Jeemy's Elan Rebuild

[Jeemy]

OK first things first. I've done a bit more paint prep. Very few photos as this was hard work.

As you know, after stripping the covers to test fit the roll hoops, I discovered more rust in a place Norman had warned me to look, but I had misunderstood and checked thoroughly with lights from the underside. From the top, the offside B-pillar rear looked like this:

I attacked it with a stanley blade scraper and this came out!!!!

Access is very limited and even more so on the nearside which is obstructed by fuel tank gubbins - but the nearside of this car has always been better than the drivers side and some rummaging turned up nothing like this. On the offside, I banged with a long screwdriver and pushed with my fingers but structurally it all seems as solid as these tests can detect. So I scraped as much as I could away with the stanley, sanded with a block, and hoovered it all out. Then I doused it in the last of my Dintrol RC900. Time constraints meant no ML into the access holes but they will still be accessible after spray.

I also took the time while the tonneau cover was off, to repair this fibreglass "chip" (McCain wish they could do chips like these):

I missed my spray slot due to other commitments, so Monday I tidied tools mainly, removed the roll hoops, but Mon/Tue/Wed were mainly taken up fitting a new brake kit to my Audi and refurbishing the wheel arches, callipers etc as I went.

The other big job was to try and remove the aerial pre-spray (apparently there is a keyring style tool in the toolkit, I haven't had chance to look and can't now) and test fit the sharks' fin, and to remove the rubber spoiler.

This was a nightmare. I've been dousing the rusted screws in Plusgas for a week, and after trying impact screwdrivers (being gentle because the fibreglass is not secure enough to push against), drilling out the screws, complicated clamp arrangements, breaker bars, etc etc I ended up using a Stanley to cut away the rubber, an air chisel to break it out under the washer and then to break the washer from the screw, following which a 10mm stud removal tool on an air ratchet was enough to grab the screw head and remove it - I only broke one of the holes open and its an easy repair. But this was 5-6 hours total work; once the method was established I sorted it in under an hour....

And then today - Maiden voyage complete. A trailer wasn't possible, so I booked an MOT at a friendly garage down the road and drove her home - 20 miles.

Because I have all the insulation/covers/carpets out, you can hear right through to the wheels - lucky, because the back nearside caliper/disc is rubbing badly. This confirms I'll have to replace all 4 calipers not just the fronts (although the rears passed MOT they have sat for a year and likely seized in part). I do not look forward to making the HiSpec kit from PNM work on the rears, PNM themselves seem great but I've heard some horror stories about bad engagement on the handbrake front from the HiSpecs - but this is what I will have to do, because I have HiSpec fronts.

I wasn't too gallus driving her but I did let the turbo engage on the final stretch and took a corner I'd do at 40 in the Audi (4WD) at over 60 - she's just glued to the road. Absolutely glorious.

The main problem I notice is that when moving off from a standstill, especially when trying to pull up a ramp, or a kerb, or over a bump - the car almost stalls. i.e. when reversing into a parking space with a 2cm kerb, the car really struggles to pull over it without a bit of throttle; equally if the car was left to try and 'drive itself' in 2nd gear with no accelerator, it might struggle a bit or stall.

Thoughts I have

- throttle needs tightened (but it idles over 1000)
- vacuum issue quite possible
- EGR issue related to vacuum pipes or solenoid
- poor electric, loose earth (you see the battery power gauge drop and lights dim under this circumstance)

[Jeemy]

Just an update for those who care, if any.

I think I have a boost problem which I will make a seperate thread on. I also think I know the cause after Henk-Jan was kind enough to point out the likely suspects. Simplest answer is often correct.

I've stripped the other door, done some more paint prep on the body work and she is now sitting at the spray shop. When I arrived on the booked-in Monday, he said 'oof, I won't get onto that until the end of the week now' - so I am glad its parked on his drive so its 'in the queue' finally!

