What did you do to your Lotus today...

[JonB]

Result!

[reb53]

Fixed my reluctant to rise headlights.
I know, I know, age related.........

However, having been caught out on a rare night time drive I thought I'd better get them sorted.
A ,hidden, split in the hose between the non return valve and the chassis vacuum tank turned out to be the problem. In the meantime I overhauled both the vacuum pull switch on the dash, and the non return valve.
The switch is an amazingly simple , straight forward, device.
I flattened the slider inside with some 1200 paper, smeared some silicone grease around, tapped the "rivets" back over and job done. No longer hisses and blows when I blow and suck on it.
Some pictures attached to show you how simple it is.

I was surprised to find I'd already modified the non return valve by soldering an additional valve on it's end.
Just a standard tyre valve, so I replaced it on the basis if the new one lasts 40 years, like the last, it'll see me
out.
The lights now go up, and stay up !

Ralph.

[berni29]

Hi

Its funny to read that you have found a modification that you had forgotten that you had already already done, this has happened to me many times over the years, sometimes with really quite major and involved work. I'm always doing stuff to my cars and just move on once the job is completed, never really giving it much thought afterwards.

Live in the moment. Thats my mantra.......

Berni

[reb53]

Decided to get rid of the flares, ( thought they'd come back but I'm no fashion expert.... ).
No, I mean in the wheel peg holes.
Flattened them with a punch on a steel plate.
Put a bit of paint on them before refitting.

Ralph.

[simonknee]

Put the stripes on at the weekend...

Hello all that are still here, hi to any newbies and apologies to the DMs I missed over the years!

Simon

[The Veg]

I can hardly say I did it today as the project has been going on since May, but now I can say it's basically finished. I've upgraded my Plus 2 to a five-speed gearbox. I know many of you will think I've made a terrible mistake but I disagree. Sure, the four-speed's shifting is probably the most vaunted thing in this forum (though mine always seemed rather notchy), but here in the USA the need for an overdrive gear is of a higher value than the shifting.

The whole thing began in 2020 when I heard that Greg Z was selling the five-speed that he'd had in his DCH for a little while. As I recall him explaining to me, it was a perfectly fine gearbox but he felt that the ratios weren't ideal for such a light car. I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to add a gear, so after some quick research, I bought it from him. And it sat in my garage for some time while I got other things with the car sorted. I wanted to get the rest of the car in good solid shape before taking on this project.

There were plenty of challenges along the way. I won't go into much detail right now, but suffice to say the mechanical buttoning-up got finished two days ago and I took the first drive yesterday. The feel is a bit different and it's taking some getting used-to, but so far so good.

Of course there will be hiccups with things, and as I was headed back toward home the engine got weak and soon quit. I had a strong young friend in the passenger seat and we got the car into some parking and after some fettling I determined that the forward carb's float had gone heavy and was causing flooding. Drained everything and managed to get home without incident and ordered some new floats. They should arrive in a few days and I should still be able to drive the car to LOG after a little more road-testing.

[Quart Meg Miles]

I removed the left side door surround and inspected the sub-frame which I hadn't seen since I replaced it in 1991. It felt as though it still had Waxoil on it and after removing the debris it was in perfect condition with no rust or signs of stress in the fibreglass. I'd used 3 inch wide woven material and it was a devil to mould round the frame with a brush but I seem to have got all the air bubbles out.

In the evening we took a 20 mile round trip to a favourite overview and in the process passed 90,000 miles for the third time!

[Hawksfield]

Hi
290,000 miles how many engine rebuilds
John

[rgh0]

Bolted the head to the block on my current race engine rebuild. Did the final valve clearance check and shim adjustment. I had set the clearances very carefully before bolting down the head to see exactly how much the clearances change which I have never precisly measured before. I found the clearances closed up by 0.04mm +/- 0.01 mm across all 8 valves. The head bolt load clearly compresses the head by around 0.04mm

cheers
Rohan

[Quart Meg Miles]

The head bolt load clearly compresses the head by around 0.04mm
Rohan

... also known as 0.0016 inches.

Rebuilds, John: two rebores (the first to 0.03 inches, for some reason) and a re-sleeve; head removals probably double figures!

Also two rusted through "chassis" replaced but body not restored since 1969.

[rgh0]

So in imperial terms..... The valve clearance specification tolerance is +/- .001 inch so the head compression affecting clearance by 0.0016 inch when bolted down is not insignifcant. The fact that it is consistent (at least on this build) across the head means that I can allow for it on my next build. I typically aim for for the top half of the clearance specification on a new build so trying to get it within +/- .0005 inch after the head is bolted down by setting the shims before its bolted down.

A some what perfectionist engine building approach but I like the challenge

cheers
Rohan

[Craven]

There is a good practical reason for the spec of tappet clearance, I’ve not seen any stock shims to 4 decimal places nor have I seen feeler gauges in 1/10th. It would place an expensive burden on the dealer network to try and work, precision engineers required, to be any closer than 0.001 inch.

[pharriso]

Rebuilt my rear calipers over the last week. In July I had an instance with a caliper binding on quite hard, managed to retract the piston, but noticed that the piston seal was badly damaged:

As I was pulling the caliper off you could see that the caliper piston was badly corroded:

All 4 pistons were corroded:

Now rebuilt with SS pistons from SJS Sportscars:

[englishmaninwales]

New drum, pullies and a cable to follow. Plus a pair of Alex Black’s modified glass fixing set screws I’ve had in store for a few years.

[DamianB]

Had the carbs off so took the opportunity to poke an endoscope down the inlet throats and look at my valves from the backside. Only about 3k miles since full rebuild so good to see that still clean as expected. Right hand valve (Cylinder #1) is open, so appears darker