Clutch slave cylinder and a noisy bearing

[adigra]

On a positive note, the mechanics looking after my car were very impressed with it overall. They inspected every nut and bolt as they are rebuilding a total basket case S4, so were curious about the upgrades on my car. They were full of compliments, which was nice to hear.

This place is pretty cool, they just finished an Austin Healey 3000 (the main guy used to specialise in them), and are about to start on a Nissan 240Z and a 70's Skyline, on top of the aforementioned Elan and a Lotus 11 which they own. I know many here focus on the same marque/model, but I really enjoy many flavours, so it's exciting to see what they're working on.

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My engine is back in and running. Needs setting up and shaking down. Hopefully everything goes well and I can have the car back early next week. I am already bracing for more bad news though, as that seems to be the pattern, but I'm hoping for the best.

[adigra]

I know this thread has gone completely off topic from the initial post, but I guess that's what happens if you follow the rabbit hole... Anyhow, the car has passed the MOT! Everything is fine with the engine and, for the first time ever, it's completely leak free. It has a flat spot in the rev range at the moment, so needs a bit more setting up, but I should be able to pick it up tomorrow or Friday.

I am very disappointed with the original engine builder. I sent him an email explaining about the pistons about 10 days ago, but never heard back. The work he did was downright shoddy, including the paint which rubbed off the cam cover and flaked off the sump. He has really good reputation, which he could've gone a long way to at least partially preserve by responding to me, but seems to not care. I run a small business myself and I know reputation is everything.

On the bright side, I am very impressed with my new mechanics, Eleven Engineering. Simon who runs it is a super bloke and really cares about the cars and the customers and is impressively thorough. I'll be very happy to give him plenty of work in the future (my FIL's Cobra is already going there this month).

[adigra]

Picked the car up and drove it 40-ish miles. The engine feels quite tight, but goes well. It was weirding me out a bit as it sounds a bit different than before, but longer I drove it better it got. It's quite difficult to restart when hot, but I need to put some miles on it and let it bed in, then see what's what.

Annoyingly, the freshly installed (during the respray) window cable is tangled up on the main pulley and has jumped one of the smaller pulleys. The mechanic and I fixed it before I left, but as soon as I used it it did it again. Having looked in the manual at home I can see that the cable is too long and there is too much of it wrapped around the pulley. Sadly the cable is kinked now and one of the small pulleys is damaged. I'll order the replacement bits on Monday, but will drive the car regardless, just leave the window up.