire in the amp and stereo, work out how to get the dash inner to sit flush with the outer, refit, and measure/order the carpets
- fit the new carpets over the sub boxes, cut out the sub holes, lift and run the wires, wire in the subs
- refit the steering wheel, centre console, gear & handbrake gaiter & handles, and door cards
- drive the f*ckin thing

stuff i can do whenever:

- properly clean the engine bay and work out whether it needs sprayed, in which case, I'll have to do this before the proper respray.
- detail the engine while replacing all the hoses with samco, paint the engine block etc
- refinish my Oz wheels. Unsure if I'm just gonna paint them, or have them powdercoated; i don't know how thick the coating is and don't want to mess up the indented logos
- research and fit correct tyres
- install O2 sensor, BOV valve, mountain chip (i should have this done before the exhaust is fitted so the whole system can be tuned)

problems still to sort

- do I need a manifold?
- ECU positioning
- can I get my remote central locking back, if it ever existed?
- back brakes. going to have to faux gold them to match the front until we get the group buy finished on the rear hubs

[Jeemy]

So onto the rust itself.

Initial situation was as below. All of these pictures are taken after a quick initial grinding with a Laser fibre disc mounted to a drill (about £4 each, and they will do one job each; i.e. I used 2 for this, one for each side. They remove just enough rust without breaking the metal, but the downside is they erode in use. Much better than steel, wire, or angle grinding as all possible metal integrity is retained).

Back passenger side, OK

Closer view, looks messy but not as bad as it looks.

Again, front passenger side, not too bad really. I will later discover that the finish on the jacking point is Dinitrol ML.

and the front edge of the passenger side where it meets the bolt

The drivers side is much worse. Window down, wet leg, anyone?

The worst part, front drivers side. You will see that the panel is rusted through in 2 places, but I do not believe these are structural.

Close up view of front drivers' side.

As view extends to the back of the drivers side, the seams have a little surface damage, but are intact.

Middle drivers side. You'll note the fibre disc takes away paint that has rusted underneath . Quickly getting down to bare metal now.

And the back of the drivers side sills. More on this later.

This is the centre back of the drivers side after a quick grind. Light surface rust, easily taken away in the main part by the fibre disc. Thank Jebus I am catching this now, as it was just on the cusp of car cancer before the grinding.

[Jeemy]

So with the photos above showing what I had to deal with after the initial clean/grind, I then started in with the wire brush and copious amounts of Clarke Rust Treatment - a 25% phosphoric acid solution with evaporants and other rust-killing stuff, which has worked wonders on other vehicles, treated with that, then POR15, then after a respray, no creep 2 years later......

First thing I noticed was as I started in with the wire brush, portions of the seam at the back drivers' side started to pull off. Again, I'm assuming for structural purposes these were left there as edges from the seams, which are still intact.

At the centre drivers' side, I quickly approached bare metal with the brush.

Although the front drivers' side is bad, you can clearly see the angled strut and jack point have no issues.

So starting to scrub this area with a small steel brush and the phos.acid, its oxidising pretty quickly.

Light is fading. Central drivers side, all oxidised and clear to paint.

Not very pleased with the back drivers' side, but its oxidising up nicely. I'm really pushing hard with the Stanley blade and if I can't break it off, its structural in my book.

Back drivers' side sill, however, is cleaned up perfectly. Bare metal or oxidised surfaces, looks clean.

Front passenger side, looks pretty orange.

But in fact the damage ain't too bad, and its cleaning up and oxidising nicely.

You should note that during this process, I've spent about 8 solid hours scrubbing with wire brushes, replacing the fluid often, wiping away the excess with paper towels (my second favourite tool of the day), and repeating until the fluid foams up clear, and the metal has turned black. I've used brass and steel brushes, the fibre disk both direct on the drill and on a screwdriver extension inside the panels, and sandpaper to get to either bare metal, or black oxide.

