Sows Ear Chassis

[rodlittle]

Hi Gary
Great work, the speed your going puts mine to shame
rod

[Bud English]

Gary, Great thread! You and I are at about the same stage of completion, but you're doing two to my one. ... and in your living room, to boot. How come your living room isn't as trashed as my garage?

[garyeanderson]

Hi Peter

Posts will continue as things are done. If nothing is done then there will be no post.

Hi Rod

I done this a couple of time before so I am aware of what needs to get done, It still takes a year to do an Elan if things go right and they won't. I'd guess I will get close but I doubt I will get them done as the money thing is a large part of keeping the ball rolling.

Hi Bud

Thank Alan for lighting a fire. You should see the rest of the house, Ny garage is worse than yours I am sure of that.

Gary

I switched gears this morning, Not a lot to do until some parts come in and they only shipped today, I'll be lucky to get them by next Monday. Anyway I uncovered Tingles C production body on the back porch and did some looking at it. It needs some money spent on materials and I didn't feel like spending more so I looked a little deeper and thought the rear bumper could be worked on and some progress made.Its just about as ugly a rear bumper as I have seen, I have had worse but I tossed them out, this was a borderline bumper but I was short on rears so I kept it around. the first order of business was to inspect it and it was foamed so that meant that it was coming out. It had been "fixed" before, maybe several times. It had a number of fiberglass cloth patched and it had been broken and badly repaired. I didn't take many pictures as I thought the deeper I got the more likely is was I would just trash the thing, it was looking pretty bad and I thought about cutting it length wise but I just used several sharp chisels to remove the nasty repairs. I sanded off all of the filler that was hiding the original gel coat and when I finished sanding about 3:00pm I had two fairly clean but still nasty pieces. I put it back on the S2 shell and taped it together and pulled it away rather gingerly and set it down and went to find some fiberglass mat, resin, hardener and the rest of the kit. it was about 55 degrees and borderline for that time of day to start glassing but I had a lot of hardener so I figured with a heat gun I could get it to kick. It did and I brought it inside to get some more heat into it, Finally I gave it a good blast with the heat gun once it was hard enough to move. by 6:30 I was grinding off the excess fur. So about 9 hours to get it back into one piece, it will take another long day plus to get it looking right.

Seems like a lot of work to save the thing but prep work is never fun or rewarding and it sure doesn't look like I spent all day on it. Oh well, not a lot else to do but at least I did something...

[rodlittle]

Hi Gary
its great to see someone else who actually mends things Ive never been a fan of chequebook restoration
rod

[collins_dan]

Thanks, Gary. I've looking at a crack in my rear bumper for 7 years now and wondered how to repair, now I know.
Dan

[garyeanderson]

It it is even a better fiberglass day today, I got started early and it was a bit cool but I got yesterdays clean break repair done anyway. A bit of extra hardened again and the heat gun as a helper. This is old resin and hardener, I got it just before LOG30 to fix Ross Robins cant rail so thats a year and a half, I had another small jar of resin and its even older. This fits right in with the sows ear mentality of the project, old and free stuff that should be tossed but it got a new lease on being useful. Pretty much all junk that will be saved, you just can't beat that for making a penny scream. Yesterdays repair is now sanded and if I had some gel coat I might do the whole bumper but I don't and it's a lot of work for what my intentions are. I guess I'll get some bondo and fill in the small voids and fair it to shape. That may or may not happen tomorrow, I just don't know, I guess I'll see how the rest of it turns out, I need to do another batch of resin and it will be all gone. I guess I'll go and see my friend Willie and see what he has that he won't use.

Not bad for a bumper that was in two pieces

Wednesday April 11th 08:30

Two days later, it doesn't look like much more than I started but I know the difference. This is just the start of a whole lot of sanding that needs to happen. I guess thats one of the reasons that this and other projects stall. The repair of fiberglass is just the start, now that the rear bumper is back to being a solid one piece unit it's time to start to make it look "pretty". I Stopped at Willie's and bummed some more resin to finish the glass work, I was close yesterday but there were enough low spots that needed more. I just thought I could waste some time and put off some of the sanding, besides the glass really wasn't hard enough and was just clogging the 80 grit paper. I got about 20 oz resin and the bottom of a 5 gallon pale of old black gel coat, two thick to spray but probably just about right to brush on. So thats going to be todays project. Anyway I did another round last night at around 6pm with the resin and glass and left it over night to harden on the rack.

