Project Return The Orange Peril To The Road.

[CallMeLegend]

Now, about that collapsing roof I mention previously....

One of the frame bolts kept falling out, it transpired this was because the thread in one part of the frame that the pivot screw fits into had been stripped some time ago.



So I had many thoughts about chemical metal in the hole & retapping, stripping the part from the roof & welding up then retapping (I've had varying results with this in the past), adding a thread repair helicoil, I'd had many, many ideas.

I ended up finding a drawn thread T nut, this gives a very thin head on the back face (needed as an adjacent frame passes very close during folding), also has a nice tough thread as it is drawn.



First job was to pen the hole out to 0,2mm larger diameter than the nut body to allow for a bond line & clean up the area where the head will bond.

The T nut body was 2mm too long to fit flush into the frame, so I made a gauge up, when I reach the tail of the cap head, that was 2mm under flush I knew I had the correct length....out with the grinder, which was also used to key the bond surfaces.



I ran the bolt through the cut thread a few times to chase out any burrs that would prevent the special roof bolt from fitting & then checked it fitted.



I mixed up some VM100 Black Methacrylate structural adhesive, applied to the head & body of the T nut, popped it into the hole & left to cure.



Then, the moment of truth, some threadlock on the bolt & see if it fits.



And the repair from the back face....poor photo alert.



We now have a roof that folds properly, without collapsing in on itself.

[CallMeLegend]

Looks like, after careful consideration that we'll be able to salvage most of the cars paint, it's not going to be perfect, but it will be very passable, al that will need painting is the bumpers & bonnet. Quite a pleasing resulkt.

[CallMeLegend]

Almost finished with my elastic replacement, it escalated quickly onto fully refurbishing the hoops too as they were grotty.







Just need to suss out how to remove the old elastic the rear frame & attache the new in the same manner (without damaging the hood).

[CallMeLegend]

Bit of TLC to the inside of the hood tonight, it was badly faded, so I bought some Protex canvas dye to see how well it worked. It says on the bottle it will need two coats, but I'm pretty pleased so far. Applied with a 1 1/2" paint brush. It'e pretty good stuff, not so thin that it flicks around inside the car, but thin enough that it doesn't leave brush marks.

Before


After

[CallMeLegend]

You know some days things just don't go your way & it feels like everything is sent to test you? We today was definitely NOT one of those days.

Started badly, on of the mounting bolts for the LH headlight bracket looked loose, it was, but the nut plate bonded to the back face had become disbonded, so the head had to be ground off.



The other bolt then did the same after looking like it was going to be ok, so a repair was required.

I had some CAD plated Rivnuts of the correct thread size so I opened the hole out to allow the Rivnut to push in & cleaned off the CAD plating, but only in the area where the bond was required.



I then degreased all parts & mixed up some structural adhesive.



The Rivnuts wre setn set in place gently, using the Rivnut gun, they aren't going anywhere!!!!


The hole in the bracket are larger than the Rivnut heads so this has had no effect on the shim height of the headlight.

Found more evidence of uninvited guests too.



Next on the list is the rear deck, this is was one of the worst panels on the car.




I set to wet sanding & rotary polishing again, as before, it's come up ok.





It's not perfect but it's better to get it to 90% there than remove too much topcoat & need a respray in my opinion.

Time to move onto the roof. I had made a meal of attempting to do the elastics first time, so having learned where I went wrong it was time to try again.

I started by attaching at the rear hoop, this is the most difficult to access part of the job, so by starting there it meant I wasn't against the elastic tension.

The I stretched the elastics over the roof hoops & attached at the header, then marking off the hoop positions with tailors chalk cut the holes for the hoop rivets using a leather hole punch at the positions marked previously.

Attached the elastic to the frames using the spreader plates & pop rivets, finally replaced the felt between the hoops & the hoop with the loops from Velcro & job done, all of the tensions are good on the elastic & the hoops return to the correct position when the roof is erected.



Final job was replacing the tensioning wires in the hood, this was really very easy, simply followed the guide on LEC. No surprises, went to plan. Now the hood pulls down sug at the sides.

Then replaced the header trim, the original bolts were scabby & corroded



With nicely painted black bolts for the trim



...and stainless bolts for the roof clamps




Now I intend to have a couple of cold beers to celebrate what has been the most productive day to date.

[Rambo]

I like what you're doing to Tango but does it actually drive ? Does the engine work ? Presumably it will need all fluids, belts, plugs etc... as it lay neglected for years ?

[CallMeLegend]

I like what you're doing to Tango but does it actually drive ? Does the engine work ? Presumably it will need all fluids, belts, plugs etc... as it lay neglected for years ?

Yes. Going in for MOT and full service soon. It does drive. Needs a service as you say. Fundamentally nothing wrong with engine and drive train.

Last thing to sort is rear brakes, have rebuilt calipers and new discs to go on.

[CallMeLegend]

As with many parts on this car the electric window up stop bobbins were missing, these, as the name suggests, are a Nylon bobbin used to adjust the height at which the electric windows stop in the up position.