I am sure the paint job will be first class; its the colour that worries me. We have cut into the existing paint, and taken a match off the lower layers of the Calypso red, mixed more magenta into it to offset the effects of not just the aging, but the effects of the overwash 'flip' paint we are using, called Gemini. This is basically a glitter suspension which has a tendency towards greening - the magenta is to get a more rosso tinge to the car to compensate. Otherwise she could end up looking orange. She should look a deep HD red and glow gold in sunlight or direct lighting, like street lighting will bring the flip out.

Tomorrow I will be working in his yard stripping the spoiler, bumpers, rear arches (I know to remove the washer bottle before drilling screws out!) and as long as I've packed the correct tools, a full day should see us clear to pull her inside for prep on Thursday, where I'll be working there again installing the shrouds and masking panels.

The other thing I have to do tomorrow is remove the bonnet, strip the old heatshielding and put on the new. I was hoping to respray the bonnet inside but he's basically refused, saying the heat from the turbo will just cause it to crack again and I should use a little heat-insulation sheet to cover the area. Not my ideal resolution but maybe once the bonnet is off and I strip the OEM shielding he might be persuaded to fling the gun over it.

I'll also go finally over the bodywork piece by piece and start to put in a first set of high build primer into the stone chips before the gelcoat and further primer which he will do; the front bumper especially is absolutely peppered with chips and wil need some serious work to flat it out.

Hopefully will have a lot to post of the work done over the weekend and tomorrow's session; the removal of the bumpers look simple enough in the manual (I half expected to read Step 1: Remove the Turbo ><) and the only other thing is the washer jets which just push through, and the aerial for which I cannot find the tool so brute force will be the order of the day. He'll have a lot of experience taking aerials off I am sure........

[ashm]

Just an update for those who care, if any.

I care! In fact this thread is turning into one of the most interesting project diaries we've had in a long time.
Adam

[Jeemy]

Heh was slightly facetious, but thank you. Felt a bit silly putting up a post with no real progress. Although my spray guy is deferring the date he is going to start over and over again, he did give me a list of other things needing done to ensure the best job, so I did them.

We are not painting shuts, the car will still be red in the main part so its not an issue and its not even possible easily. So I washed down all the shuts before taking it down to him as some paint will get through and its better its not trying to stick to dirt; I want to make these kind of jobs as easy as possible for him so he takes good care. I also stripped the drivers door trim out.

Next step was to remove the bonnet, there's still fitment issues from when I replaced the gas struts and as he is not painting the inner I wanted to clean it up as much as possible. I managed this myself just by jamming cloths behind the corners and undoing the 4 x 10mm nuts:

Pulling off the old trim was easy enough. The new material from classic9leathershop is meant to be aerospace grade and much better at diffusing and absorbing heat, together with not reflecting it back to the engine. I spoke with him on the phone and he felt the silver material behind this was outdated concept and not needed.

I washed all the old gunk off with Tardis, resting the bonnet on the old shield:

While it dried, I pulled the drivers side window. One of the spacers is broken and again as soon as I removed it, performance is much degraded on reinsertion, my gut feeling is the rear channel is essential to put quite a lot of pressure holding the window straight. Loosening it and retightening it is not good enough; it will need some fettling but thats a job for after a thorough clean, rebuilding the spacers, new brushes and regreasing it all (you can see its been done with copper grease here) - so is a task for after the spray - for now the weatherseal has to come off as the lacquer is peeling underneath it.

This one came off a lot easier. I'd used a syringe to inject Plusgas onto the screws a week back and repeated the process, I found standing behind (outside) the door and really forcing the screwdriver towards me while bracing the door allowed me to break all but two screws this time:

My plan for using a paint-can hook to pull the springs for the mirror out and later back through, didn't really work - its too big. I'll need another plan to re-insert them:

The best way to get the mirrors off is first to reach up and pull the two tabs to seperate the harness, pull it up through the lower grommet, second to remove the taped-on plastic piece that locates the harness to the door, and then to undo the 3 screws, pull the harness through the second grommet and pull the springs off 'on the bench' - the wall near where I have it parked!