I sanded down the fiberglass and all of the fur that I didn't wet out and ended up with this lovely thing. This took the better part of an hour. It's just a bit disheartening to look at and know there is a good month of sanding to be done on this project but thats the reality of the sows ear. Its either pay someone a months wages and then some or do the work or feel the pain myself. life's a bitch and its good to be able to enjoy it.

It's now black, ready or not all it can be is right or not and I will just have to sand it down to find out. I think I was a little heavy on the hardener but I guess thats how things work out sometimes.

[rgh0]

Nothing more annoying than when you discover lost in your spares a part that just got delivered. Bearings, bushes and seals are the most often candidates

cheers
Rohan

[garyeanderson]

Well it's turned into bumper week, one rear repaired and two fronts. One is from 26/4020 which is supposed to get the "two bit whore" chassis so I figured it was time to fix the front bumper that I backed into with the F250, luckily for me the trailer hitch receiver punched the bumper just off the middle but dead center on the height so the body shell was undamaged but the bumper took it on the chin. This morning I started off fixing the stress cracks from the punch, I didn't take them all out as this is not by any means a perfect shell. its had seen some action when it was extracted from 20 plus years of growth. There were holes punched in the body from the rake on the back of the tractor used to clear away the heavy brush and small trees. You can see some small stress fractures directly above the impact but these will be mostly hidden by paint (I can always use one of those filler strips and that will hide most that is not hidden) and if not I can do it again if it bothers me that much which is unlikely.

This was one of the bumpers that I molded from Willie's bumper mold and it's seen a number of units molded from it, I've pulled at least 3 and the mold was no virgin before. That said the bumpers molded need a fair amount of work to look right but the money was right so I used what I got and made due. This was one of the last jobs that came out of my old shop in Greenbush before the commuter train bought the property and turned it into a parking lot. It was painted only days before we were evicted and two others never got painted, things were tight for time and time just ran out. So the bumper was not finished either. I never got the bobbins boned into it and just figured I would get to it. So here it is eight and a half years later and I am getting to it today. I wouldn't want to rush a project along or anything , I am not sure if I had bobbins back then so I guess thats a good excuse for shit bagging it back then. Excellent weather today and all week for fiberglass, with fiberglass is grinding, and with grinding is laundry, so I did 3 loads this morning. I spare you the laundry photos but here are a couple of the bobbing bonding.

It still needs some more work but getting closer is half of the game.

I found this other front bumper in Tingles C Prod race body, it does not go with it but was just stored init for the last couple years, out of site, out of mind. Anyway I pulled all of the foam as it was blown up bigger than could ever be used and I needed it gone to get inside to glass the back side. This was nearly broken it two places but due to it being a later bumper from an S3 it remained intact. I spent about a day on it and I don?t even have a place for it at the moment but it bumper week so it got what it needed to be useful again. The S3 SE is missing the mid-nose and bumper so it won?t go to waste. To be truthful I just didn?t want to spend money this week and start on Tingles early S2 body so the three bumpers killed the week, I wet sanded the black gel coat off of the rear bumper at least I sanded about half, but after an hour and a bit I moved on to something else, I hope to get back to it tomorrow. The front will wait for a while I think but maybe my right arm will be up for it after the rear gets done.

Saturday April 14th 12:00pm

I was looking for something easy to do this morning so I got all of the parts and various pieces together for the rear uprights for the two bit whore chassis. I tossed the rear drive axles and the output shafts for the diff in the freezer for about an hour and went out to set up the arbor press. I had some time to kill and went down the street to pick up a few more sheets of 120 grit 3M wet/dry sandpaper. When I got back I pulled off the paper that was still on the uprights and cleaned up the old masking tape that was left from a couple years ago when I bead blasted the uprights. I didn?t want to bead blast the bearing surface of the alloy so this needed some acetone and a bit of elbow grease to remove. Once everything was good and clean I pressed it all together. I was going to get photos but, well I didn?t. I just didn?t think it would show much so there is only one photo of the uprights nearly ready to install minus the shock inserts.

I managed to do a bit of sanding on the black gel coat and the rear bumper is getting close, now I need to really get serious about the rest of it.

