Sows Ear Chassis

[garyeanderson]

I don't know if I've mentioned this lately Gary, but......

YOU ROCK !!!!


Thanks for showing us that a lot of this "dirty work" can be done by people like us.

Hi Charles

Good to hear from you, hope life is going well and the Elite is safe. The "dirty work" is just part of the over all job, Its not a lot of fun to do but unless you pay some one else then thats what you buy into when you drag home a project. In my case, enough utter filth to keep me buried up to my neck for years. I do like my projects otherwise I would have gotten rid of them years ago. I was going to start a cleanup this spring and weed out the "never going to happen: stuff but got busy and they are all still here as I have been occupied trying to make them happen. All of my projects were at the end of there useful life cycle, I am getting to the end of MY useful life cycle and unless I kick it into overdrive and get on with it, these rocks tied around my ankle will surely pull me under and I refuse to let that happen.

Great read and inspirational Gary, restoration and repair is better than a psychiatrist's sofa anyday.

Paul

Hi Paul

I think that was the idea of the post is to show people that in not a lot of time or with a lot of money you can do a lot of the work to get those "dreams" of yesterday kick started. Looking at stuff doesn't get it done, I have been looking at this stuff for several years, well maybe a bit longer than several. Anyway like most stuff its about doing a little bit every day as thats really how shit gets done.

The head came back from being surfaced and I should have gone and done some work but it was 95F yesterday and the same again today. I really didn't want to go and pick it up and sit in traffic for an hour and a half each way with Beauregard looking at me panting. I got a set of rear calipers put together at home and while thats a little on the light side of things that needed to be done, it's still progress. Today I hope to get 2 pair of front calipers assembled and maybe some other stuff. I don't think I have ever set a goal or a date. With the way I get things done, the only date thats important is the last one that has yet to be determined so I just need to use them all to the best advantage till there gone

Gary

------------------
June 21st 12:00pm

I did up the two pair of front calipers that I had blasted and painted several weeks ago. That is I installed the stainless caliper pistons and new seals. I was set to use the new caliper dust seal retaining spring rings but I couldn't get them to hold the the dust seal in a manor that I figured would be effective. Take a look at the nice shiny ring on the left.

the retaining ring seems to pinch at one end and lift the dust seal so that water can get in and rust the piston to the outer portion of the caliper piston bore that is just under the dust seal. I had both together and tried 3 or 4 times before I said to myself that I guess the old dust seal retaining rings were going to get reused. NEVER toss anything is a good way to work when doing this stuff, you just never know what you get with todays replacement parts. I found both sets of rings and cleaned them up with the wire wheel. I had two vintages from the disassembly, one set looked like square section and the other looked more like a flattened round stock. This was not what I wanted but I didn't want the stuff to fail in a years time either so I put the old parts in. The Ring on the right is one of the Square section ones and it holds the dust shield nicely.

side by side of the new on the left and the old on the right.

The second set of fronts with the "flattened round" springs installed and ready to bolt back together.

Thursday June 21st 5:15pm

I was about 95 degrees so I wasn't doing much and I looked out on the front porch and there was a care package sitting there. I opened it up and said to myself "I guess I know what I am doing tomorrow".

Well I figured I could do a little bit to get a jump on things so I cut some plywood to rough out a lid for the RHD glove box and traced out the LHD lid to make a pattern. Got out the skill saw and trimmed it close to the lines

and then worked it on the belt sanded for a bit. seems the fiberglass has moved a bit over the years and my template is the reverse of the original LHD lid and its a bit short in height on the left side so 1 prototype done and I'll get back to this when I get a new belt for the belt sander, it a bit used up and I think its time.

Friday June 22nd 08:8:15am
Started to put all the parts I could think of together this morning. first task was to cut off the column mount tab for the LHD column. That took about 5 seconds. several clamps to hold things in position and a bit of masking tape to hold the lovely crashpad in shape. Its going to take a lot of work to get this very far away from the sows ear that it is now. Tough to even squint and see it as an Elan. I do love to see the finished product but we seem to miss out on a lot of good photos by some. The metamorphoses on many Elans is just so dramatic that you would never know that they are indeed the same. I think its a truly forward thinking person with vision that will show their Elan with the before, during and after photos. Me, I just don't care what some think and I really want to motivate people to get on with their own projects as there are no Elans beyond reclamation unless fire (or some dpo) has had its way.

