Mariner

Hi Dan..... Frosty.... Thanks for the message. I've got loads of pics to upload as we are well on with this job. So, that paint....not quite faded like a Royal Mail van....damn have you seen how pink those Vauxhalls go? but I guess over the 37 years on original paint it's faded and gone flat ….mainly at the rear so I suppose it must have been parked facing the sun on the rear end. What is good is very little/almost no crazing so must have built the bodies well. Can't wait until painted but I think that won't be until December. I was determined to do the oily stuff first and that was a good call given the care you would have to take if freshly painted. God that must be the most annoying thing when moving big lumpy oily bits of your car out and having to climb in the bay 10 times a day with the fear that one scuff and failed. I'm calling my car a refurb because I've seen some of the resto work on here and they are superb, despite it being a refurb I am tackling a lot of work. The thing about doing this work largely myself is that yes it teaches you and you learn new things and how this legend of a car is put together but the main thing is you learn even more about yourself.....a bit of homespun philosophy there. Also good to get as much work done before the football season starts. Cheers

Really looking forward to getting stuck in. Man, there has been a lot to do and to be honest I don't want the car out of action for a year and not least because this year after the mechanical refurb I want to retrim the interior and have the car painted. Just look at how much filth and oil is on that chassis. The gearbox and engine the same. So the list of jobs and they seem to multiply by the day are: and most now completed but will add more photos later. So why all this effort. I want to keep this car and if son George ever has a place to store it at home then it's his....unlikely at the moment as he's on floor 5 in a flat in Sth London. Degrease & clean chassis - done Degrease engine and gearbox - done Replace clutch - done Machine flywheel and pressure plate and refurb springs - done New timing belt - done Replace brake discs - on order Replace pads - later New exhaust part - done Polish & paint other exhaust parts - done New gaskets - done New hoses and clips - done Check and refurbish fuel tanks - done (in great nick) & new foam pads fitted New clutch spring and adjuster - done Check water pump - done Fill in holes in bodywork - done Remove refurbish and replace offside air intake ear - done Refurbish engine surround - done Refurbish tank shelves - done Repaint engine bay - done Check, clean calipers - to be done New oil, filters, ignition leads and gearbox oil - in stock ready Refurbish coil box - done Shotblast exhaust manifold, repaint and replace studs as required and gaskets - done Repaint engine mounts - done Powder coat cam covers - done Repair rear valance - ongoing Refurbish airbox and replace clips - done Probably some other jobs done and other to emerge but this from memory m

Well I've put up with a couple of oil leaks and a water leak for 4 years and it's been choosing the right time and that time is now. Engine out and whilst out refurbish, replace, fix, paint, improve as much as I can. I've read on this forum and the advice is solid that whilst the engine is out get to check other things......so here is my effort. This first picture is the engine and bay as it was. I borrowed a crane from a mate and it was fine for the gearbox but the reach truly wasn't long enough for the engine but we just about managed. Putting back in will be different though so I will need a longer boom for that. Lots of labelling and notes and thank god for digital photography. Loads of work ahead of us.

Job complete except I'm now to replace the shocks with new as having done all this the car still leans to the offside.....must be the old shocks. I'm pleased with the results though but can't take all the credit as I had others press in bushes and bearings and lots of help from the lad and a very good and old friend who over the years has prepared his own rally cars....his advice I trust, jut got to keep the old boy from doing heavy stuff. His help was priceless when trying to get one of the driveshaft bolts out from the hubside. In the end we welded an allen Key into the hex and then managed to turn it using a long tube.....damn that thing was tight (37 years tight)

I've now read lots about the venerable hub pins....an absolute pain and I guess mine hadn't been out for 37 years. The nice bit though is the reassembly but with a little anxiety putting the new pins in. The process used was to make sure the holes were nice and clean and despite this the new pins won't go in without encouragement so the pins we put into the freezer and the hub warmed up and bingo …...success. You will see on the photos we wrapped the lower links in cardboard to avoid them getting scratched on reassembly and as the drive shaft bolts are easy to tighten on the gearbox side and awkward on the hub side you can see we have assembled it in that order and was actually easy and good fun. Much copper-grease used. The geezer with the gas torch in the photo is son George, another Lotus enthusiast

