Lotus Elan Central

Cheers for the supportive comments. Just a quick update on Stripey's status. She was brought home on a low loader, now up and running after a quick battery swap and fiddling to get the alarm/immobiliser sorted. However it looks like the dashboard dials are not responding correctly after turning her over quickly, the rev counter wouldn't respond. The petrol dial wouldn't rise even after filling her up, but haven't yet had a chance to test the speedometer. On top of this, the battery light on the dash has also come on, so will need to look into this more.

Any ideas will be much appreciated?

Dan

undo the two Philips screws on the binnacle cover, reseat all three sockets on the back of the cluster, I think Sy had Lockwood dials, thus he's had a tinker in there before.

TTFN

As for the battery light, Was the battery new or fully charged?

semi charged batteries will play up the alarm and immobilizer, hoping its not the alternator, but if it is... its not so bad.

TTFN

The Speedo is mechanical so should work just fine.

TTFN

I shall have a play after work tomorrow, with the dials.

But it was a brand new battery, that I have fitted to the car.

Dan V wrote:I shall have a play after work tomorrow, with the dials.

But it was a brand new battery, that I have fitted to the car.

Bugger...

Dan V wrote: On top of this, the battery light on the dash has also come on, so will need to look into this more
Dan

Hi Dan - the battery light should normally come on when you turn on the ignition and then go off after a couple of seconds. If it remains on it normally points to an alternator problem ie the alternator is not working as it should and is not putting correct charge back to the battery. This might also explain why you have experienced flat battery problems in the recent past ??

This can be fairly easily checked out with a multimeter

Alright dan , any luck today ?
you said it had a bit of water ingression ...
have you had a quick look in the fuses to see if any obvious ones have popped ?
have you taken it for a spin yet?

Didn't get a chance to get in the garage tonight and have a tinker sadly. The water in the footwell is almost dried out, still a tad left on the passenger side. Hope to check the fuses tomorrow or the following day.

Plan to get the state of the car sorted before looking at insuring it, but with the weather looking to make a turn I'm itching to get her sorted ASAP.

Saying that hopefully the weather is nice this weekend, so I can get her out of the garage and have some room to work.

Dan

It is a tedious job, but getting the carpets out for a while would be a good idea. They trap moisture which causes the outriggers to rust.

As for the issue with the dials, it sounds like you may have a poor connection in that area. Earthing points are a weakness with a fibreglass car. It would probably take me longer to look up where the dash earthing point is than it would for somebody else to chip in.

Are you seeing any other readings when running the engine? You've mentioned that you get no reading at all on the fuel gauge or rev counter. What do the boost, volt & oil pressure gauges read with the ignition on & with engine off then on?

after checking the fuses . take it for a drive ... get the car warm .. it may just need a bit of movement .. whist this may not be a temporary fix it will at least show that damp or a little wiggle may be the problem / issue .

Dan, your dad had a problem with the oil warning light and I'm pretty sure it was the oil pressure switch. I'm not sure if he ever fixed it, so best to check the oil pressure guage and ignore the warning light if it is permanently on (or off as he was talking of pulling the lamp) for the time being.

All right guys, just a quick update on the car's progress with drying her out. Got the carpet up on the drivers side today, please see the photo below as I am a bit puzzled with what to do next to be honest, with what looks to me like the beginning of rust.


Sorry for the poor photo, have rotated the image on it's file, but will not show it on here . Moderator EDIT - now rotated

Hope to get the passengers side done tomorrow.

Dan

Dan,

The rust I can see there doesn't look as bad as many I've seen - the actual metal panel doesn't appear to be perforated.

I would suggest tackling it with a wire brush to get rid of as much as possible, then if it still looks solid, treating the rusty areas with a 'rust converter' (Phosphotic acid) and then painting it - if you can do so, it's worth liberally spraying waxoyl (or similar) inside the panel to offer future protection.

alright dan ,

yeah as pinky said its not that bad at all . to be fair one of the best i have seen

peel back the flakey stuff and repaint it ...
make sure when you put it back though you stick the new "non porus" sound proof stuff back down.. the old stuff is s**t and holds the water.

with both these guys, in fact though it needs addressing now you have seen it. Dave's solution is the way I went but you'll spend all month looking for Phosphotic Acid so I'd try some Phosphoric Acid instead which you can get from good Garden Shops or on line.

I'd recommend 'Frost' as an online source of most things to deal with rust ... www.frost.co.uk/automotive-car-bike-maintenance/automotive-rust-products.html?

epipete wrote:.... but you'll spend all month looking for Phosphotic Acid so I'd try some Phosphoric Acid instead which you can get from good Garden Shops or on line.

Well spoted on the typo, Pete!

The cheapest way to get small quantities of pure (or as pure as you'll get! ~81%) is from somewhere that sells swimming pool/hot tub chemicals, Hydroponic growing stuff or fish tank chemicals... just put "ph down" into the search box on ebay (or anywhere else). It is food-grade acid which is used to adjust the ph levels in water. A little bit goes a long way as it is too pure to use neat, and the maximum strength that you ever need is 20% (and it works at far less than that).

So a 250ml bottle will make up a 2L pop bottle of useable (10%) solution, which will keep indefinitely for future use. Once you start with the stuff though, you'll be hunting round for anything rusty to dip in it just to watch the magic happen

dapinky wrote: The cheapest way to get small quantities of pure (or as pure as you'll get! ~81%) is from somewhere that sells swimming pool/hot tub chemicals, Hydroponic growing stuff or fish tank chemicals... just put "ph down" into the search box on ebay (or anywhere else). It is food-grade acid which is used to adjust the ph levels in water. A little bit goes a long way as it is too pure to use neat, and the maximum strength that you ever need is 20% (and it works at far less than that).

So a 250ml bottle will make up a 2L pop bottle of useable (10%) solution, which will keep indefinitely for future use. Once you start with the stuff though, you'll be hunting round for anything rusty to dip in it just to watch the magic happen

This stuff Dave?



Got 7 litres of crystals that have settled a bit as never had to adjust the ph ... What does it do to rusty discs ?

Phil,

nope not that stuff!

What you have there is sodium hydrogen sulphate, which is a crystaline solid, dispersible in water. When dissolved, it does form an acidic solution which is harmless to health, and thus used in foodstuffs and to lower the Ph of solutions..... but it won't kill rust.

Well, that said, it's not quite true - any low pH solution will dissolve rust, and NaHSO3 is acidic, so will disolve Iron Oxide (rust)....

.....however, without looking too hard (for a Sunday afternoon) I don't know what effect it will have on the remaining steel.

With Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) - which is a liquid at normal temperatures - the chemical reaction works in two ways..

1) The acidic reaction dissolves loose rust particles
2) The Chemical reaction converts Iron Oxide to Iron Phosphate.

Thus the steel ends up with a grayish coating (darker grey where the rust used to be) of Iron Phosphate which will further protect against future rusting. Iron Phosphate is harmless to the base steel, has the same coefficient of expansion (so won't crack off with temperature change), and will take paint ot electroplating....it's an all-round good guy!.

H3PO4 + Fe2O3 → 2 FePO4 + 3 H2O

This stuff is the 'pure chemical' product

This stuff is what you can buy from garden centres (its exactly the same content).

You need to be a bit careful when looking at the adverts (or products on the shelf), as some commercial pH reducers are based on Nitric Acid, not Phosphoric Acid - always look at the contents lablel!