It's not a volcanic ash cloud...

[elansprint71]

... that plume which has grounded aircraft across Northern Europe is nothing to do with Iceland... I have just run my engine!

Readers with a very long memory will recall that my return journey from the Le Mans Classic last year was punctuated by large plumes of smoke at random intervals, see this thread:
http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/elan-f15/loose-valve-guide-t22263.html

Well I finally got my arse in gear and re-built the head and started it up (caught first time!) today. As you can imagine there was an almighty cloud of smoke from Graphogen, Redex, oil, dead spiders and the odd mouse's corpse but it cleared in seconds and the motor sounds really sweet. I guessed the timing and it seems to be about right; I'll sort that tomorrow. Fairly major water leak from the thermo-housing, I used a new paper gasket but no goo, lesson learned.

One down, one to go!

[slowsprinter]

Congratulations Pete

and a very big thank you from me. You have just kept my mother in law away from Scotland

Ian

[Elanman99]

Ian

The pictures of your restoration are impressive. How did you get that finish on the diff housing?

The work you have done is admirable, but... the way you have assembled the diff tie rods might give you trouble in the future.

Unless Spyder have done something different in this area, the nuts at the forward ends should not be fitted with washers but are special conical items that seat in the tapered hole in the tie rod. The fore and aft stress in the rods are then transferred to the chassis directly. With just a plain nut and washer the sideloads on the joint would eventually lead to movement, and clonks!

Ian P

[ardee_selby]

... that plume which has grounded aircraft across Northern Europe is nothing to do with Iceland... I have just run my engine!

Readers with a very long memory will recall that my return journey from the Le Mans Classic last year was punctuated by large plumes of smoke at random intervals, see this thread:
http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/elan-f15/loose-valve-guide-t22263.html

Well I finally got my arse in gear and re-built the head and started it up (caught first time!) today. As you can imagine there was an almighty cloud of smoke from Graphogen, Redex, oil, dead spiders and the odd mouse's corpse but it cleared in seconds and the motor sounds really sweet. I guessed the timing and it seems to be about right; I'll sort that tomorrow. Fairly major water leak from the thermo-housing, I used a new paper gasket but no goo, lesson learned.

One down, one to go!

Well done, that man...and so you should be! No more purple haze, eh?

Cheers - Richard

[elansprint71]

..... No more purple haze, eh?

Cheers - Richard

Let's see; t'fat lady has not even cleared her throat yet...

I'm a bit (having been around this particular block more than a few times) suspicious of any Lotus only developing one fault at a time...