Centre passenger side, starting to clear up

[epipete]

Yes, apart from the offside front you seem to got off quite well

I should check out your jacking points a little more thoroughly, a camera phone will give a good view, here's an example of mine

Off side

[Jeemy]

I didn't get great photos of them, but I did check them out thoroughly; they aren't as bad as the examples you show.

This represented about 3 days' work, I'm only halfway through the photos or so:

Again, centre passenger side, cleaning up neatly, a bit to go.

And back passenger side, again, cleaning up fine

Back passenger earth point for ECU is going to be obstructed by my subs, and its dirty. I will deal with this later.

It oxidised up really well.

The full drivers' side coated in POR15

I started to treat the passenger side with the rust remover.

This was a much faster job, I got down to bare metal and oxide very quickly.

It oxidised up really well.

[Jeemy]

Front footwell nearside, all oxised and ready for POR15

3 coats of POR15 is what I am going for, so I'll be at this till midnight. Made up a working area for the painting.

Its not the Mona Lisa, 3 more coats in the dark and then I left her overnight......

Cold light of day. Actually, quite a warm one for Scotland. Paint is nice and hard, doesn't look like I missed anything.

This is the bad part, all sealed now.

At this point I set up to fill the cavities with Dinitrol ML. My brand new air compressor turned out to have a faulty dump valve, I was pretty displeased, but there was enough pressure coming through to force the ML through the Shutchz gun and out of the cavity tube, so I proceeded to fill 'er up.

Can't be too careful!

After spraying with ML - 1

After spraying with ML - 2

After spraying with ML - 3

After spraying with ML - 4

Having never used the ML before, I wasn't sure what to expect but the general consensus from what I read was although it is incredibly thin, it does the job. Once I put it on, I could see clearly that it was the same or similar stuff that had been on previously. I sprayed to the top of the inner sills, and all round inside, and towards the corners, and it dripped out of the bottom of the vehicle so I am confident that its penetrated right through the vehicle. When I come to the underside I'll be further preventing ingress with 3125.

There wasn't any Dinitrol, or any form of protection, on the inside (inside-of-the-car facing, not inner) sills, so this is where the lying water in the carpets and under the foam, has eaten away. The POR should hold it from proceeding, and the ML should continue to protect the inners. This leaves water sitting in the carpets but I am going to work hard on the waterproofing soon.

So unfortunately my plan of getting up on ramps today and starting to clean and 3125 the underside will have to wait until I get the compressor fixed.

Going to have a rethink and perhaps start on the engine cavity and door cards waterproofing/speaker work.

[Jeemy]

So after the first big spend (pumps, belts, badges, seals which I hope not to use, red door clips, and fitting by a garage including testing engine), the second big spend has just been done:

- air compressor
- hydraulic lifting ramps
- hi-spec brake kit with big grooved discs, 1144 pads from Bob
- short shift kit
- piper exhaust 2.5" kit with ceramic downpipe, sports cat
- 1499 V4 Chip & Adaptor kit - Everest
- 3M Vinyl Repair Kit x 2
- Dinitrol for underside (2 cans won't be enough, got 4 more)
- O2 sensor

Project will now have a few extra steps. Over the next week I will be removing the remainder of the door innards and seals; they'll be left unsealed and under cover until respray. I'll be removing the turbo to port the wastegate, and spraying and detailing the engine bay.

Exciting stuff. Hope to remove the turbo Monday.

[Jeemy]

Big tidy up of my office, workshop and storage today.

Time to pull everything out of toolbags, consolidate it all together and group up parts for:

- carpet cleaning, or measuring for replace
- carpet removal and cleaning of plastic
- touching up vinyl and repairing/cleaning/removing old sealant strips
- making sure I have all the cables, fittings, parts etc

There are a lot more bolts and screws to come off yet so once I am finished removing them they will get moved into cardboard and relabelled there, and all the heads cleaned and painted so that visually, its all perfect when it goes back on.