Anyhow I marked the location of the mounting holes and now I need to pull it apart and see what and where they are. I don't like the gap between the dashboard and glove box so I think that I'll be making at least one possibly 2 more dashes before I like what I am seeing. Still not sure about crashpads, I think I'll have to pull off the vinyl from this thing of beauty and recover it. This project does not warrant one of the type 26 reproductions that are being offered now.

pretty close but

Seems like this is the reason for the next pattern, sure glad I have the glove box now it will solidify things and maybe I'll get the next one closer.

[garyeanderson]

The mail man came today and dropped off a package. A "new shifter" that my friend Phil sent me. It needs some work but doesn't everything. I got the base cleaned up and noticed that it had a number 105 E 7305 or 105 E 7505 on the shifter base.

The shift handle is a bit long and bent but thats fine. Phil put an extra bend in it so it fit in the box, I told him the length I needed and he adjusted it to that length.

when done it will look like these two that were done previously.

Monday June 25th 4pm
Yes it was a slow day, rain this morning and it cleared and now its pouring out again, I almost forgot, I'll get the base painted up with the Hunter green and black mix that I have been using...

The morning started off nice and clouded over quickly, I had the cover off of Tingles C prod body and put the dash back in and the glove box too. I got out pencil and some masking tape and used the cut off tab that held the LHD steering column that I had cut off as a guide (it was laying in the body shell still, remember never toss anything out ) and marked the dash with the pencil. I took it out and used the worn out belt on the belt sander to nose into the crotch and a small block to sand straight the line next to the glove box and reinstalled. Pulled both dash and glove box together and had a nice uniform gap of about an 1/8 inch. I found the quart of Minwax polyurethane that I had around forever and shook the can and it seemed like liquid so I opened and stirred it a bit and poured some into the spray gun and laid the dash out on the 4 x 8 painting plywood and gave it a few passes and then brought it inside before the rain and thunderstorm passed through. Got the body covered up and called it. I need to get some part put in and place it back in the body to see if it is something that I can live with but it may be just about close to use as it is (if I squint hard) .

both prototypes, urethaned on the left, original right

Tuesday June 26th 7:15pm
Very little done today, unsettled weather with rain threatening all day. It finally came down about 3pm. I was looking at the first reject dash while I was making coffee this morning and pulled out the boiled linseed oil and gave it a coat to see how the walnut looked, I let soak in and wiped off the excess after I had coffee. the sun was out so I sanded the urethane on the second dash and took that out for another coat and brought it in to dry. About 10am I looked at the first proto dash and I like the color but knew it would never hold up in a roadster, I gave it another wipe down with BLO and let it sit till noon. It was dry to the touch but it should have sat over night but I was impatient so I brought it out and gave it a coat of Urethane just to see how the two product would react. Lover the color and I need to play around some more with this method and see how it will hold up. May have to leave it outside and subject it to some of the daily thunderstorms after I urethane the back.

both prototypes, first proto with Boiled linseed oil and urethaned on the left, second proto just urethaned right

While waiting for things to dry I got the shifter out and thought I would see if I could get enough heat into it with a propane torch to straighten it. I managed to get a dull cherry red and put it in the vice and took a lot of the bend out. I also manged to make it sine wave shape so a lot more heating and some additional pressure in the vice and finally got out my favorite tool (3 pound hammer) and heated and hit until the strait edge looked consistent. I cut off the right angle bend that Phil put in it to ship and cleaned it up a bit. I hope to get more done tomorrow

Straightened shifter - top, and one of the finished shifters - bottom

Thursday June 28th 5:00am
I went to fetch my head that's been surfaced for nearly a couple of weeks and it looks a whole lot better. I guess I need to get off my ass and get on with it now.

I brought a couple of shifters with me and got the end of one trimmed up and got some threads put on so it wouldn't hurt so much to use the shifter (without the jam nut). Bill and I trimmed a second one that I butchered 20 years ago. We put tab A onto one part to fit into slot B in the other and I'll get Karl to put some glue on it to make it all better.

Picked up two sets of front wheel bearings at the bearing supply house in Quincy so I am good for a while. Need some front rotors now, I priced them and they have gone up too so I will think about those for a bit before I bite the bullet.

