Shorter than it should be :(

[dapinky]

Well, it appears that nothing is going to happen for a week......

.....but for acceptable reasons.......

I had a phone call from Peter James today (himself - not a staff member ) saying that he has now received a [signed original] lovely 3 page letter from the Technical Officer at my local car club, and would like to wait until after next weekend when Alan Morgan gets back from his holiday so he can speak with him directly.

He will then PERSONALLY take the matter to KGM insurance, as he is due to have a meeting with their Managing Director on 30th October, and will be raising the relevant questions (and complaints about how their staff have dealt with the matter so far).

I know it isn't actually 'progress' as such, but it does give me some (hopefully not unfounded) confidence that with the top man from the Brokers, supported by the top man at Club Lotus, speaking to the top man at the Insurers, something will actually happen!!!!

[epipete]

I know it isn't actually 'progress' as such, but it does give me some (hopefully not unfounded) confidence that with the top man from the Brokers, supported by the top man at Club Lotus, speaking to the top man at the Insurers, something will actually happen!!!!

Well, we're all routing for you Dave and I certainly hope that you achieve your desires here, nevertheless, I hope that they raise the value appropriatly as with the car still sitting outside in this inclement weather, as a viable repair, it is losing ground!

[Rob P]

I know it isn't actually 'progress' as such, but it does give me some (hopefully not unfounded) confidence that with the top man from the Brokers, supported by the top man at Club Lotus, speaking to the top man at the Insurers, something will actually happen!!!!

Well, we're all routing for you Dave and I certainly hope that you achieve your desires here, nevertheless, I hope that they raise the value appropriatly as with the car still sitting outside in this inclement weather, as a viable repair, it is losing ground!

Hope it all gets sorted in your favour Dave

[Rice crispy]

Dave any news still can visit to collect stuff if needed or collect the car if you know someone with a trailer ( I have car and towbar) to borrow
David

[dapinky]

Last week we were promised that a 'final' offer would be made early this week.....

...they may think it'll be final, but I'll decide that if and when they actually give us something in writing

[DABgp]

My pet hobby horse. Always leave your car in gear. Reinforced by my ownership of many old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

[theelanman]

old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

Lol......nowt wrong with mine.....still leave it in gear tho

[GeoffSmith]

My pet hobby horse. Always leave your car in gear. Reinforced by my ownership of many old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

That's all well and good.... until some unnamed person tries to start your car into the garage door.

[epipete]

My pet hobby horse. Always leave your car in gear. Reinforced by my ownership of many old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

Well now that you've got an Elan you can stop buying old bangers! Merely, a bit of routine maintenance to the brakes should see you fine!

I was always taught to start a car with the clutch depressed to reduce strain on the engine/starter motor.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

My pet hobby horse. Always leave your car in gear. Reinforced by my ownership of many old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

Merely, a bit of routine maintenance to the brakes should see you fine!

I was always taught to start a car with the clutch depressed to reduce strain on the engine/starter motor.

Not to be contrary, but depressing the clutch puts added stress on the engine as it adds the resistance of the throw-out bearing and pushes the crank against the thrust washers.

Best to put the car into neutral and without touching the clutch pedal, crank the engine. It will spin a bit faster and require less effort from the starter.

Here is a bit of info regarding the rear brakes used on the M100 (borrowed from article: http://www.searchautoparts.com/motorage ... king-brake):

"General Motors made a mistake in the design of the parking brake mechanism in the early W-Body cars with four-wheel discs (Lumina, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal). The rear caliper pistons would self-adjust only when the driver released the parking brake. But even drivers who routinely used their parking brakes would run into problems because of how it had to be released.

The fix is not just to repair/replace the worn parts in front, but also the rear calipers.

But repairing the parts won't prevent the problem from recurring unless the driver is educated about parking brake use.

In these cars, drivers don't only need to know they should use the parking brake, they also need to know that rear brake self-adjustment takes place only if the parking brake is released when their foot is off the brake pedal.

Unfortunately, we're all taught to release the parking brake with our foot on the brake pedal.

Basically, make sure the pin at the pad has settled in the groove in the piston , make sure yopu haven't over-tightened the hand brake cables - the levers need to be fully retracted and don't depress the brake pedal when you are setting the parking brake.

I have editted this for hand brake instead of pedal based parking brake models:

As a countermeasure, some technicians instruct owners of pre-1995 W-Bodies in a sort of "Saturday Morning Drill."

