Jeemy's Elan Rebuild

[Jeemy]

I'd read that they clogged easily, but by that I thought 60k miles or so!

So whats the issue; that use of the O2 sensor in a non-closed loop system, until the chip is installed, could damage it prematurely? So fitting the O2 without the chip for a short while and leaving it unconnected is a no-no?

In an ideal world, I can fit it now, as bear in mind I won't be driving the car very far, and not at all until I have access to the wheel arch liner and to fit it. But then I wouldn't want to fit it until the correct chip is in (sitting here on my desk beside me).

Then once the engine is done, exhaust is done, it comes down off ramps and I *could* fit the chip. But I am not really wanting to fit the chip until my HiSpecs arrive. During that time I might drive it 20 miles to the respray shop, then the 5 miles back to my house and then it won't get driven again until I get the brakes, it won't pass an MOT with these brakes.

In the meantime I will try to get a scrap O2 sensor or remove the bung. I am setting up for sandblasting and painting inside while the weather is so terrible (I don't dare lift the bonnet in 20mph winds!); hopefully by next week the tools I need will have arrived and I can start shuttling pieces from the engine to be blasted, prepped and painted and try to free the old bung. I guess once the old manifold is removed I could put it in a vice and force the bung out but as you say its not worth damaging an irreplaceable part over, regardless of whether its outmoded or not.

[cliff]

Sorry, didn't realise you had the Piper downpipe as well. As you can see from the pics, mine came with a bung fitted, I left it in until I was ready to fit the chip & had sorted the wiring. Either call Piper and ask them to send you one or drop me a PM and I will send you the one I took out.

Forget about trying to take the one out of the cast lump, not worth the effort.

You don't need to take the liner off to fit the bung or the O2 sensor, only to install any wiring that might be missing.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Jeemy: You shouldn't put the new O2 sensor until the wiring is in place as it is a "heated" version and will ssot up if it doesn't get power for the pre-heater. It is no big deal to finish everything else first and then go back to the O2 when everything is ready.

Cliff: Piper doesn't show the bung in their picture of their kit, so that is why I said he needs something to plug the hole. O2 sensors are a common maintenance item, so his local garage probably an old one with the correct threads sitting in the bin or about to be discarded.

Everyone is right: Don't waste your time trying to remove the old bung. Get something else to plug the hole properly and save the cast iron parts for the day you might have to reinstall them (if the new EU standards get implemented in the UK too).

[Jeemy]

Top heatshield is OFF!

Lower heatshield is OFF!

Exhaust is REMOVED! from manifold (but still needs cut in half to get off the car, but its gone!)

Air pipe is OFF!

Coolant is DRAINED!

Turbo is MOSTLY DISCONNECTED. The oil pipe banjo bolt onto the engine may prove problematic but I need to get the rest of the old downpipe crap out before I can access.

Totally seized bolt to the rear heatshield is SHOCKED OPEN! (the other will need to be drilled out, somebody else broke it off already).

Battery Brain is FITTED.

Oh and air filter box is totally LOOSE?! I will need to work out what to do about that once I get some better access.

As you can tell from the exclamation marks and capital letters today (a surprise with lighter winds than forecast and totally clear skys) was a VERY GOOD DAY. I am absolutely buzzing with pleasure.

I have temporarily lost my camera, the work was mostly infinitesimal bolt-by-bolt stuff, but the progress was HUGE.

I have iPhone pics to post very shortly once I get home and placate the boss.

[Jeemy]

So yeah, returned to it today a bit unprepared. Ratchet spanners still hadn't arrived so I just grabbed a Draper 10mm spanner at a hardware store, and after a scraped knuckle and 10 minutes finagling, the top heatshield was off!

Final aim was to get as much of the engine bay stripped as I can to make sure I am ready when its dry and calm to underspray the body, or to get the turbo out for porting the wastegate, or to clean the engine bay and fit the Samco hoses so all possible "up on blocks" jobs are done.

So I started to loosen the lower radiator port under the driver footwell:

A little came out, I loosened and loosened, and eventually gave it a good tug and got drenched! Its all pink, I am going green for corrosion protection next time, got some Mobil stuff. Loosened the water tank top to let it keep draining, and pushed onwards.

