Lotus Elan Central

by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 12:35

Then on to the the radiators and housing , you can see in the pictures how the salt erosion had taken effect and everything was looking a bit tired .
i took everything apart , steam cleaned rust proofed and coated the framework in the stone guard then installed new coolant radiator , air con radiator and fans. I also uprated all the air con set up to take the modern gas type as the OEM set up is now illegal to use .

: Before restoration; Lotus Elan restoration48.jpg (91.27 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: Before; Lotus Elan restoration49.jpg (122.11 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: Although still functioning correctly you can see how corroded the old fans were; Lotus Elan restoration50.jpg (106.3 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: Lotus Elan restoration51.jpg (87.49 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: New air con radiator going in; Lotus Elan restoration52.jpg (105.35 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: New Aluminium coolant radiator; Lotus Elan restoration53.jpg (99.25 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

: New coolant fans; Lotus Elan restoration54.jpg (100.06 KiB) Viewed 10634 times

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 12:41

The steering rack was then sent away for refurbishment then powder coated to match the rest of the suspension and running gear

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 12:48

all coolant , turbo and vacuum hoses were replaced with Samco silicone hoses.

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 12:51

Front off side suspension built after restoration and refurbishment of arms , links , hubs , bearings , bushes etc.

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 12:56

Then onto the exhaust system , to go with the Piper down pipe , i added their 2.5" single box system.

: Before restoration with the standard exhaust; Lotus Elan restoration70.jpg (104.12 KiB) Viewed 10636 times

: After restoration with the Piper 2.5" system fitted; Lotus Elan restoration71.jpg (89.57 KiB) Viewed 10637 times

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 13:07

More cosmetic stuff , this time onto the bonnet , the sound deadening had perished so that was replaced and also the surround /support part finished in the stone guard , then new washer jets and silicone hose.

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by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 13:09

Then all 4 wheels stripped and refurbished

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by **dapinky** » Sun 05.08.2018, 13:33

WILL YOU PLEASE STOP :shock:

.... All this (excellent) work has served only to show me what mine could look like if I were to do it all again (okay, so I did similar stuff 3-4 years ago, but not to the same level of finish).

(Nice work

)

by **Fredjohn** » Sun 05.08.2018, 14:55

!

Lovely work.
Just a minor point: beware of silicone intake hoses. The Samco ones were known to delaminate and get sucked into the engine. You may of course have used a different brand.
Once back on road you must come to the Midlands monthly LEC meet to show it off! Not so far from Wolverhampton.

by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 15:00

dapinky wrote:WILL YOU PLEASE STOP

.... All this (excellent) work has served only to show me what mine could look like if I were to do it all again (okay, so I did similar stuff 3-4 years ago, but not to the same level of finish).

(Nice work )

Thanks mate

by **DavieBow** » Sun 05.08.2018, 15:03

Fredjohn wrote::agree:!

Lovely work.
Just a minor point: beware of silicone intake hoses. The Samco ones were known to delaminate and get sucked into the engine. You may of course have used a different brand.
Once back on road you must come to the Midlands monthly LEC meet to show it off! Not so far from Wolverhampton.

Yes I was aware of that , I spoke to Samco directly and they said that they had changed the design of the internals a long time back so they don’t have that issue any more .

I’ll definitely be up for attending one of the meets , I’ve got about 3 days work left to put it alll back together , I just haven’t got 3 days spare at work until mid September

by **DavieBow** » Wed 12.09.2018, 22:20

Finally finished fitting the new suspension and brakes then put we the clam shell back on

: Clamshell on; Lotus Elan restoration89.jpg (73.4 KiB) Viewed 10476 times

: Lotus Elan restoration88.jpg (102.72 KiB) Viewed 10476 times

: Starting to look like a car again; Lotus Elan restoration87.jpg (67.55 KiB) Viewed 10476 times

: engine looking nice; Lotus Elan restoration90.jpg (110.14 KiB) Viewed 10476 times

by **HJ2** » Thu 13.09.2018, 12:35

Just WOW!

by **DavieBow** » Thu 13.09.2018, 19:52

HJ2 wrote:Just WOW!

Thanks mate :cheers:

by **Tuga2112** » Thu 13.09.2018, 20:06

need only one word to decribe my feelings.

Jealousy :oops:

by **Steve A** » Thu 13.09.2018, 20:08

You've set the bench mark very high :clap:

by **DavieBow** » Thu 13.09.2018, 21:05

Thanks again for the kind words guys ,
Nice to know all my hard work is appreciated

I was kind of expecting the purists to slate me over the cam cover not being standard finish :-D

but I wanted to give the engine bay a slightly more modern feel , I’m well pleased with how it looks so far .... still got a bit more to do including more machine polishing and our new 3 stage ceramic coating on the paintwork

by **Fredjohn** » Fri 14.09.2018, 19:41

Nice job. You can show it off next week at the monthly West Midlands meet if the car is actually back on the road.

Downside of that though is that it would totally put us all to shame about our own cars!!! :-D

by **DavieBow** » Fri 14.09.2018, 19:53

Next weeks meet will be too soon for me to get her on the road , unfortunately I have to go and do some of that work stuff so not got the spare days to get her finished, bloody frustrating as it’s so close now .

by **DavieBow** » Fri 14.09.2018, 20:27

A few more pics from the last couple of days

we went round the car and did the first stage of paint correction just to polish out any imperfections put in over the last 18 months whilst working on the car, you can see the deep red colour coming back , still got 3 more stages of refining to do as well as finishing with the ceramic coating but it gives you an idea as to how its going to look .

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I then removed the rear lights and plastic number plate cover , took the covers off the lights and gave everything a clean, machine polish and glass coating .