Drivers are told that once a week, with the car on level ground and the car in park or in 1st gear if not an automatic, to sit in the driver's seat and without touching the actual brake pedal to apply the parking brake several times, without touching the actual brake pedal. A neighbor with a 1991 Lumina learned this drill, and his brake problems went away."

[epipete]

My pet hobby horse. Always leave your car in gear. Reinforced by my ownership of many old bangers, in particular an Elan plus 2.

Merely, a bit of routine maintenance to the brakes should see you fine!

I was always taught to start a car with the clutch depressed to reduce strain on the engine/starter motor.

Not to be contrary, but depressing the clutch puts added stress on the engine as it adds the resistance of the throw-out bearing and pushes the crank against the thrust washers.

Best to put the car into neutral and without touching the clutch pedal, crank the engine. It will spin a bit faster and require less effort from the starter."

Doh, another 30 year old myth exploded

Having said that, the interweb provides the following response on the Driving instructor web site to the question 'Why do you press the clutch down when starting the car?'


I have always done this as well . If you have a good battery on you car in cold weather the load on the engine wont matter. But if your battry is run down and a very hard frost there is less load on the engine with the clutch down giving more power from the battery being used starting the engine than turning the rest of the idle gears in the gear box. It also prevents the false start if you are lazy and dont check your in neutral before starting up.


And:

This is not necessary for the modern day car, carry out your normal checks and start the ignition.

The reason for pressing the clutch down to start the car was to assist the starter motor to turn the flywheel without the excess pressure of the clutch mechanism which weighs quite alot. While the clutch is depressed the clutch is disconnected from the flywheel and takes less strain from the battery to start the car by not having to turn the clutch as well.

The classic cars of yesteryear, Escort 1/11, Corsair etc had weak batteries and by depressing the clutch would make the car easier to start.

Today the batteries are much better and the power from them is good enough to start the car without dis-engaging the clutch, subject to a newish battery.

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Interesting. Too bad the writer doesn't know what a clutch is or how it works. The clutch disc is small and light. The pressure plate is always attached to the engine and weighs a lot. When you step on the clutch, the plate releases the disc which then, doesn't rotate the gearbox gears. On old cars using 100W EP lube, that was a drag on the starting, but still not as much as pushing the throw out bearing into drag and also pushing the crank into the thrust washers. Just ask anyone with an MG or Spitfire. The MG uses a graphite puck instead of a bearing and TR only installed half of the thrust washers both resulting in horrible engine rotation when starting the car with the clutch depressed.

I agree with the usefulness as to preventing starting in gear, but most modern cars won't start unless they are in neutral or the clutch is depressed.

I also agree it really doesn't make that much difference, but if you have a weak battery (car left sitting for a week?), not depressing the clutch might be a better option until the battery charges up again.

[rip]

Doh, another 30 year old myth exploded

Not at all. Do some testing for yourself.

My Elan (& every other car I've owned) drops its revs a little when the clutch is engaged.
This indicates that the drivetrain (probably the gearbox) does indeed add to the load & what you were told 30 years ago is no myth.
I'll happily trust my own observations rather than word of mouth.

We seem to have drifted a little

[dapinky]

Dragging this back onto it's original track, and as a (hopefully) closure....

....The news is both good, bad and indifferent.....

The good news is that I have finally got what I wanted (value wise) for the car, and the cheque has been cashed

The bad news is that I'm not getting the car back.

The indifferent news - they offered to allow me to keep the car (which is quite good of them seeing as I own the bloody thing!), but i would then get no increase in payout-value from the £3250 already offered. Their thinking behind this was that the cost to get it back to me would be £300, plus other expences they had already spent getting it there etc etc

I told them that the 'extra expense' was their own fault, and i wanted the car back on my driveway within 7 days, in the same condition in which it had left me....

...they didn't want to play that game (as they already knew that the car was NOT in the same condition as when it left here), and i soon had a 'senior handler' phoning me up - someone who actually had the power and authority to make a decision - all sorted within 2 minutes.

I had an offer for a cash value which i was happy with (no, I won't publish it in open forum - some of you know what i would have settled for, and I got it. Some of you don't, and can guess as much as you wish!!!!) and accepted it.

I have now relinquished the car to them, and the matter is finalised as far as I'm concerned.

The indifferent news....

Phil isn't getting the car as his 'donor' for his fleet, which was 'Plan A'.
It will no doubt end up somewhere for breaking up (DVB?)
It will be sold at auction by HBC - it is an auction which anyone can bid on - so if you want to, feel free to go for it.