Saturday 30th of June 4:00am

It was starting to get warm out yesterday so I painted the shifters early and went inside to shim the head. Had some problems with the cosworth style shims that I had access to. I had bought a bunch from Don Tingle when the doors closed at TLC and they had a deeper recess for the tip of the valve than the ones that were installed in the head. So when I did the valve shim math it was not working. It took me a few passes with the intake to figure what the hell I was doing wrong as you can see from the picture of the shifters on the shim math scribbles. The intakes just weren't cooperating and it was until I started to measure the total height of cosworth shim that I figured it out. The recessed pockets for the valve stem in the shims in my head were like .060 inch while the new ones I had were .100 so the shims were bottoming on the valve keepers and not the top of the valve stem. once I figured that out the valve shim math started to work again...

The two piece shifter in the photo above is not the third painted shifter in the photo, thats has yet to be welded.

First of July 06:55
I needed some black gauges to make the S1 style dash look right and I wasn't going to use those that I had from the LoCort so what was I to do? I thought about it and I had some bezels that were not being used so I sandblasted the chrome off and put a coat of semi-gloss black on them. Turns out I distorted them blasting them and it was an absolute bitch to get them back together. I took off some of the semi-gloss on two of them trying to re-install so after comparing them to the original black bezel gauges, they sere too shiny so I stripped them again and flat-blacked them and I think they came out a bit nicer looking. I still had problems assembling one of them so I taped off the gauge that was giving me real problems after I had the bezel installed and painted it. this is the result and I think it will be just fine for the sow's ear that it is. I wish I had a good crashpad to use but I don't so that may be one of the next low dollar projects to do. If it looks like crap then I'll shit can crashpad and leave it off and flat black the area.

[garyeanderson]

THe weather has been warm since last week so I thought it would be a good idea to get back to the body work. I picked up some bondo and a tube of polyester glazing putty last Thursday. Over the weekend it was in the 90's and well I just do get things done in those kind of temperatures so I waited as long as I could to jump back into doing body work. Its been over 4 years since I played around with Tingles C production body.
elan-f14/tingles-production-race-elan-body-t16586-15.html
It does not look like a lot and it certainly was not and probably won't ever be. Charles sold me it for $100 and a friend needed a headlamp bucket so he gave me $60. My net cost was $40, I did a lot of work to get it to where it was when I moved it to it's new work area on Monday. I haven't touched the body but on Tuesday I started to work a bit on the doors and the front and rear bumpers just to ease into it. For Independence day I went over to Russ's to take a look at his Elite project and didn't do a thing at home so I got started again this morning Sanding off the polyester glazing putty that I put on the doors and rear bumper Tuesday and repeated the process a couple of times. Things were close so I found the primer that was 4 years old, maybe a bit older (probably closer to 6). I opened it and it looked ok and it stirred into something that I thought I could spray. I put it through a paint filter and mixed the 2 parts and went out and sprayed the doors first, then the bumpers. I got one coat one and things went to shit fast. I had just about finished and the gun stopped spraying and it was still heavy so I opened the lid and saw jelly and quickly dumped it out. The fire drill started and went through a quart of acetone cleaning out the gun. The epa would have had a fit, the cloud of acetone and K38 primer was drifting across the road and the traffic seemed to be slowing down but no one stopped . I guess I'll do a smaller batch next time.

Gary

Friday, July sixth 8:45am

I got a fairly early start to beat the heat. After the pictures were taken yesterday afternoon, the prime had hardened I looked for the obvious defects and suck-ins and skimmed those that I saw with polyester glazing putty. I put them away and went out to the Lighthouse for the Thursday evening car show.

The first thing I did was to wet sand off the putty and prime to get it back to being flattened to look at, then washed off all of the sanding scum and left in the sun to dry while I did the next part. So far I have done both bumpers and one door. The sun had dried those parts so I looked at them pretty closely with my bad eyes and saw what I had missed.

Before I prime again I want to fill in as many of those problem areas as possible to minimize the number of steps needed to get a decent looking paint job.

I need to sand this again as well as the two bumpers. I have not even sanded the second door so that will get the same treatment. I'll get another coat of prime on everything latter today. I should be using a guide coat but I am not all that fussy with this particular job as its not that kind of a project. I am just looking for a 20 foot paint job and if I get something close or better I'll be happy.