Monday, April 16th

Yesterday was a slow day, I looked for missing parts for the front wheel bearings. I looked at the hubs and they had bearing installed and packed but the heavy-duty washers with the D hole was missing. I found several sets of used bearing in different locations but no washers, in between searches I went out and sanded the black gel coat off of the front bumper that I repaired, this has nothing to do with either chassis as its for a S3 or S4 but I had the weather and I had the glass, resin, and gel coat so it got fixed. On about the 4th search of the day I found a pair of front stub axle bearing washers so it was a good day. Both front and the rear bumpers need more work but they are well along, I need to spend money on materials so I looked for a different job for today. Last week I started looking at gearboxes for 26/4020, it had the early style mount and all of the boxes I had ready or nearly ready were late style mounts so I started to pull one apart last Wednesday, I had the shift rails out and then I noticed it had the 17 mm input shaft so it was either a Ultra-close or a wide box. seeing the one Ultra-close was in the White Coupe and the other was in the alloy case, I said "Oh Shit", and put it back together with nothing accomplished. Today I pulled out two others and made the swap. On this box I tore the gasket removing the tailshaft and that meant dropping the second motion (counter) shaft and extracting the main shaft with all of the gears. I had been in this box a couple years ago and repacked the needle bearings with vaseline and got lucky and all of the needles stayed in place while I swapped the gasket out. I got it cleaned up and ready for paint and the bell housing bolted on with some wellseal on the one bolt that passes into the the case that beats everyone that doesn't read this forum day and night. Its about 85 degrees and not a day I am going out to run for paint so I guess it will wait a day or two.

It cooled off a bit so I took the Elan to Lowes for paint and to Autozone to get another swaybar bush set, I destroyed one trying to install it, I think its the first one that I have ruined, oh well another $7.50 gone. Paint was Rust-olium Hunter Green for $10.00 a quart, I got back and gave it a quick coat at about 3:30 so I can bring it back in in a couple hours before it gets dark.

Not quite the right color but so what, its painted and thats a good thing!
Gary

[garyeanderson]

More paint today, great weather continues and I like to take advantage of it. I installed the last sway bar bush that I picked up yesterday, so thats 4 installed and one ruined, cost about $22 for both bars, it needed some touch up from me man handling it several times. I needed a set of front springs for 26/4020, I figure it will be light and I wanted it low so I chose the two shortest ones, one is about a half an inch taller than the other so I guess thats the drivers side. Other parts that got painted weren't needed right away but as I came across them and they would clean up easily I did so and less work that will need to be done once the bodies go back on. I still need to get or fix the Alloy Lotus differential case, I hope to get this resolved in the next coupe weeks but I don't think I'll run out of work for a couple years anyway but I would like to see that chassis out of the living room so I can bring in the one that is currently under 26/4020 that is destined to go back underneath 26/4997 to be re-united with the original body. So far I think I have spent a total of $700 to $800 on parts and fuel to get both chassis as far along as they currently are, That doesn't include any of the parts that were purchased previously but I would guess that was around $1000 8 or so years ago. I need to get my original engine out of the trailer, that means I need to disassemble it in place as its installed in a chassis and the work involved to get it out and put it back is just to much to think of. My guess is that the block, rods, pistons, crankshaft and pan weighs about 130lbs, I should be able to manage that or may even have to ask for help. All in all this project started 2 months ago and is well along, I guess I put in about 8 hours a day on average so I still think things are going nicely.

Wednesday April 18th

[garyeanderson]

I got a package in the mail, a pair of used Koni?s so I got to thinking that the paint was dry on the rotors that I taped up and painted this morning, I figured, what the hell, why not. I had some other things that needed to be done like to find the 3.25 inch long - by 7/16 and found 11, six were a matched set so I cleaned them up on the wire wheel and then ran the 7/16 die over the threads and wire wheeled again. They looked pretty good for used donut bolts. I installed the Koni?s with some motor oil to conduct the heat away. The rotors went on next and then I slid on the donut, I haven?t cleaned up the stover nuts yet so its just sitting on there for now. I found the tie down straps and used two to pull the spring to something a bit shorter, it didn?t need much, maybe two or three inches and it was good to go on. I got the spring caps placed and tried the lotocone and I could get the alloy tube nut started easily so I took it back off and smeared some anti-seize on the lotocone and a bit of grease for good luck. Placed the nut back on with the permatex gasket cement, this stuff is 10 or more years old and the cap has been off for years, good stuff and hand tightened till I needed the 15/16 socket and worked it tight. I wasn?t satisfied with it so I got the ? inch impact wrench and tightened it good, it will be needed to remove it for sure. The straps were a bitch to get off I had to wind them around to near the top to get the hooks out of the spring but I managed.

[garyeanderson]

I got an early start this morning and things were going well.

[memini55]

Looks really good! Now don't you just wish it would stay that clean, or maybe it will if it is a garage queen?
You should be out the door by the end of the day and ready to move a body.