I can't believe how much has come out so far and there is still the turbo, exhaust, dash, and another door to go - not to mention the first door is only half-dissassembled.

Roughly, from left to right, surrounded by innards and carpet.

- sub amp, head unit, old head unit for sale (new speakers in boxes, not pictured)
- sample of new leather colour, to return to upholsterer once everything is ready
- outer CV gaiters and fitting tool
- drivers sills
- new badges
- aerial, coin tray
- branded seatbelt pads (have 2 extra of these if anybody wants em)
- bags of labelled screws, console and door parts, still another box of these to find
- new black indicator crystals
- new and old door handle escutcheons
- new weatherseals, A-pillar seals (hoping not to use these)
- new black gear gaiter, old speaker mounts
- map pocket, B-pillars, centre console, battery brain
- old and new gear and handbrake levels (new still in bags)
- seat mounts in envelopes (seats not pictured)
- old speaker covers, probably never going back as new custom sub boxes going in place
- samco hoses and clips

Scary. Actually seems a lot less scary in a photo and catalogued. Probably why I do it.

Also not pictured:

- carpets themselves
- mats (getting ditched)
- seats
- carpets from hood compartment

[Jeemy]

So I'm now starting to plan out the stereo system in detail.

The speaker system I have is a 3-way Dynaudio 1.1" highs, MD100 mids, MW150 Kicks, and X250 Crossovers.

The subwoofer system is 2 x Peerless XLS10 10" subwoofers.

I'm planning to run this from a Pioneer DEH-80PRS head unit. Although its capable of 3-way operation in fact this is going to be 4-way; 3-way plus sub.

Therefore I am going to use it in 2-way mode; with the Front speaker feed powering the Dynaudio crossovers, and the Sub speaker feed running to a Genesis Sub amp.

Rough plan is to mount the subs behind the seats in custom-made 14L ply boxes, the woofers in the doors on MDF baffles where the existing grille, shown is, the mids cut into the doors between the escutcheon cut-out and the A-pillar cheater triangle, and the tweeters actually into the cheater triangle itself.

I don't really want to cut the doors up, and it will cost me to have the vinyl redone, but it'll be a nicer job in the end, and I can't see any other way of fitting in the speakers. I was much keener on a 3-way system with 5.5" woofer than a 2-way, although I heavily considered DLS Gothica or Nordica, I just have always wanted Dynaudio in a car system - they are what I use in the studio.

Alternatives would be to mount in the kickpanels, or pods on the dash, neither of which seems to be more elegant, or better placement...

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated.

Speakers & Door Card

[Rambo]

Hiflowheads

How have you found them ? They get a bit of a pasting on the car forums

Cam belt and associated parts are much cheaper via Rockauto - although you do have to pay taxes/customs charges on arrival. I did a mini group buy several years back and we saved £££hundreds

[Jeemy]

I found him friendly, helpful and he was able to change all the belts (timing, power steering, and cam together with tensioners) and water pump (without a manual), in a day flat, compression tested the engine, total bill was about £250 + VAT.

He also pointed out the bushings issue, spark plug lead 4, and CV gaiter as things I should sort, and generally went over the car and gave me a list of things to work on and think about.

I already bought them all from Paul Matty. Cost was about £40 per belt, £70 for pump, £70 each tensioner, something like that, £330 for those parts about.

I'm certainly planning on using him to take my A6 biturbo to RS6 spec; he does have the same car so I'll be following in recently-trodden footsteps there. He does a lot of custom manifold work and chipping/induction kits for Evos, Vauxhalls, Subarus, these kind of cars, and whether people might have issue with him on price - his rate is the most expensive hourly rate I've seen in a garage - or the fact there may be people out there who they think do it cheaper/better/both, I don't know.

