Returning Engine Bay To Original

[111Robin]

Alan I'll be fitting new mounts after I paint the engine and reinstall the manifold, thanks for the heads up. I haven't paid any attention to the mountings yet, too much on the radar.

[alan.barker]

Hi Robin,
have fun and you are doing a nice job. Keep posting with photos please.
Alan

[111Robin]

Making steady progress. I used satin paint for the bay, wish I'd opted for matt now, however I'm sure once it has some wear and tear it will look better. Definitely not "concourse" but a lot better than it was.

[111Robin]

Finished the cover with VHT Wrinkle Plus, reasonably happy with the finish. Still to tidy the edges of the script once it hardens.

[alan.barker]

Very nice the Cherry on the Cake
Alan

[TeeJay]

Robin, you have made excellent progress.
Keep up the good work, you will feel well rewarded for your efforts in future years.

I also painted my engine bay with Satin Black, but it is not as shiny as yours, odd.

In reply to a comment made in a previous earlier post; mine is the original pedal box; I modified it with the removable plate to greatly assist any maintenance in future years. A tip that was on this forum.

[111Robin]

Moving on to the front suspension and brakes now, no point leaving anything to chance, everything will be overhauled or replaced.

[111Robin]

Front suspension and brakes now finished, moving on to installing the new engine bay harness. Unfortunately not just a straight swap as the car has previously been rewired but not fully per the factory schematic so I'm having to trace all of the circuits back to the dash to determine the connections between old and new. In the footwell is a mini harness with multiplugs connecting to front, rear and dash and incorporating a bank of relays and a fuse box. It has been done well so I'm retaining this and replacing only the engine bay harness that has seen better days.

[TonyWylde]

Beautiful looking job you're doing there. I hope I have the patience to do mine as nicely.

[111Robin]

Beautiful looking job you're doing there. I hope I have the patience to do mine as nicely.

Thanks Tony. Once you start to see it coming together the enthusiasm will ramp up. I had my doubts when lying underneath scraping old paint from the chassis and struggling with stubborn wishbone bushes but once these jobs are done the rest is very rewarding.

[111Robin]

Turning my attention to the rear end now, as per the front everything had been shoddily sprayed with silver paint while assembled, no attempt made to mask off anything that shouldn't be painted. So everything has been removed for overhaul. After scraping all of the paint from the chassis fortunately it is perfect, infact I ended up scraping off the factory red primer (replacement Lotus chassis) to reveal fresh clean steel below. This has all now been treated to three coats of chassis paint. The wishbones are straight and will be rebushed with OEM type. I have new Armstrong Big Red strut inserts to fit however I have issues with the hub carriers that need to be resolved. Both have had shoddy repairs to the caliper mounting lugs so I'm currently trying to have these properly repaired. The differential cover is also damaged, a big chunk missing from the edge of one of the bearing housings so I'll probably be replacing this with a better one. The final drive is 3.77, I was going to change this to 3.54 however as I'm having to spend far more on replacing and repairing parts I'm just going to leave this. Calipers are stripped and will be reassembled with new pistons once painted. As mentioned on another post I'll be retaining the UJ sliding joint driveshafts, I was considering going back to rotoflex but again this would be more cost I hadn't budgeted for. I had originally thought I'd be on the road for the summer but this is very unlikely given the long list of unfinished tasks but maybe by the end of the summer, fingers crossed.

[DavidLB]

Hi I have an original rad fan and mounting if you are interested Regards
David

[111Robin]

Currently held up waiting for the rear uprights to be weld repaired so finished off stripping the chassis and floor pan. Chassis now painted and will be applying stonechip to the floor. Slow progress but still progress of sorts.

[111Robin]

Slowly making some progress at last. I had to wait for the caliper lugs on the uprights to be properly welded so in the meantime fitted new seals and bearings to the diff and fitted a replacement cover as the original was yet another bodged affair. After vapour blasting the uprights they were still not very presentable so I gave them a couple of coats of engine enamel (on etch primer), not original but a lot tidier. New bearings, discs, Mick Miller shafts and a pair of nos Armstrong inserts and powder coating of the springs then on to reassembly. The calipers are with Classicar Hydraulics and will be back next week so getting a shift on now. And it all started with tidying the engine bay .

[Bigbaldybloke]

Looking good, what did you paint the inside of the wheel arches with?