Jeemy's Elan Rebuild

[novacaine]

Thought you might like to see this, not sure if I've posted the picture right though [attachment=1]1625456_10152196126666131_1584622898_n.jpg[/attachment

[Piperman]

hi jeemy I see your still working hard ,looks like you have bought another,ive sold my elan no energy .medical condition ongoing restricts mobility Derek .

[Jeemy]

Hi Derek,

Glad to hear you are well! Got a bit worried there, but at least I know you don't want the parts no more.

There is plenty progress on the car and I am still aiming for it on the road for June, but not posting things up until they are done.

All best,

Jamie

[Piperman]

hi Jamie yes getting stronger ,still only 50 % but getting there ,my new project is / was a runner body damaged not to bad all the best Derek

[Piperman]

How s your car on road ? ,I have my replacement elan taxed / moted just about got through on rear discs pretty poor might skim , any discs availiable at reasonable price ? Getting to grips with car have made tempory( read semi perminate ) repair to front end I have replacement s/ h wing for a decent repair cheers Derek

[Jeemy]

Sorry Derek, sorry all.

To put it mildly, I had some problems. I will be back to work by the end of the week, god willing. Although I've done nothing "major" enough to warrant my car's placement in this sub-forum for almost a year, I have tapped away at some minor things. Several hundred minor things.

I hope to be back to making posts and progress this coming weekend. Hope you are all well.

J

[Megwenda]

Hi Jeemy

I have been trying to find the DRL's, but dont see any PRX-4's. Only ones I find are PX-4's.... are these the ones?

Regards
Dave

[novacaine]

They are just osram px-4 drls. I fitted the same ones, pic above

[Megwenda]

OK, next on my to do list

thanks for answer

mfG
Dave

[Piperman]

Hi jeemy i know the frustration not being able to do things,getting use to my elan ,sorted imobiliser prob bypassed fuel pump circuit ,changed to static seatbelts ,drilled holes to let water out! ,put new inner gubbings in distributer ,next job cambelt kit free front brakes sliders ect ect cheers derek [,plus hospital visits ]!

[Jeemy]

Well….starting to work towards finishing my car! What a time I've had!

Anyway, enough of that. I've completely lost track of where I am with so many things, I'm just going to start posting stuff up and organising my photos and hopefully I'll be back in the swing of it soon!

Last thing was removing that suspension raft. All the 13mm spanners, Griptites, bolt removal tools etc in the world never got me anywhere. Eventually having had long email correspondence with dapinky and cliff, I just ended up taking a cutter tool to the bolt heads. Having removed the top bolt, the plate spun free after I cut off two, so if you had to resort to this, you'd be best putting that bolt back in before carving it:

You then have to remove the two inboards bolts, the front one below the driveshaft with the thinner head couldn't easily be done without removal of the CV joint as I recall, so I cut the little wire clip and then it came out:

Lots of grease came out, and I think from memory I did this as the CV joints are to be replaced anyway, or perhaps with this one I needed to remove the driveshaft. God knows.

Anyway, the whole unit came out after that. This must have taken me 2 months overall as I had very little time:

[Jeemy]

At this point I took on a donor car from Francis, and the white one to start a full engine rebuild with a long-term view to completely emptying the red one, or building from the ground up. This meant a new workshop which meant I finally got the chance to build a vice bench. All of this took time and money so I just pottered along doing bits when I could.

Disassembling the rafts was the next stage. Finally I could get things in a vice without having to drag them into Edinburgh:

I invested in a proper impact gun, having disassembled the previous raft using blood, sweat and tears, this time the long bolts through the bottom section were off in seconds:

Ditto from the top:

The two bolts holding the lower wishbone to the raft:

Plus all the caked on crap around the bushes:

The bolts to the balljoints lower:

And upper ditto.

Then to split the ball joints from the lower & upper hub carrier:

[Jeemy]

Also now with my new impact gun and angle grinder I was able to use a trick I learnt on this forum, with my previous busted rear hub calliper carrier, to cut a big slot in it, and use a screwdriver bit on the impact gun (you should note, I spent 3-4 afternoons trying to do this with the bit on a breaker bar, but there isn't the "push", before I finally broke and paid for the impact gun which is the best thing I own now!):

BOOF! Out it came. Tears of joy resulted:

So now I was faced with (as I've said 100 times before, and I am probably still lying) virtually everything off the car, and ready to rebuild, after, of course, building the parts.