Gary

[crannyr]

Great post,

I have sent you a PM

Rick

[garyeanderson]

Not getting a lot done but having some fun. Money has not been spent, its hot so I have been doing a bit of body work and paint exploration. I didn't like the Rustoleum Gloss Black so I painted over it with the Hunter Green with 15% gloss black and I think its in the running, I like green and I have a couple Elans painted green, one BRG and the other Brooklands green. It looks pretty good except for a few bubbles but I am new to this and its painted out in the driveway so not any sort of ideal conditions.

It has a decent shine, this combo was 120 grams hunter green 18 grams of Gloss Black and 25% acetone and I think its getting close to the right percentage to apply.

Just because I would like to do another color I looked into Medici Blue. I looked up the colors in Georges formula with ppg tints
elan-f14/early-and-early-coupe-colors-t16387.html

DCM937 is Blue Shade Phthalo Green
DCM904 is Red Shade Phthalo Blue
DMC901 is Strong Black
DMC900 is Strong White

Shit, I had some hunter green and gloss Black, all I needed was some blue and white so I went off to Lowes and picked up a quart of each for $20. I tried to mix to the formula but it looked like hell. So it was eyeball time, I found the bonnet still had a good bit of Medici Blue left along the edges, it is pretty well faded out so I am just guessing but I think I came kind of close. The second batch I made by eyeball was 20 grams of Royal Blue and 5 grams of Gloss White and 3 grams of Hunter green. Its a bit darker than the sample area that I wet sanded with 1500 wet paper but once I wet it down with some water it looks damn close to my eye.

The inset square is from the lip of the bonnet and just wet sanded with 1500 wet/dry paper done with water, the slide area is done the same way but to get a better idea of the true color of the old paint I wet it down and took the photo. I need to do a larger batch and paint a panel just to get a better idea of what it will look like. the run on the right is 20 grams of Royal Blue with 3 grams of white and 2 grams of green (I think), I kept adding till it looked pretty close one gram at a time.

[garyeanderson]

Great post,

I have sent you a PM

Rick

Hi Rick

It was great to see you and thanks again for the Diff housing, it will greatly improve the sow's ear status as an Elan. Good to see another Elan getting brought back to be driven on the street too. I am sure your daughter will enjoy the hours as much as you will, learning - teaching how to "bring it back from the dead". A couple of pictures from yesterday.

Oh and do try and get that 64 Miata out for a spin too

elan-photos-f18/racer-t14383.html

Oh yea, heres one more just to keep on topic, the shocks are just what I was looking for too, Straightened out the bent sway bar lug and hope to get them sandblasted today...

9:50 am
A better look at the shocks and they are plus2, Oh well I got the alloy differential with the torsen assembled with new seals, shafts in place and put in the chassis. I even tightened some bolts that seemed like they a bitch with more stuff in the way like the brake pipes and the 3 and 5 way junctions that the pipes feed into.

[CBUEB1771]

For Independence day I went over to Russ's to take a look at his Elite project and didn't do a thing at home

Gary - To say you took a look at my Elite project is a bit of an understatement. We worked out paint and filler removing technique using a heat gun and a wood chisel. Time to shop for Elite body sections! Thanks for your perspiration on a muggy day!

[memini55]

Gary,

Happy to see you gathered a good rear-end housing. Should work out much better for the build.


You and Russ had a good days work removing all the bondo! Russ should get a new section and seam it back in place.

So Russ what year is your LOG picture and location?

Mark

[CBUEB1771]

So Russ what year is your LOG picture and location?

This question confused me for a bit until I realized the Log 14 photo is visible on my garage wall. This was the Elite celebration at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. My yellow +2S is in the middle of the front row. Not too many Elitists were happy about being pushed over to the right side for the photograph although I recall there was also a separate photo for Elites only.

[memini55]

Thanks Russ

You passed the test, Yes I saw the panoramic photo and knew it was a LOG shot.

Good luck with the Elite nose hunt, does Curtis Unlimited have a mold in northern Cal?