But bottom line for me, I found him trustworthy, and he did everything I asked; where most garages ignore the list you give them of things to check over and just do the work they are paid to do, so I thought he was pretty efficient and methodical. Others' mileage may vary and I couldn't speak for the quality of the work on engine flowing and so forth, but he's got a good reputation from the people I spoke to locally.

[Rambo]

Thanks for the reply Jeemy. There are always 2 sides to every story and I'm very pleased you have positive things to say and are well pleased with the work that hiflowheads have done to date. Might take a run out to look at their operation based on your recommendations

[Rambo]

Where are you based ? North Berwick, Dirleton, Dunbar, Athelstaneford......

[Jeemy]

I'm Gullane mate. But the Elan is at my studio in Edinburgh so I can work on it.

[norman lovie]

lots of good work getting done there - reads like deja voo for myself a few months back
you want to get a good look / down behind the B pillar posts ( easy enough on the drivers side - but its a tank out job to get a good look on the nr side

The worst structural rust area I have found is at the back end where the centre chassis outriggers are exposed and the very rear section of the centre chassis where the rear wishbone mounts are

ref: phosphoric acid as a rust convertor - this stuff is good for the area's you can't get to easily - not to sure about the chemistry lesson sales pitch - but it does work - I have swilled it inside boxed in bits prior to waxing http://www.rust.co.uk/products/category ... converter/

[Jeemy]

Erk. Don't fancy tank out. I will certainly try a pour, although the ML has already dripped through whatever cavities it could from the back of the B-pillars. I had assumed that I would get to the back of the outriggers when I raised the underside.

[Jeemy]

Haha I just read that, I have a chemistry degree and its gibberish to me!

From memory the datasheet on the Clarke product is that its about 25% phosphoric acid, also includes zinc phosphate and a bundle of other chems.

As I said previously, I used it on all the sills on my Vito before covering in POR15 (2 coats, plus 2 coats of tie-coat primer), intending to paint it myself. A year on (and I live by the sea, and windsurf from the van, so it had seen its fair share of salt) I'd got nowhere close and paid somebody to do it, and there was no rust creep at all. Whether thats the POR or the Clarke or both, I don't know, but for me winning combination right there.

[Jeemy]

Well, after a very hairy time getting car up onto ramps, its done!

Short version - you can't drive it onto both due to the low centre sills. My original plan of raising it with the hydraulic lifts, then putting it on axle stands, didn't work; they aren't high enough. I ended up reversing it onto the static ramps, then jacking the body and the wheel to get the hydraulics under, then jacking the wheels off the static ramps and turning them round, one by one.

This took almost FOUR hours of finagling.

Finally, it was up on the ramps.

Once done, you just connect the pump,

and in a few seconds its up and pretty comfortable to get under:

One thing I hadn't realized, is that it can't just rest on the hydraulic rams. You actually have to raise it a bit higher than this, and then clip a metal lever into the ram collars.

So I am wondering if it is safe just to leave up there....the handbrake is on, its in gear, I can't see how it could roll off; and I think its equally problematic to keep raising and lowering it rather than just leave it on the ramps.

This is how it looks now its on the supports:

I have lots of photos of the underside and the cleaning progress; suffice to say cleaning it is going to be a hell of a job, and I've discovered more problems. Will post later once I'm finished work.

In the meantime, if anybody can set my mind at ease about the safety of it, please do so. Its safer than 4 axle stands for sure! Each of the hydraulic and static ramps is rated at 2.5 tons each......and you can just see the two axle stands which are there as a backup behind each static ramp.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Jeemy: to prevent roll-off, bolt or clamp a block thru the rear ramp to another block to act as a stop.

Or run a ratchet strap thru the spokes and lash a wheel to the ramp.

[dapinky]

Cant see a big problem with it staying on ramps, but one minor observation.......

....why did you turn the rear ones round after reversing onto them? I'd have thought if they faced in oposite directions there would be far less chance of the car rolling off them, especially if you want/need to take the handbrake off to do any work in the wheelarch areas?