The second instruction in the WikiLec (after removal of the top heatshield) is to remove the lower heatshield. This was SUPER fiddly, and I have not taken photos. Again, a bolt was missing, I had to mess around with spanners, 1/4" drive sockets, and it was pretty fiddly to get out but eventually it was gone, into the pile for blasting and refinishing.

So then I started following the actual instructions for removal of the turbo. I managed to loosen the banjo bolt for the top oil pipe no problem, and the retaining clip for same, OK.

Left hand is top bolt, arrow points to un-shown retaining bolt.

The final banjo bolt was in such a mess it was hard to see even what socket would be required, and the parts manual gave no further clues (shown with orange arrow). In any case, although it looks clear and accessible here, thats the magic of photography; its in the inaccessible shadows behind the base of the exhaust/wastegate manifold (blue arrow pointing to top).

So the whole exhaust needs to come off anyway, I can't go much further on top until its sorted down below, so I was back to this area:

[Jeemy]

The lower/centre bolt (14mm ea) was easy enough to remove with a ratchet. Due to the massive, leaky, hole-filled weld, the right-hand bolt took a spanner. The left-hand proved to be totally inaccessible.

The radiator hose was almost empty so I went to grab my Samco hose set; yes, identified, I can see that this gets replaced. So I cut the plastic clip holding some electric wire to it with scissors.

I contemplated removing the fans to help access the manifold/downpipe base, but the 4 bolts were no more accessible now, so I decided to mull it over, and move back up to the top of the vehicle. As I couldn't move on with the WikiLEC instructions by rote, I thought I'd just start removing un-structural stuff.

Started with the air hose, loosening the two blue-marked jubilee clips. As I loosened the right, the assembly seperated from the air filter box at the junction marked with the orange arrow. Something to ponder for future, as was the fact the air filter box is rocking loose, the bolts just holding. I presume thats wrong, its got to be, but access again was going to be something I would have to revisit after I removed more hoses.

So for now, I shoved it back onto the airbox, and sealed it off with a plastic bag and a rubber band.

Orange arrow shows previously hidden oil pipe retaining bolt

At this stage, I applied WD40 to every bolt it looked like I would need to undo. The blue-marked bolt is one of a pair - you can see the one to the right of it is snapped right out of the thread. I want this shield off to clean and spray, but its not moving. (10mm)

So by this point, it was pushing 3pm, and light was obviously fading. Panic set in. Was I going to get anything real done today?

I tried everything on the bottom of the manifold and on the top bolt; spanners, spanners with hammers, all the socket bits I had, nothing could get enough purchase. I tried to use an angle-grinder to cut the exhaust so maybe I could get access to the final bolt, but there wasn't enough room to cut right the way through, and hacksaw ditto.

To try and get some perspective, I started loosening other bolts as marked above, and yeah they took force but they were coming. But I didn't see how I could possibly get the turbo out without detaching it from the downpipe/manifold assembly; leaving the whole exhaust connected to it there's no way I would want to just keep removing bolts until something shears off or bends a bracket.....

Eventually I had a brainwave - I ran across to the garage over the road and borrowed some 14mm sockets of varying sizes, from them. With a 3/8" 14mm slim max depth socket, hammered on with a 3/8" extension bar, then hammering sideways into the weld to push the exhaust away, then a jump-up adaptor fitted, then a 12" breaker bar, using a hammer, I was getting about 1/8 of a turn. Rinse repeat, never give up, and I finally managed to crack it.

I grabbed a headlight and pushed on. Eventually, 6 hours after starting, the bottom of the exhaust came away from the manifold. I don't mind swearing I was f**king elated.

I still can't get the exhaust out; I need to break it in half where it cuts over the centre strap - i.e. where it should be gasketed not badly welded.

But as I tidied up and celebrated with a beer, one final thing hit me - I have an impact screwdriver. 5 minutes later; that bolt marked in blue above was loosened.

*****

As soon as I get the exhaust out next session, I will hopefully either be able to access the bottom of the turbo oil feed pipe where it meets the engine block, or to access more of the old cast downpipe to improve access.

Once the exhaust and that bolt is out, I can continue to follow the WikiLEC instructions, and get my turbo out, or spray the underside.