I'll not bore you with the exodus into trying to get proper bushings remade, Dave Pink has superseded that anyway with his life-saving solution to the front raft, he also sorted me with some track control end parts that are still in a bag, and likely still to pay for. I agonised over this for months before finally copying Dave and buying rubber for the front and going with poly on the back.

I hauled the spline mounts from the rear hub carrier backs:

I bought some ZIP wheel attachments for my angle grinder and during the summer months spent some time polluting the atmosphere, cleaning up all the removed bits:

You can see the difference from left to right there, and here:

For the front wishbones (I've still not found my new set I bought in 2012 or so!) it took me from this:

To this:

I split the front wishbones with a hex socket jammed against the bench, but I've later started thinking its best using mole grips on the outside of hex bolts and not risking the inner faces:

[Jeemy]

Final task was to split the wishbones up, which I did in the vice for the outer section (I think I will need to replace these balljoint/mounts entirely):

Noted the position of some spacers:

And washers/bits etc:

At this point, I boxed my TCAs and rear wishbones up to go away and be measured and reproduced, so with little else to do, I took on a completely different project, a 1992 Mitsubishi GTO heap of jap crap:

[Megwenda]

Hi Jeemy /Novacaine

As mentioned, I like the look of your DRL's, and am considering installing them myself.

My one worry is whether they would affect the cooling at all... I live in Switzerland, and we can get temps up in the late 20ºc and 30ºc.... great for driving in the mountain passes, but does tax the Lotus cooling system which was more designed for the UK weather

So, my question is: did you notice any effect on cooling (I think its turbo and oil cooling in those two slots)

Regards
Dave

[epipete]

I'd have thought that if the slight overhang of the UK number plate doesn't adversely affect the main radiator then the small space taken by the DRLs won't affect cooling to these radiators either!

[Jeemy]

Mine aren't installed. Just planned and bought like most other stuff! And yes those two slots are intercooler and oil cooler. I really can't see them having any effect on the amount of air taken in, I have no scientific basis for that assumption, just think that as these spaces are commonly used for fog lights, full of gunk, and more than likely can't physically take in the full volume of air the car travels through at speed but are under constant pressure & turbulence, that the limiting factor is the surface area of the radiator and it gets more than enough air to perform. The temperature of that air would be as much of a concern with the DRLs in, as out. Would love to hear some factual thoughts on the matter.

[Fredjohn]

Hi Jeemy /Novacaine

My one worry is whether they would affect the cooling at all... I live in Switzerland, and we can get temps up in the late 20ºc and 30ºc.... great for driving in the mountain passes, but does tax the Lotus cooling system which was more designed for the UK weather

So, my question is: did you notice any effect on cooling (I think its turbo and oil cooling in those two slots)

Regards
Dave

Dave
If you read the Hughes "bible" on the M100 it relates the huge amount of hot weather testing done in the USA, Death Valley to be precise. So I would suggest that the cooling was tested in much higher temperatures than the UK and should therefore cope with much higher temps. Subject to the system working properly of course! Like Pete, I would not have thought DRL's would affect the cooling at all.
One or two of our friends across the water have fitted DRL's too: perhaps they can advise us on their experiences?
John

[dapinky]

The Oil Cooler isn't really *needed* for most of the time - otherwise every time you drive flat-out, (on a track) the car would be on its limit (cooling wise) - and it isn't!

If the chargecooler were blocked off (or even removed), it would have little difference on running temperature - the air going into the engine would be warmer (less dense), so less of it, so the engine would be producing less power, so less heat (and round in a cycle).

Put it this way, I have a slightly smaller than standard Oil cooler and have used it on track with no issues - the minimal space for DRL's will have no effect.

[Megwenda]

Hi Guys

Many thanks for all your opinions... you have relieved my anxieties, and I will order the LED's

There are actually two types with the same size/shapes.. the PX-4 uses a signal from the ignition switch, whereas the PX-5 measures whether there is any charge on the battery... I wonder which are better? (The PX-4 are cheaper )

Regards
Dave