Keep up the good work.
Mark

[garyeanderson]

I started robbing parts off of my original chassis that I rebuilt 20 years and never saw completion. It had too many issues and in the end I bought a crashed S4 and rebuilt that instead. This chassis broken - welded, Atlantic Ocean swim, rotted - welded again, and just didn't make it so I pulled the trigger and put a bullet in it. Yesterday was the day to pull the engine, it has been in the upper deck of the 42 foot trailer for the last 8 plus years and I couldn't turn it over with the crank pulley. At the very least the head was coming off anyway and more than likely more. The inly access to the engine was in the gooseneck floor in the front of the enclosed trailer. I brought enough tools and climbed up to go at it. The head was the easy part, about a half an hour and it was down on the ground. the the short block was going to have to come out in pieces as the only way to get it down was to dead lift it down it seemed and it weighs more than me. Not to be deterred I kept at it removing parts. I got it all loose and dead lifted it and pulled but couldn't separate the engine from the gearbox so I tried to undo the gearbox mount bolts but they seemed to be seized so I dropped it by undoing the cross member's 4 bolts and let it drop onto a stack of 2 x 8's and dragged the thing forward. The shifter then bit my ass and I was able to get the front to bolts on that but the rear to I still couldn't get so I knocked the stack of 2 x 8's out from under the box and it dropped a bit until the tail shaft was resting on the chassis and was able to get the two rear shifter bolts. I got that out and was able to slide the whole assembly forward and finally was able to separate the two. Once I had it separated I was able to get the pressure plate bolts and then access the fly-wheel bolts. I had the short block balanced on the front cross member with me cradling the thing and a 9/16 socket on a 1/2 inch ratchet and of course the engine that was seized chose to break free. I brought a 15 inch breaker-bar and a claw hammer too so I was able to get it off using the brute force method.at this point I was about 4 hours into the job so I took a break to think of the inevitable of getting it lowered the 45 inches. This was a one person job due to the fact there was no other access other than a 15 inch wide step stool so I looked around outside at the planks my friend had discarded from previous jobs, most were rotted and broke but one 16 foot 2 x 10 seemed kind of solid, at least I only heard it crack when I was standing on it with the ends supported, I looked around and found a couple of cinder blocks and they seemed to work holding up the middle. I still didn't know if it would hold 250 to 300 lbs but I figured I would give it a shot anyway. Once I had rigged the ramp up, I slid it off the goosneck platform and I was committed (maybe that I should be committed?) and started to drag it down the ramp. I got it down to the bottom and was just about to pull the ramp and my friend Dale shows up, I had told him I what I was up to and this was about 5 hours later and he had stopped by my house looking for me and figured I was dead or stuck under a twin cam. I had the Elan and was going to come back for the engine late but he had his Ranger so we loaded the short block, head, fly-wheel, ultra-close box and tools into the back I think he was at about the Rangers limit and he delivered to my house. What I got was a head that looked OK but the exhaust valves were recessed deep int the head so it looks like at least valves, seats and guides for that. the short block will need some work too, its got a cut crank, .010 on the rods and .020 on the mains so I think I have another thats a bit better. the rods are 116e so they are gone and some 125e will go in. Pistons are a question, I know I wanted to replace one due to an errant trumpet nut back in the beginning of February 1978. So what I got were some more problems to fix but this engine is the perfect match for the sows ear chassis as its a true sows ear too...

Gary

Saturday, April 21st 6 A.M.

My back was hurting yesterday after man handling the engine and gearbox extraction so I looked for some light duty work. I cleaned up the head and took off the goose neck, exhaust manifold, cams and lifters. Cleaned up cylinder head face with acetone and had a close look at the damage that needed to be dealt with. There was some pitting in the head where the fire ring is on number 2 and it will need to be skimmed (if there is enough thickness). I didn?t take the valves out yet but I think there gone, all 8 of them. I didn?t have any problems with this engine when I drove it in the late 70?s and I guess a few years have passed since then so I guess you just don?t know until you go and look. So after looking at dollar signs I figured I would get something done and take a look at the ultra-close gearbox. This also had worked flawless when installed in the Cortina Estate so I was just going to look. I pulled off the shifter and the cover with the springs that push on the detent balls.

I always have a strong magnet so its easy to extract the detent balls and once they are out I leave the magnet in the alloy cover with all of the parts that are removed, cuts down on walk-abouts if you happen to knock over the can or other storage container.

I pull the left (3/4 shift fork rail) first then the reverse fork and finally the (1/2 fork rail with the interlock pin, that way I can get my hand around the shift rail and make sure the interlock pin doesn?t drop into the box. With the forks extracted you can pull the shift forks out for examination.