I have to say the terminology is confusing me and I am not 100% on the turbo removal steps. I have shown what I have below and the order I plan to do it. Any help gratefully appreciated; the first issue I have is related to the manual pages shown below:

As far as I can understand it, items 21-24 are the turbo oil pipe but I see nothing which relates to what is shown in (1) below.

1) (Red) I am struggling to work out what this part is. As far as I can see, 2 (blue, which I have already removed the bolt to top and the retaining bolt as it works its way down to the engine block front) is the turbo oil pipe. So what is 1, and how do I safely remove it?

2) (Blue) Any idea what the size of the heavily corroded banjo bolt mounting this to the engine is? Removal tips?

3) (Green) Once these are sorted, I plan to try to disconnect as much of the downpipe/manifold section as possible, working from the bottom up to the green line; which denotes where the new Piper downpipe replaces old equipment; to the right is the OEM turbo which I am porting. The items shown in purple will remain attached and this should hold the downpipe section and be the final thing to remove.... Once all the green bolts (3) are seperated (I have the first 2 broken loose, the back one is going to need some kind of assistance), the turbo will then be seperated from the downpipe as far as I get it. I'm not 100% what support it will then have.

4) (Purple) Assuming the turbo still has support from underlying brackets, at this stage, I plan to remove the bracket held by the 3 bolts denoted in (4), letting the final part of the old cast manifold loose. This will aid in exposing the best access to the turbo for safe removal.

Please do comment as this is the critical bit for me; I don't have a winch to hold the turbo's weight so I am very keen to make the removal as safe as possible.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Pipe and fitting (Red) #1 is the coolant lines to the turbo as compared to the (Blue) #2 Oil line to the turbo. See plare 40.13A look for #7 and follow that up to the banjo fitting. My book is missing the first page of part numbers, so maybe someone will be nice and send a link to the missing data. I have that section from the LHD Fed parts guide at http://www.lotuselanm100usa.info/manuals Look for files named LHD Parts Book_Page_278.jpg and the other 3 and you will have the parts names and numbers (at least for the FED variant). Page_279 is the illustration. The other pages are the details.

The adapter at the end of the air filter housing is designed to come off. There is a "barb" ring around the attachment sleeve that will keep it located but able to spin.

The filter housing is attached to a metal plate arrrangement that is connected to the body. I can get you a picture if you need it but in the parts guide, plate 41.02A, the filter housing is #15 and the mounting bracket is #10. The adapter that you pulled out is not displayed correctly. They show the vacuum fitting # 20 but that is in a sleeve that can come off the filter assembly. Again, I can send you a picture if it is unclear. It should "snap" into the housing and then the hose to the turbo is connected.

[Jeemy]

It does snap in and out. The air filter box is loose at the bottom, I pulled the filter for a quick look and there are 4 approx M12 bolt heads; its the undersides of those that are loose, but they appeared to be located into plastic ferrules so they don't spin, and need tightened from the nuts underneath I presume.

Brilliant, the blue marked 2 is the coolant, I am sure I can work out how to get it off, and equally sure I don't have any Samco parts for that thin line.

Very hopeful that by early tomorrow I will be turbo/exhuast out, masked up, and then going forward I am ready to either detail the engine/bay, or underspray, or port the wastegate, or sandblast & paint the heatshields. So I am finally not going to be losing time due to weather anymore.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

It does snap in and out. The air filter box is loose at the bottom, I pulled the filter for a quick look and there are 4 approx M12 bolt heads; its the undersides of those that are loose, but they appeared to be located into plastic ferrules so they don't spin, and need tightened from the nuts underneath I presume.

That is correct.

Brilliant, the blue marked 2 is the coolant, I am sure I can work out how to get it off, and equally sure I don't have any Samco parts for that thin line.

That line is steel and not happy to be bent. Use caution.

Very hopeful that by early tomorrow I will be turbo/exhuast out, masked up, and then going forward I am ready to either detail the engine/bay, or underspray, or port the wastegate, or sandblast & paint the heatshields. So I am finally not going to be losing time due to weather anymore.

Great progress thus far!

