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In conclusion

Posted by Malc on December 11, 2021
Posted in: Elan. Tagged: Elan, Lotus, restoration, Vegantune.

So having done initial investigations;

  • Paint has blisters appearing on the front and rear arches, nasty repair on the front corner, bootlid is a different shade of blue to the rest of the car
  • Door fit is an absolute riot
  • Window seals are completely perished front & rear
  • Drivers elec window needs repaired
  • Brake master cylinder seals are most likely gone hence zero brake pedal
  • Clutch slave cylinder looks shot
  • Gearbox appears to have a tail seal leak
  • Diff has a leak, looks like nose seal
  • Driveshaft donuts are perished
  • Fibreglass repairs needed in the wheel arches
  • Overheating cause needs investigated, cooling system will need entirely flushed regardless
  • Speedo doesn’t work (hasn’t since 1990)
  • Split rims need rebuilt & resealed
  • Oh, and the keys have gone missing

Bottom line, this isn’t a recommissioning, it’s a rebuild scenario. Time to take it apart!

Reading various manuals and accounts of restoring Elans, it’s useful to get the body and chassis split early on to make everything more accessible.

Started out removing the seats, as they’re on the big old list of things to take out to lighten the body before lifting off.

Incidental hot tip, roll cages make excellent hand light mounts.

Not a great start, and for someone who believes in omens, actually, rather troubling!

Thankfully only one of the bolts holding the driver’s seat in sheared, the other and both passenger seat ones came free.

Not an uncommon issue with the bolts corroding and binding in to the bobbins. It is, however, a particular pain in the backside when you can’t use heat to try and free them up. The bobbins are bonded in to the fibreglass shell and heating them to any meaningful extent would cause damage.

Seats out, the main floor carpets pop right out, literally. There’s only poppers holding them down, in this case, the remains of poppers holding the remains of carpet down.

Top quality British build quality. Absolutely no consistency of screws used, some only a few millimetres, others long enough to poke right through the floor (although that only needs about ~8mm to be fair).

The remains of the carpet and underlay, plenty of the underlay remaining stuck to the floor. Good few hours wasted with a steam cleaner trying to scrape it out!

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