What I saw was some worn shift forks once I pulled the to look at them, this was as far as I was going with this box It had always shifted nicely so I when and looked at the spares and there I saw a couple that were a bit better but not a lot, I looked at a wide box I had and it looked like granny knew how to drive and kept her hand off of the gear lever and they were nice so I robbed them and installed them in the ultra-close box.

Shift rail re-insertion is center to get it close but not fully home (again, so you can keep your fingers holding the interlock pin in place) you then do the left and the over-run tube and then reverse inserted. The final thing is to push the center shift rail with interlock pin fully home and then check all of the gears by checking the others to see if the other shafts are locked when another gear is selected.

[garyeanderson]

The block is really ugly, This was the first engine "rebuild" in 1976 so there has been a bit of water under the bridge since, It's still got the original pistons and there was a decent ridge that was removed back then. I am sure a .020" would be the minimum to get it back so it's coming apart and I'll get uncle Carl to have a look. He'll hand me the bore gauge and say "have at it". The head is worse than I was hoping and the engine rebuild will be more money to fix that I paid for the 26/4020 by far.

I cleaned up the box this morning and the gray being 20 years old was in pretty good condition but there were a few spots where the paint had lifted so I figured there was still plenty of Hunter Green left I would give it a cnew coat. The last box looked good but I wanted it a bit darker so I added about 15 grams of semi-gloss black to the 100 + grams and another 11 grams of acetone. THis gave about 2 complete coats and looks a bit better I think. I think I'll paint a couple more but with more black and see how they look, Probably try about 20% black next time...

The dark green on the right looks nicer to me, more black please!

April 24th 04:30 am
I saw this shifter casting still had the original paint still on it and it looks kind of close to the darker gearbox, I think it could stand another 5 or 10 percent black added...

April 25th 05:25 am

I did a bit more painting yesterday to make the shift towers appearance look better, One is close to the dark hunter green and will be a close match, I used a gloss black instead of the semi-gloss to mix with the green as I had that out to paint a few steering columns and assorted interior parts and just used the same mixing cup. It's not visible part so I just wanted to cover the shift towers with something and black wasn't the color I wanted.

[garyeanderson]

This Engine LP2021 was the original engine I got with my first Elan, it?s not the original engine to the car though. I bought it in April 1976 and it took some work to get it running. The last time it ran was in 1980 when it was installed in the Cortina Estate after a swim in the Atlantic Ocean during the Blizzard of 78. The head and pan were off to fix a problem of ingesting a velocity stack nut that ended being wedged into head. The cylinder-head was welded and surfaced and the piston was contoured to take the sins away and not a lot else. A friend of mine found the Cortina Estate about 45 miles away and I traded my friends dead VW Beetle (another blizzard victim) for it and finally got it running again in the summer of 78. So it got a couple of years use and put away until the other day when I pulled it out of the trailer where it has been since 2003. When I pulled it out I had no idea of what I would find, I knew the crank had been cut, the early weak con rods, and the cylinder-head welded but not much else. So yesterday I tore it down and had a look at what was needed to get this back to being a Lotus Twin Cam engine and it will be a lot. I haven?t done much with the Cylinder-head, its not the original from this engine so its truly in the spirit of Sows Ear mentality to toss all of the mongrel parts together and see what sort of FrankenElan it becomes. I took some photos of the disassembly yesterday. So far I think I can use the front cover and intermediate plate, crank pulley, rear seal housing and most of the bolts. I left the crankshaft in the block for now until I get the bores measured. It has 2 sleeves installed in cylinders 1 and 4, 38 years ago there was a pretty good ridge at the tops of the bores that my friend and I had to remove to get the pistons out, my guess it will need a bore and pistons, the rods are the weak pre 125e rods with the 11/32nd rod bolts so those are gone too. The crank was cut .010 on the rods and the mains were cut .020 back in 1976 so I would guess that is going into the spares department too. The block may be able to take a bore but one of the sleeves looks to be about 2 or 3 thousands of an inch down the hole on one side and a little less on the other. The other sleeve is not looking a lot better so that may go into spares also. I might look at the head later today but all I?ll be able to do is see the approximate thickness, I know the exhaust valves look to be recessed quite a bit but that?s just by eyeball. I am only a bit depressed by this as I have the original block out of the Cortina Estate to use if necessary and a set of 125E rods. Pistons are going to be expensive as is all of the machine work to make it all fit but that?s life I guess.

Non matching cylinder-head stamp number.