Herc

Horribly out of tune. Sounds like that clutch release arm return problem too... Happy days!

I'd still take the engine out - it's only a few hours to do. Get an engine stand, do the job indoors in the warmth. Enjoy doing it, rather than hating every minute. Check out the state of the liners, swap all the o-rings and cam front seals, and the like. Doing it in-situ sounds like utter misery to me. There is really not a lot of clearance on the exhaust cam assembly side, and doing things like the shims is a real fiddle.

I've got photos of two different thermostat housings on car. One - like yours and the car I owned (a 1978 502) - has a hose connection which comes out forward with a bend to the offside, and another where the hose connection comes out much straighter, which appears to have exactly the defector you have. I'm not sure the spec of the car in the latter photo, but it seems to have PAS, so I presume another 503, but with the early pancake-type alternator, so maybe an earlier car? I'd speak to LB about it - I reckon you may have the wrong defector. Herc.

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C795238 Blurry pics, but looks promising and very original. Maybe original paint too, given the brightwork is still on it waistline.

I did pretty much the job you outline: liners, rings, and new exhaust valves. New gaskets, new S/S bolts/nuts everywhere. I didn't do the guides but it was probably a false economy. I did it all from home with no serious equipment. It is not difficult, but a little fiddly in places. An engine stand is essential, and I did it in my dining room - which makes for a much more pleasant environment. Workshop manual, obviously, essential. It's great too on detail. The wet liners come honed, so that's not a problem. The issue there is to get the 'nip' right. This is the amount the liners sit proud of the block edge correct. I took the simply route of not getting the block planed, and my new liners slotted in with pretty much the nip as before. You just need to be careful and precise with the whole job. Measuring the nip is tricky, but I again took a low tech route of the best engineering steel ruler I could find on the internet, and used that as a straight edge with feeler gauges. It seemed to work for me - maybe I was lucky. Valve stems always need to be done professionally. They normally crack-test the head first, and re-cut the valve seats after. So new guides equals new guides, new valves, and maybe even new seats. On a 16 valve head the price does mount up. My engine was in basically good condition, just corrosion damage to the liners due to sitting idle for 20 years. Note that you can get modified guides on the Interweb with proper oil seals, unlike the originals - Kemp Performance sells them I think. Kemps also do a nice rubber-faced gasket set, and a great value S/S bolt set. SJ's can provide other parts like wet liner glue. Lotusbits are really cheap for secondhand specialist bits like big-end studs. The hardest part, I found was doing the shimming of the camshafts. It's an utter faff. I found the whole job an enjoyable and an education experience. But I took my time, and was probably lucky. I feel good about having done it. Improvements? Well the big one is a long stroke crank for a 2.2. upgrade. I believe the block and camshafts are the same, but that seems hard to believe! That's a different project altogether though.

Cloth upholstery, boring wheels, dull green? Nice but not v exciting, and in a marketplace of limited buyers.

Lee Value is tricky to assess from a couple of photos. £1K sounds pretty reasonable whatever if it's got a decent Getrag 'box and the chassis is OK (even the galvanised ones have been known to suffer in terrible conditions, since the zinc only lasts so long). Mike Each has done a tremendously thorough job on his, and he's outsourced some work, hence his bills. But you can do it a lot cheaper if: - you do any engine overhaul yourself. Frankly, KISS. The main problems are likely to be from the engine sitting idle. New wet liners and rings go a long way to fix this - not peanuts but not terrible money. - the gearbox is OK. You have a Getrag so that is probably going to be the case, unless the car has been abused. - you can avoid massive respray costs. - the car hasn't been sitting wet for a long time. Door beams and all sorts of steel bodywork bit do go. LotusBits will provide a lot of secondhand spares at peanuts prices. Decent interiors still crop up on eBay now and again. Have a look at Charlie Crocker's restoration thread for someone who did the basics very cheaply, given a fundamentally solid car. He didn't respray; he didn't overhaul the engine; he got a cheap interior. From the pics: Reasons to be cheerful: - its still got it airbox and cambelt cover, so it hasn't been messed with too much. Reasons to to be fearful: - paintwork looks shot. - interior looks like its got pretty damp, and the cross-struct on the bonnet hinge looks a bit rusty. Checkout how bad the latter is, since I've seen them crumble to dust when they've been i a field for years.

Tight in what sense? TO screw on/off? Or the tighness of the stick once on? There was a nylon screw thread on the collar is I remember correctly. It shouldn't be too tight to put on, but that rather depends on the cleanliness and damage of the thread. I suspect in a perfect world you could largely do it by hand. I have used adjustable spanners of various sorts on the nut. My stick was never super-stiff- its a light weight shify - but not terribly floppy either. If floppy, I'd check the various springs are still in place in the stick assembly.

The prevailing opinion is that the S2 spoilers are much better for cooling than the S1 spoilers, and is one of the reasons a lot of S1 cars have been fitted with S2 spoilers. I bought a perfect-condition replacement S2 spoiler on eBay a couple of years ago.

From what remember there is really only one mounting for the gearbox and it sits directly underneath the box. It's a weird thing : rubber with a couple of metal plates and bar. Engine only has two mounts, of course, one either side. Once on axle stands, you can dismantle the gearbox mounting from underneath to inspect. Is your gearshift really vague? I just wonder if your problem is the little plastic saddle piece that sits under the gear stick inside the box, whose corners break off over time. In other words, it might just be the stick moving, not the gearbox.

I replaced mine with something like opt 3 and found it was a bit deep, and interfered with the airbox.

I had a similar problem when I mis-adjusted the linkage between the two carbs so that one was always part-on. Was hard to start, but then ran away with itself. I say mis-adjusted - I actaully slotted the linkage together incorrectly. Herc

Through the thread? A simple-to-try option is PTFE tape.

That looks about right from memory. My car had carpet on the upright bodywork under the front edge of the rear seats, while it looks from the pic like yours doesn't - so that is two pieces extra you may have.

I was told, by one of those classic car fixings companies at a Beaulieu autojumble, that that the bent-metal spring clips that Lotus used were a tad longer than other marques used. Triumph rings a bell. Hence any you buy these days tends to be a little too short for the panel piece to stay up.