It is a good source of parts for someone who has the time, space and inclination to buy and strip it, and if anyone wants to know the condition of any of the specific bits, feel free to ask me, and I'll tell you (honestly!) what the components were like WHEN I LAST SAW THE CAR - I can't say what they're like now, but it may help your decision making process if you want to either bid on the vehicle, or obtain individual parts from DVB in the future.....

..... for example, if you want a set of Samco hoses, stainless rear 'bones, LGM roll hoops, MSD coil packs, nice carpets, roof & seals etc etc, they were all excellent - but if you wanted front lower wishbones, I wouldn't bother (luckilly I never got the new ones from Bobin Rastard )

If it ends up at DVB, then there's nowt to stop you asking for specific items "from the red one", as opposed to 'off the shelf' items....

In closing, I make the following comments:-

1) please ensure that you have an 'agreed value' on your car if you want to avoid hassle - it may cost a few quid to do, but if you put it off, you may end up regretting it - I got the full 'Sum Insured' for the car, but it was still lower than the 2 valuations I had for the car, in the condition it was in.
2) I'm fairly sure that KGM are no different to any other insurance company when it comes to these situations - but I won't use them again.
3) Membership of 'Club Lotus' is extremely worthwhile.
4) A good insurance broker is well worth having - as opposed to going 'direct'.

Special thanks must be mentioned for Peter James - initially, their Claim Handler (Maria Priest), and then Peter himself - once they got involved (which would have been earlier if I had thought about asking them to ) things started to progress much quicker (but still slowly). I'm sure that if I had been off the road, and short of a few quid, I'd have felt pressurised into accepting the lower offer just to get mobile again.

Also, great thanks to Alan Morgan at Club Lotus . Although I only initially asked for his 'opinion' by email, he went to the effort of putting an 'official' letter together for the insureres stating that although he couldn't comment on the mechanical condition, he knew both the car and me, and put a valuation on it of £6k, which would increase to £7.5K with a good respray. He did say that the price they initially offered for the car would be what you would expect to get for an MOT'd runner in need of work, not for one which was 'fully sorted' and just needed a final spray job.....Oh, and he did all of that whilst he was on holiday in France

A final mention (and a bit of a plug) for my local car club - Somerset Classic and Track Club - I got a 3-page 'valuation report' from the technical officer (who knows me and all my cars very well) - it was this document which seemed to carry the most weight as it confirmed the condition to be as I had described it initially (accurate!).
The man who wrote it is a long-standing classic car restorer and is a VOSA inspector by trade. His reports are accepted by the major insurers (including KGM!) for Agreed Value policies, so they couldn't really say that he was overvalueing the car, as precedent shows that they accept his opinion.

So, that's it - the red one is dead - long live the parts to keep others on the road

[theelanman]

the red one is dead - long live the parts

[Enright]

Just registering official interest here, and NOT with the intention of breaking it.
Because it's straight up front I could use it as a nice "how to do it" example of how to put mine back together.
I could then swap the nicer bits over rather than simply profiteering from them, and I've even heard of a couple of tubs lurking around which might mean 2 Elans get returned to their rightful place (back on the road).
If anyone else is interested, please let me know so that we don't just get into a bidding war and drive up the price of the auction.

[Fredjohn]

Car can be seen here:

http://www.hbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/zyview/D=v ... /R=5251210

If this against forum policy/members interests, moderators please feel free to remove the link.

Edit: PS the oil filler cap must be worth £1k on its own!!

[epipete]

Dave, I'm pleased to hear that you got satisfaction on the pay out and closure on this matter, but it maddens me that a perfectly ideal example for repair will, likely as not, get broken.

[theelanman]

Neil
Im happy to help out....drop me a line
I don't need anything off the car........
could you confirm......is your plan to rebuild it and another?....
ta
G

[Enright]

Fredjohn, No issues with everyone getting a fair crack at it, but as we are a community I would hope that we could avoid getting into a bidding war and unnecessarily drive up the auction price. If a breaker gets it, everybody loses.

Epipete, if I win this car I fully intend to return it to the road - possibly even by re-tubbing it, which I'm definitely capable of doing.

Gareth, yes I would simply like to use the front end as a decent how-to-do-it example when putting the front crash structure, clamshell and panels back on mine. Of course there are a few "upgrades" that I wouldn't mind taking advantage off, but that would just be about swapping stuff over rather than breaking it. Then it would be VIC checked, and hopefully sold on as a perfectly useable example.

Edit: Oh wow! I just looked at the auction, and was gobsmacked. It's already up at £1360! I thought the trade would lose interest in it at half that amount.
That may well rule me out.