The set of parts from Lotus specialists work out at well over £40 per bobbin assy, much of the expense is the Tapping Plate & there are 4 of them on each car, so, yes you guessed it, time to model an alternative solution using an off the shelf nut plate. There is barely any room between the window & the door intrusion beam, so the solution had to be slimline.

I found some M5 drawn thread nut plates that I had used an M6 version of to fix the roof frame, but whilst the head was super thin, it was also too small, so I had to design a shim piece to bond it to, this doubles up as the plastic gasket.







The bobbins themselves are a near direct copy, with a slight adjustment to how it interfaced with the nut plate to fit my new solution.

Always nice to get a delivery of stuff you have designed yourself.





Even better when you install it & it fits perfectly.

[CallMeLegend]

I'm in the process of replacing the windscreen A pillar & header seal.

On the A pillars this is carried in an aluminium seal carrier.



Whilst trial fitting the new seals it became very evident that the car had at some point had a new screen fitted, on refitting the seal carriers, they were installed too high. This was pinching the header seal, so the carrier had to come off.



This gave me the perfect opportunity to refurbish the seal carriers on both side "off car"









To get the seal carrier off the self tappers had to be ground off, they were badly corroded due to galvanic corrosion on both sides, the left side was the worst.



So I'm having to grind the left over stem off & I'll redrill the holes lower, this will solve the seal carrier being too high. This will need a good clean, prime & paint.

Whilst removing the windscreen side trims that were in bad shape, it exposed a small area of the right side of the screen that had not been bonded in properly.



So I've had to get the screen adhesive out & after carefully cleaning the gap squeeze as much sealant in there as I can, I'll also remove the A pillar interior trim & squeeze some in from the inside for good measure.

[Rambo]

Please note ....

# yes, your seal carriers are fitted way too high I'm surprised they never pierced the old foam seals

# the seal carriers need to be spotlessly clean and clear of any debris for the rubbers to fit properly, which they will do now as you have done a good job on them. I have seen Jamie at work and he gets them very clean with hooks and wee gadgets he's made. In fact, I cleaned out the carriers on both of mine and then Jamie made me do them again as they weren't to his high standards

# I have both of Jamies prototypes - the A pillar seals on their own (NMY) and the all in one rubber wetsuit version inc. intermed. seals (The Black Beastie)

# Stevo did get a new windscreen many moons ago but got the bronze tint instead of the green or vice versa. So long ago I can't remember. But he tended to drive with the hood down 100% of the time

[CallMeLegend]

Lining up the next list of jobs whilst I wait for parts.

I think I'm going to get stuck into some surface corrosion on the chassis before the winter.

Time to crack out the Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 to kill the rust, then find a suitable, hard wearing chassis paint.

[Kipperozzy]

I used POR15, but don’t drink it

[par]

I used POR15, but don’t drink it

...or get it in your hair, it doesn't wash out!!

[CallMeLegend]

For the A pillar seal carrier that's too high I'm going to redrill to mount it in the correct place (somehow it's way too high as standard on this car), but instead of horrific self tappers into the aluminium screen frame that will need grinding off again should I need to remove the weather strip I'm going with some flush fit M3 or M4 stainless Rivnuts and corresponding flange head stainless set screws.

[CallMeLegend]

Productive lunch hour whilst working from home.

Both side of the screen where it's bonded to the A pillar showed signs of having insufficient adhesive in place, It looks like the installer did the top & bottom then thought "bugger, I'm running of glue" and tried to make what he had left last as long as possible by applying a tiny bead along both sides.

I managed to get into the gap between the A pillar & the screen on the inside by removing the A pillar trim.

I then cleaned up the accessible parts of the A pillar & screen with Acetone where there should be adhesive & squeezed in what must be a total of half a tube of screen adhesive for both sides.



I finished it of by running a plastic knife down the edge to tidy up, I know you can't see it with the trim in place, but I know it's there.



Now the A pillar trim is off it's uncovered how the A pillar drains & wiring is retained.....duct tape. Another thing to tidy up "properly".

[CallMeLegend]

It's funny how things come to you.

I thought it odd that the A pillar seal carriers were such an awful fit before I removed them. They appeared to be too high & were cutting into the new roof seals I was trial fitting.



It wasn't until I'd cleaned up & repainted the seal carriers that I looked at where they should actually be positioned & how I should attach them, they just looked an appalling fit, the wrong shape, but not obviously bent or damaged. Something just felt wrong to me.

Then it came to me, whoever replaced the screen for Stevo had managed to get the two sides mixed up, the cutout that should be at the top to match in with the header rail shape was at the bottom on each side, at the top was the angle cut end.



This cutout on the end was at the bottom.




A quick cross reference of part numbers confirmed my thoughts.

[CallMeLegend]

Look like the A pillar seal carriers, unsurprisingly fit well when on the correct sides.

Marked up using the Lotus guide as a reference for position of the carrier edge.



Pilot drilled & used some self tappers to check for fit, all good. These will be opened out for M3 stainless rivnuts once it's painted.

[dapinky]

Ah, that looks so much better when fitted to the correct sides!

[Steve A]

Excellent posting

[CallMeLegend]

I used POR15, but don’t drink it

...or get it in your hair, it doesn't wash out!!

That won't be an issue for me......