[garyeanderson]

Pretty warm for body work but its too warm to do much else today so I was at it trying to get the boot lid that Willy molded out of the mold we (Willy's experience and my sanding) took of a piece of shit NOS Lotus molded wavy reject that I bought off of e-bay 10 years ago. Anyway I have been trying to "flatten" the first and only part out of the mold 10 years ago and it has been "aging" in the attic. This is so that possibly, I get another top half of the mold. I don't think its good enough for that but it was good enough to try out the Rustoleum "medici blue" that I eye balled as close enough. I mixed up 120 grams of "royal blue" 30 grams of "gloss white" and 18 grams of "hunter green" along with a 56 grams of acetone and laid it on with the cheap Astro gravity feed paint gun. I also did another coat of the dark "hunter green" on the first boot lid that I have been practicing with and I like them both but I think that the Dark "hunter green" will be the color for Tingles C production body. I need to see them both when they are dry to get a better idea of what they will really look like.

The clouds moved in this morning and I figured I would get a look at the boot lid on the Elan to get a better idea of what it would look like. Seeing I had pulled back the epdm membrane cover,

I took the opportunity to get out the grinders to remove the fiberglass cloth that was used to repair the right front section that was grafted in. I knew it was going to be one of those jobs that I wish I had never started. As I worked my way though the numerous layers I kept thinking about an archaeological dig, must have been that the sun was burning though and getting more humid and hotter. Anyway I think there were 8 to 12 layers of 6 ounce cloth and I wanted it gone. by about noon most of it was and went and washed off most of what I was wearing and took these pictures. There is a bit more to do before I put back 3 layers of 1/2 ounce mat but only where it belongs, not the entire front under tray.

[rodlittle]

Gary just a thought but I find a carbide burr in an air drill removes old glass quickest of all and its not so dusty
keep up the good work
rod

[gordont]

Looking good Gary, I am starting to warm to the medici blue too.

Keep up the posts, a great read.

[garyeanderson]

Hi guys

The art of shit glass repair work is something I have a lot of practice with. Most times the glass only sticks where the repair extends into and area that needs no repair and it will readily lift off with a wood chisel where it is suppose to create a good bond. Seems like the art of prepping the area properly both by Lotus and subsequent repairs is slim to none. Anyway I did some more this morning and laid up the area I prepped yesterday. I used a little less than 12oz juice can in two batches of resin, it looks like more but a lot of the area is only a coat of resin to hold down stray fibers or just to make the surface more uniform.

Its near 90 degrees so things kicked off quickly, I got around the backside of the join seam with a chisel after about 20 minutes and lifted away the old repair, I was able to pull most of it but still needed to prep the surface. using both the 4 1/2 inch and the 2 1.2 inch grinders I was able to get 98% of the surface and remove the old non prepped gel coat that the repair seem abutted. I did the rest with 36 grit sand paper by hand, when done I pulled off the jeans, hooded sweat shirt and tee shirt and had a hose bath outside. I tore some more strips of fiberglass mat to feather the edges and mixed up another 3 oz of resin, this time with a bit less hardener as the resin was near 90 degrees as was the hardener. I applied two more layers and cleaned up.

The bottom line is I took out a bunch of fiberglass that did nothing but make it so that when/if the front is hit again it will adsorb the impact rather than just break at the old joined seam and do nothing to cushion the blow,

As far as the "medici blue" goes, I am not sure about it, it is close to what was on the shell originally but it does not look like the the same color that George painted his with.
elan-f14/early-and-early-coupe-colors-t16387.html
I still kind of like it but I think I will add a bit more "hunter green" to see what that does. I do think that is will look great with the interior, engine bay, boot painted gray and the under side and inner wheel arches painted flat black .

Gary

[dpo#4]

Dear Gary,

Your progress is inspiring and, in the case of fiberglass work, itch inducing. I found it best to do grinding in one or two sessions for as long as I could handle while swathed in a mummy's outfit of old clothes, goggles, respirator, and gloves taped at the wrist. Evenings helped. Your recent heat wave does not, so take a bow. One trick for hotter days is chilling the resin in the refrigerator prior to pouring a batch for catalyzing, which buys a (very) few minutes for the inevitable fudging around with the mat on larger or complex repairs. As a side note, I once saw a broken nose cone from a Seven and was amazed at how dry (unsaturated) the strands appeared. My repairs must be a lot heavier than Chapman thought best. Carry on, Gary. - Ray