[whippit]

Your number 3 might have broken loose, but you will need three new studs,
lotus in there wisdom used nuts that stripped the threads as soon as you loosen them, the only way to remove the inner one is with the turbo off
i would advise making an A frame to help you lift the turbo and manifold out of the engine bay, if you dont you'll damage your back or your paint work,

[Brit-Car-Nut]

The Piper Front Pipe comes with the replacement studs.

[cliff]

1) (Red) I am struggling to work out what this part is. As far as I can see, 2 (blue, which I have already removed the bolt to top and the retaining bolt as it works its way down to the engine block front) is the turbo oil pipe. So what is 1, and how do I safely remove it?

As has been mentioned before, this is the coolant pipe. When removed looks like this:

This can be left on the turbo, its much easier to remove/fit on the bench. Remove the 2 bolts securing it to the engine & disconnect the 2 hoses.

2) (Blue) Any idea what the size of the heavily corroded banjo bolt mounting this to the engine is? Removal tips?

I removed the top bolt on the turbo & left the oil pipe in situ. It can be, very gently, bent out of the way, usual disclaimers apply. I can check the size for you tomorrow though.

Also on this pic you can see the oil return hose on the bottom of the turbo, should be held on by a jubilee or a spring clip.

[Jeemy]

Thanks guys. All is clear up til now. I am going to try to remove the turbo oil pipe at the engine, I want everything gleaming so that will be no exception.

Friday the sun shone and wind dropped so I went at it again....

An hour or two of hell, I ended up having to cut the old exhaust again, but couldn't get access to the top part of the pipe, and with a combination of hammers, giant screwdrivers, and eventually a hand off the work experience kid who's been hovering during the whole process and is very keen I finish by March so he can see it! - the exhaust finally came out from under the vehicle:

Bye bye, shitty exhaust

Given MattDon's recent post, I've decided to buy an engine crane while Machine Mart have 20% off running until 16 November. Its not worth damaging the turbo; and without decent support, I could be facing a complete wreck if I make a mistake. For £100, I'll have to go for it. This leaves with with £300 left out of my total budget (£6k not including re-usable tools) to finish the car. Ulp!

So until I get that, I am not removing any more of the downpipe.

I put a bit more WD40 onto the problem bolts (the PlusGas arrived today, the day after, so I will start pre-feeding bolts with that next) and decided to find a project I could take home.

With the wife out on a girly night out, the oven, washing machine, sink and hairdryer were suddenly available for treating car parts!

I decided to work from the top down and start with the oil seperator. The rough plan is to refinish the cam cover in red, because the plenum chamber, I don't fancy removing. It has to stay silver, therefore to put refinished silver next to it wil show it up. I had a go with Meguiar's engine parts cleaner (meant to be non-destructive to all common metals, rubbers, electrical connectors, plastics etc) and it did not come up any better really. See question at end.

So the oil seperator, I started by trying to clean with fibre sheets. It was going to roughen the surface too much. I tried 00000 steel wool, and thats going to put too much steel wool residue through the engine. I tried 1500 grit sandpaper and it worked OK, but the remaining dark marks won't come out with that. Cotton buds, toothbrushes, and more Megs and this is how it ended up looking.

Oil seperator after best effort cleaning.

So I decided, its going to get painted. Its cleaned and prepped anyway, why not; especially as the bottom mounting bolts are simply too corroded and fiddly to clean up, ever. Later, I decided its too close to that plenum chamber to be silver; its going to be gold; my test piece for the gold caliper paint that I hope will match my front Hi-Specs (currently with Bob Brown and a source of minute-by-minute panic - will I ever get them?).

So I removed the centre cover, and the oil seperator cover, both of which had little bits of rubber gasket sticking out - so sloppy.

Home they came, and the bolts were soaked in Marine Clean, agitated with the Tool of the Day - a 50p kids toothbrush from the local Asian Gentlemans shop.

The covers went into the sink to soak, and the bolts into a little ramekin:

Bolts at Home! I can have that glass dish cleaned and back in the cupboard before she gets back, I know it!

Once dried out, and rinsed with copious amounts of Fairy liquid in (gasp) the same sink we use to clean our dishes, I tried to remove the washers and split washers from the oil seperator cover screws. Nothing doing, plenty messing around with pliers, wedging precision screwdrivers in, but its not worth mucking about with the screw threads over, and although I want the engine to be gleaming, its not the Mona Lisa and I can work round this.