[Jeemy]

Removing the rear spoiler is simple enough. 4 bolts, 2 of which are also boot shuts. There's plenty of adjustment to neaten the lines of the car which I'll have to do from scratch when rebuilding:

Removing the front bumper means not only could I have done the grilles properly (and may remove and redo while its off the car) but I had to remove my nice new bolts from under the one wing - the other side I decided not to bother doing until after spray and I am glad I did:

The height adjustment brackets were immovable at the bumper so instead I removed the screw at the body side where the bracket attaches to the hanging stud:

Hard to make out but you can see the mini ratchet attached to the tiny M6 bolt 10mm head inside the headlight pod:

Screw and washer pictured for no good reason:

Its little pal although technically reachable inside the bumper was an absolute nightmare to remove; eventually I had to pull my grille out to get enough purchase. There's no way of getting anything longer so I used a standard ring spanner until it was loose and then a ratchet, it remained heavy effort until it started to come off the threads.

Its mirror image was easy enough. Same story on the two remaining bolts per side, attaching the spoiler to the ducts (the lower 2 where you can just see the hole at the foot of the spoiler, weren't affixed at all), nearside was easy enough, 2 min job:

The other side was a bloody nightmare. The caged nuts embedded to the fibreglass were broken and I had to drill off the heads. I'll need to source new cage nuts, and also fix the fibreglass inside. Took me 3 hours to drill them out and when I did, the bumper pulled off easily, I took a note of the location of the spacer washers and disconnected the light harnesses:

This is how the car looked afterwards!

[Jeemy]

With the bonnet dry I used ScotchWeld 80 spray adhesive to affix the new heatshield. This is much neater. Not a perfect fit as it covers one of the washer jets but thats fine, I can push it through…..it certainly looks a lot neater.

The back bumper removes easily through the 4 holes you can see inside the boot its a 13mm nut plus plenty of spacer washers; I took a note but the fit wasn't perfect anyway so this will change.

I found the following charming message hand painted in Calypso red by the Hethel boys…….

So i've still got a little work to do:

- fix the inside of the front bumper and contemplate removing all the grilles and detritus from the old grilles
- replace a bolt I removed in error
- remove the front & rear headlights & side indicators
- remove the aerial
- break & remake the hanging bracket connections on the front bumper to aid refitment
- remove back numberplate surround as this is warped and needs a good fix; its a different material and has a texture to it which I will try to eradicate before spray
- write up a checklist for the respray to ensure no fixin is missed!

And finally he wants the rear arches off. I am a bit confused as the kit I got from Dave Hall mentions removing the washer bottle before the arches; however those front parts seem like part of the fibreglass subframe; the rear parts of them look like liners but don't seem to come up to the washer bottle; spray guy reckons he can get them off fairly easily with a pop tool, because they are pop studs, whatever that is. I'll check the manuals and then go down and do one final days work, probably Monday.

Due to the delays the next job I had in line (a surprise) now can't be done until the 8th July. I may move this down the queue and move onto brakes & suspension instead. I'll post up when there is more news but likely to be very little progress over the next 10 days it seems, sadly.

[hatters]

10 out of 10 for such a detailed report, I have really enjoyed following your progress, keep the pics coming

[DeeAitch]

Jamie, the rear arch does not have a full liner like the fronts, it only has the short plastic bit at the lower rear.
The bolt you refer to is included as an extra in case you want to change that one while you are in there. You will not get the OE bolts out without detaching the water bottle.

[Jeemy]

Cheers mate!

[HJ2]

O what fun will you have in reassembly after the paintjob!
Keep us posted in this great story with ditto pictures!


Good luck man!

[Rob P]

Great postings Jeemy, this is valuable info for those who intend to follow you down at least one or two of these activities

[Jeemy]

o.o

Repair completed successfully unfortunately I do not have any pics for some reason but there was a chip and crack out of this wheel arch:

The little mark above is ready for the next stage; high-build primer to get the surface totally smooth - the specialist paint we are using is liable to show up any small transitions in texture i.e. where you see it go from white/grey original gelcoat to red paint remainder, you'd see that line. So its got a lot of priming work yet to do before painting.

