The Flying Cat

[rip]

Great to see it is such an advanced state.
Are you bringing it to the Ace next month?

[Rambo]

Hard to believe it's the same car

How will you get an MOT for the FC without lights ? Or don't you need them ? Just curious

[addict]

day time mot ?

[surfboardfiller]

Yes the mythological daytime MOT is actually true!
If you have headlights they get tested, but if you don't then they can't fail (as I am told) however a daytime only MOT can be issued. Of course it has fully working rear lights required for all MOTs (Id be crazy not to).

I am still waiting for a down pipe from Piper but good to go if I get my old one back from them.
The Ace Cafe will be shrouded in darkness sadly, although I shall make an effort to be there for chips and a hot chocolate the 'Cat will be sleeping.

Unfortunately I have not been able to afford to build my new garage and will be moving out of the workshop/Batcave at the end of the month. It's too far away 45 mins drive and too expensive a store room so everything moves to my new house in anticipation of some warm weather to finish both projects and build a garage. Maybe the Esprit will have to go.

[rip]

Maybe the Esprit will have to go.

[cliff]

Shame you might lose some of your fleet.

The Cat looks great though. Pity Lotus didn't design the bonnet that way, would have made things much easier.

Would be the ultimate group group buy though!

[rip]

Pity Lotus didn't design the bonnet that way, would have made things much easier.

Would be the ultimate group group buy though!

Good luck with adjusting your headlights then. BMW 'Mini' has lights in its bonnet. I'll bet they're a right pain to adjust.

[surfboardfiller]

I think the mini Adjusts its self.
The 'Cat will have headlights fitted eventually (not pop up ones though) with clear covers in the bonnet shell and the light units fitted to the inner clam where they used to be.
Holes could be easily be cut in the bonnet shell for the original pop up ones to fit through though.

There was a BMW in having the headlight bulbs replaced, book time was 2.5 hours! Only BMW drivers would put up with that.

[rip]

I think the mini Adjusts its self.
There was a BMW in having the headlight bulbs replaced, book time was 2.5 hours!

[surfboardfiller]

Yes, does seem strange, but the Mini is not really a BMW, it's a 'Mini' which I believe is a company owned by BMW who manufacture cars in England, whilst all BMWs are imported.
I don't think mini owners would put up with a 2.5 hour service bill for 2 bulbs.
This may explain why the mini is better.

[ashm]

Years ago as a student I actually worked at the BMW Group plant in Cowley for a while, on the assembly line.
Whilst I was there the BMW brand was very strongly promoted everywhere - it was made very clear that we were working for BMW, in a BMW factory and building a BMW car. It was never referred to as the Mini plant, always the BMW Group plant, and the vast majority of senior staff and Engineers seemed to be German. They even had their own fancy canteen away from us oiks!
Some things about the plant were really cool and impressive, some were horrible. The line was so precisely time & motion managed that it was an extremely hard, stressful and unpleasant job.
Most of the people on the line were doing a good job, but I found more than a few lunch wrappers stuffed into crevices in the cars by the time they got to me, and a fairly large proportion of the cars didn't work properly when they rolled off the line.

Ad

[surfboardfiller]

It's still run as a BMW plant but the brand is handled differently for a different consumer market to the BMW cars. A friend told me all the cars in the main car park had to be BMW's and all parked facing forward.
She didn't have a BMW so was not allowed to park in the main car park.

[ashm]

It's still run as a BMW plant but the brand is handled differently for a different consumer market to the BMW cars. A friend told me all the cars in the main car park had to be BMW's and all parked facing forward.

I can imagine that - makes sense given the way they operated there. I totally agree about the difference in the branding & market. I think I saw a Mini 4x4 the other day, that was weird.

[surfboardfiller]

Well, after it starting before Christmas and then not starting in January, I finally got my act together and pulled off the starter motor.
I sent it to WOSP and they completely rebuilt it for about £50 +vat. Put a new gear on it and all. They said the contacts had worn and one was slighly lower than the other....


... Not any more! I stuck it on the car and my new Yuasa Battery arrived this week and went in the other day.

I cranked it over a few times to get the oil up but before I started it I noticed some smoke coming from the plenum.

Looks like I have a bad (fuel injector) earth, it's burned through the tape wrapped around it.

On closer inspection the wiring is bodged on the injector rail, being bridged from 1 to 3 this is also burned out. The Green wire was once Blue

[surfboardfiller]

Thanks to Dave Pink I have a decent wiring loom for the engine, all installed and the engine runs well now!

Only problems are the ECU and fuel pump blowing fuzes, I suspect the new fuel pump is just drawing more power than the standard 7.5 Amp but I'm slightly worried about the ECU.

Next step is to run a heavier earth down the centre of the car to eliminate any bad earth issues.

[dapinky]

I have a decent wiring loom for the engine, all installed and the engine runs well now!

I'm glad it's of use to you - better than gathering cobwebs here

I can't offer any sort of informed advice on the 'new' issues - I'm not an expert on diagnoses, just a spanner-weilding monkey. If i can see a problem, or am told what is the issue, I'm happy to have a go at fixing things, but not an expert in the electrical system

[surfboardfiller]

Well Carl came over the other day and set up the Elanscan, it revealed that everything seems to be working except a coolant temperature sensor for the engine management to work, which is a big thing (even though the bit that's broken is a small thing). Carl fitted a temparory electronic sensor to the harness and on placing it in a cup of warm water the EMC started to tune it's self to a nice clean idle.

I need to tidy up my improvised wiring harness so it's a bit less dodgy now I know it works. Odly Carl was more surprised than I was that the car didn't have more problems.

[Monty]

Odly Carl was more surprised than I was that the car didn't have more problems.

[Rob P]

Reading through some older topics on the forum and came across this one, a lot of the pictures appear to have disappeared, did this car ever get completed and if so what did it look like in its finished state
Looks like a really ambitious project and some excellent work gone into it

[surfboardfiller]

Yes, it has progressed a fair bit although I sold my house along with my open air workshop /plot of land so its been mothballed over winter. I downsized and need to sort out two other Elans to make room for this to go ahead.

Lots of work done on Electrics and suspension but nothing really to see.

Thanks for pointing out the broken links, I just uploaded the missing pictures; so there are no links to break now.