Everything got mounted into cardboard (its better to puncture a small hole with a precision screwdriver rather than push the screw through and risk bending the cardboard):

Out came the first of my red paints (god I hope they match) - (protip: always better to open paint you are going to use over and over with 2 coins, rather than screwdrivers, and seal clingfilm between the lid and the can before closing) - some cheapo ebay high-temperature caliper paint - this will be mainly used for finework in logos, and bolt heads:

Cheapo red paint, stirred with straw

Seemed to go on OK, and deciding there was no way of turning the screws for the seperator cap without creating more mess, I decided to hang them upside-down on the front door step, which will get repainted anyway, so its a good place to drop red things! Any problems with the washer-bolt head interface will just be screwed out and maybe touched up with a single paintbrush strand at final install:

Onto the cover itself. Before my A4 was written off (not my fault!) I was planning to replace all the gloss grey with grey carbon fibre sheets. Its not the 3M stuff so I am unconfident about how it will install, but I watched this video and it seemed fairly straightforward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StYwRwh9wXA

I measured a piece for the simple part, the seperator cover, and popped it under a book to flatten:

As its my first test piece I decided to crack straight on after a few minutes flattening, and laid the cover down upon it:

I used a plastic credit card to smooth it down; then cut around the front leaving a 1mm (my guesstimate at the cover thickness) surround:

[Jeemy]

I decided to pierce holes now before applying heat, using the screwdriver as before:

With no heat at all, shoving the Tool of the Day backwards through each hole seemed to leave a clean enough end.

I ran the hairdryer round the edges and then used the paintbrush back to push them down and around....it turned out a fingernail is better for this substrate, and after a while heating, pushing and scraping off excess, this is what I ended up with.

Its workable for now.

Onto the main event: the centre cover:

I measured the grooves and they are about 2mm per side, 2mm width - so thats 36mm extra I need across the 6 of them.

Assuming the heat will afford some expansion, and that I have to make up all slack on the left hand side, I decided to call each groove 3-4mm of material and end up with 20mm to make up on the left. I cut the initial piece roughly and left it to flatten:

I sanded this piece down with 2500 grit, using the back end of the Tool of the Day to get the grooves clean:

The plan was then, to mount the vinyl centrally, and push it down into the grooves from the inside out:

I tried all sorts of things, using a pencil to push down into the grooves, fingernails, etc:

But by the time I had all grooves filled, the left hand side was a mess:

Eventually, I worked out the best way was just to cover the top 15mm, then use the hairdryer to melt the wrap a little, push it down gently so it didn't break, work the left hand side out to the edge, and move to the next groove.

Not perfect, but this is what I ended up with:

[Jeemy]

And in fact, the visible defects are all under bolt heads, so I pushed on, using a combination of hairdryer, fingernail, bank card, metal ruler etc etc to push it all into shape:

So by the time I gave up, after plenty heating with the hairdryer, this was my final piece:

Time to head to the garage and check on the red-headed bolts!

[Jeemy]

So yeah, every 10-20 minutes I've been putting a screwdriver in these and turning them, pushing them in and out of the cardboard so they don't get stuck, etc etc. I'm using ebay cheapo high-temperature paint.

These grey parts will go back on with red bolt heads:

This is coat 3....I am knackered, slept about 20 hours total this week. Going to chill and play some MGS3 HD, pop out to these and push the paint away with the appropriate drivers in an hours, do coat 4 in 2 hrs....hopefully they will end up looking great.....

[dapinky]

Jamie,

The best thing I have found for cleaning the plenum chamber (or any other aluminium surface come to that) is aerosol carb/choke cleaner - very closely followed by aerosol brake cleaner (is it even the same stuff???????).

Spray it on, work it round with a toothbrush - often availlable for about half a quid from the corner shop to losten the grime, then spray again to 'wash' the gunk away - it is highly volatile stuff so will try to evaporate away before you mop up the dirty liquid, so just do a small area at a time.

Basically:- squirt, brush, squirt, mop, squirt, mop - move to next bit

I don't get expensive cleaner - just stuff from my local 'bargain' shop - it works fine.