However unpictured as its through in the drying booth is the spoiler which has had the prep all done, filled, completed and primed. A test coat should go on today. I'll be going down in the morning to finish some items; my grilles are coming right off and being done again, the list from above, and I have a set of mudflaps which I am sure he will say its better to keep black but I might want to colour-code. I don't know if I'll even put these on, I am loath to drill into the car after the paintjob.

So I will see how it is going to look tomorrow. Hopefully good enough to continue without having to rethink.

Initial signs are good - I've seen the base red on a test piece and its everything I hoped, very very high-definition and lustrous, its a ruby red so much more of a strawberry red than a fire-engine red. Its a modern paint technology so it has far more colour content than the original paint (which mine definitely was still wearing). Much higher pigment levels I guess you would describe it as. I've seen the Gemini on black, orange and white together with candy-apple red (the MG pics I posted back on P2 which came out too orangey for me). We are really hopeful this will not have any orange and will end up pure red with the gold flecks looking pure gold on top.

Think this:

As opposed to this:

When the Gemini goes over the top this should draw it back to a red as close to the bonnet interior, petrol cap interior, as it can be and combat the green effect of the Gemini base.

The irony of how tasteless that red and gold Merc is, is not lost on me. But if this is too much I have plenty of chance to tone it down with wheels, rollbars, etc.

[Jeemy]

Been down today, pulled out the indicators, rear lenses, and straightened the bonnet, fitted the Lotus logo to the inside of the hood liner.

Took a look at the front bumper which is now completely filled - there were a LOT of stone chips. And then he took me through to the booth.......the spoiler and rear bumper are done.

Wow.

Its as bright as that Merc above. I THINK I like it.....haha.

It will divide opinion I am sure. It needs to be this bright to let the gold flip paint work and not go orange. But its so hi-d, its virtually fluorescent red. You can't see the gold fleck in the dismal Scottish weather. We took it outside and you can JUST about see it when the sun comes out. It will pick out in the dark under streetlights or other cars lights, and it will pick up in direct sunlight. Its going to be gorgeous, I think. The glitter is more of a sparkle than a TVR-style flip wash.

As for staying red, its definitely worked. As to whether the colour works for the project, its hard to tell until its all put back together. Its going to be unique, thats for sure.

Wow.

[Jeemy]

Also he's done a brilliant job on the badly rippled number plate surround, my sharks-fin aerial obstructed the boot so I will need to go with the beesting version or OEM, but I broke it on removal anyway so replacement needed there heh.

No pics because it was beating it down with rain, I just got on and got away as fast as I could. Should be ready to reassemble Tuesday so pics then hopefully.

[Rob P]

Waiting with Baited breath for thre Piccy's here Jeemy, hope it turns out as you wanted it and it's not too unique......but unique enough to be different if you get my drift

I need to spend some time going through this whole posting as there's been some great updates in here

[Jeemy]

Here's some pics. Its only on my phone for now. I only have a digital camera above this, nothing really can grab the effect of the shimmer paint which is best in movement anyway.

Its just right, I think. It looks like a very hi-def calypso red, when the sun catches it, the reflection/glare is gold.

And then the glitter in the paint sparkles under sun or movement either red, or gold dependent on the angle.

I've tried to give as much angles as possible. Hopefully some better pics soon and you like it.

None of the panels are straight, including the bonnet, everything was just put on with 2 bolts to get it all back in one piece. So it will get stripped a bit further down and all the lights replaced before rebuilding it with proper panel fitment.

[Jeemy]

Tick

[Jeemy]

Tick...

[Rusty Wishbone]

I thought you would have painted the workshop with the same colour palette as the Elan, with a good layer of POR15 underneath. It looks like you have chosen BRG and Norfolk Mustard Yellow instead.

[Jeemy]

Lotus Colours maaaate!

aaaaarrghhh

Woah