If you have deeply ingrained muck, then a pre-soak with a bit of cellulose thinners and agitate with toothbrush will work wonders.

[Jeemy]

I've got some of the SLT brake cleaner I think it is. Cheapest way to get it is to buy it in a pack with brake caliper paint; I do this a lot, as its expensive on its own and hard to find cheaply. I'll look at what the chemical is and see if I can find a cheap alternative; I'm guessing its butane or another petroleum derivative.

Any tips for refitting the rubber gasket to the centre cover? It was very loose in places so I am going to refit it properly, when I work out what properly is. Its just a water ingress seal as far as I can see....

[Jeemy]

A very frustrating start to the week - high winds forecast, . Monday, I was overworked. Tuesday, I bought and assembled an engine crane.

Today I erected my shelter as it was beating it down with rain, and optimistically put my engine crane in place:

Trying to work from the manual, I continued to remove parts from the turbo. This first part I think is a Boost Overflow Valve; this I believe will need to be removed before installation of the Everest chip:

With my new ratchet spanners finally in hand, the 3 bolts holding on the manifold came off easily enough:

I then pulled out the two pipes going into the bottom of the turbo and removed the little valve; this pic is to remind me how it goes back on:

And how the BOV would go back on, if it ever does:

Off came the left hand bracket that held the manifold to the engine block:

….and this is where I started to run into problems. The banjo bolt holding on the turbo oil pipe (marked red) will not shift; so I removed the engine lifting bracket (not shown, I removed it!) and disconnected the pipe at the other end.

Worse still, neither will the bolts holding the turbo onto the engine block (marked in blue, one hidden and there is possibly a third). The bolt marked in green I tried to shift, it was turning easily and then suddenly became almost impossible to turn, and wouldn't tighten back up. I managed to force it tight again, and panicked with dimming light, stopped for the day.

In the bottom right under the rope you'll see I pulled the coolant hoses (to get access to the turbo oil drain pipe, which I disconnected relatively easily, and the little metal tube that connects them is rusted to pieces. Least of my worries right now but I covered all the open pipes with plastic sheet to prevent any dust/rust contaminating the system.

So I basically don't know what to do now. The exhaust manifold is still connected to the pre-cat, and even if I could shift it over to the left and get it off the turbo, it will weigh a ton and I don't know if I can lift it past the turbo. I cannot get the bolts off the final heatshield, so I can't remove the precat to make it easier. I cannot get the manifold to seperate from the turbo, and I am worried about damaging the seal or gasket (I presume Piper will have given me another one, I'll need to open their packet tonight and look through it all) by prising it with a screwdriver. Dapinky's write up on rebuilding the turbo (which I don't know whether to follow, its a good time to do it while the turbo is off but I am worried I might make things worse rather than better) talks about removing studs with an E8 star socket; I can't even see what these are; I don't know if this means removing the bolts the exhaust part is resting on; I couldn't see any kind of socket or way to grip these at either side.

Any advice gratefully appreciated, otherwise my gut instinct is to get an extension and breaker bar onto the lower parts of the exhaust and try to remove those, thereby lightening the part that is left so I can maybe slide it off to the left, and then get access to the bolts holding the turbo on…...

[Jeemy]

Well, I had a little brainwave and remembered I had an old socket set lying around my parents recently dropped off when they found it clearing out their basement - happy days, it was 3/8" and inbetween my mini 1/4" set which gives very little pulling power and my beloved Beta 1/2" 12" ratchet and breaker bar.

10 minutes of renewed vigor, and I had the precat bracket and middle exhaust heatshield off, giving me access to the precat, finally. Still not enough purchase to remove the precat, but if I pick up a slim 12mm socket and a 1/2" extender, I will take the 1/2" ratchet and/or breaker bar to the precat/downpipe part tomorrow. Hopefully this will get another bit of exhaust off and the wiggling may even loosen the old manifold from the turbo and allow me to remove that section and get more access to the turbo mounts! Can but hope. I'm going to buy the longest 14mm spanner I can find as well and see if I can get it onto the turbo bolts to try and loosen them enough to remove, and/or get the oil pipe off the turbo.