Thanks for the replies and always amazed how much knowledge people have gathered. In reply to the extinguisher, almost as important as the car insurance itself, my son has bought me a replacement extinguisher which I travel with now. Always in the back of your mind isn't it that you are minutes from disaster, just how it gets you. Interesting post regarding the carb mounts and got to be honest and say that I am at the mercy of the specialist who set them up, I do know that he changed the mounts as part of the set up so i'm all ears in case one of you lads identify something that appears unfamiliar, I wouldn't know until you mentioned. Up until the set up it ran awful and as part of his work he remounted the carbs, had them ultrasonically cleaned, replaced the coil, did some work on the lumenition and since then has ran well albeit a bit fluffy below 2000 revs, but beyond that sweeeeet! 2019 loads to do starting with the rear suspension refurb, moving onto lifting out the engine as I have oil leaks to either or both crank seals. With the engine out some gasket changes, check tanks, new cam and drive belt, refurb bay, fit new intake ear, and lots of other stuff to freshen everything up such as paint cam covers and paint bay. Onto the interior, new headlining and sunvisors, have upholsterer rebolster driver's seat, invisible mend small hole and need to tackle the task of redying the correct colour match, looks like Forest Green but wouldn't know what officially called but hope to find a source where I can have them mix me a colour dye for the upholsterer to use. Fit radio, fix aerial and electric mirrors.....draws breath!... then have the car and bumpers painted with new badges and decals, stripes and cant rail trims, side trims and carriers. Most of this will be done in turn by other people and can't move onto the some things until a lot of the oily bits are covered off however still a ton of work that I will undertake myself and learn as I go. The car is basically sound but the list of work to improve it is quite long. I'm keeping it so all good to me.

One of the jobs forced upon me was to effect repairs following a small engine fire. I'd had the car for a short while and not many miles and yes there are many jobs to do....one of which a flexible fuel hose that needed replacing. I had literally just come back from a short drive and sat in the car in the driveway as it was ticking over when one of the kids was pointing at the car, I looked around to see smoke coming out the back. I popped the boot and lifted the cover to see the fuel hose melted and burning back, I flew into the garage and blasted it with the powder extinguisher which left a right mess of the engine bay but safely extinguished. It had melted the fuel line and the jet covers on the carbs burnt the foil underside of the cover. New hose fitted but that disturbance caused the flow lock valve to leak and when a replacement was obtained it was completely different …..I am grateful to a good friend of mine who converted it to fit the solid fuel hoses with me just making a new bracket for the chassis. Following this work the car was back running well. Pic shows the powder remnants but fitted with new fuel hose and jet covers...note the melted plastic still on those carbs. Pic below looking somewhat better today. Some of the car pics

Hi Chris, Yes I should have uploaded some before now so apologies for that so now making up for it, attached a few pics and a short video clip will follow shortly of the car running taken last month following a bit of work done by me and my lad. When I got the car there was only one fan fitted so I obtained a replacement and upon fitting realized that it wouldn't turn freely in the plastic cowling at which point I saw a cracked cowling which I reckon is the reason why the original fan burnt out as it would be trying to turn and was being halted. The solution was to fit a replacement cowling as well which we did but not before breaking a rusted bolt on the radiator on removal so remembering my good old metalwork class I managed to drill out the old bolt and cut a new thread and replace the bolts and all went together beautifully albeit with some modification by using more bolts than the clips to join the two parts together (this down to old parts being corroded and distorted in time and now not being the once good) . I must admit though that I was panicking a bit when we had it put back together and sat there with the engine running waiting for the fans to kick in and as water and anti freeze had settled on the external side of the radiator fins on removal, the whole thing was kettling away and steaming like an old traction engine. Naturally I was telling myself that it is just steaming off that water on the outside whilst in the back of my mind hoping I wasn't cooking it. No fear, all went perfect so onto the next job the much maligned red plastic clutch hose replacement with a braided version and whilst I'm at it replace the slave cylinder having broken down last year with fluid loss. Once again quite an easy job to execute followed by bleeding the clutch and yes perfect. Next job, and suffered for the last 3 years is the gear linkage. Perfect when cold but lose reverse when hot....you know the score. Fortunately I asked Steve at S&J when I was down there last month and he took me straight over to a rolling chassis and showed me where the cable meets the rod on the chassis and told me how to adjust the rod length which in turn converts for and aft into side to side due to that strange fulcrum link joint and we now have reverse gear when hot without diminishing how well the forward gears function....took us a couple of goes but yes sorted. A very simple task but we thought to access it we ought to remove the expansion tank and ….yes you guessed it the bots sheared, 37 year old car what do you expect and in the end not a bad thing as we are then able to replace old bolts with new. Funnily enough we didn't need to remove the expansion tank to make that adjustment in the end. More to follow lads Dean ...and here it is. Dean VID-20181114-WA0000.mp4

Thanks for those helpful replies John and Dan. John, yes considered welding and I know some good people in my industry that could get that done but wondered if the nature of the stress point might be pushing it. I will get some feedback from a race prep guru mate I have who is popping over to mine tonight. Funnily enough I did find that article on removal and used the hand hacksawing technique to cut that pesky bottom pin in two places between the bush and washer and bingo out she popped ….not the split bush though that git is hard fast in so will get that out when the hub carrier is on the bench. I used plenty of heat on it as well in way of encouragement. Dan, also yes I intend to replace on both sides the bushes, split bushes, pins, washers and nuts and repaint the lower link while I've the opportunity. This entire campaign came about because the offside spring had sagged and so I have a new set of springs going on. Mike at Lotusbits unfortunately only has 2 x nearside and no offside carriers in stock at present but if the Lotus community can keep an eye open for one I hope to get back on this job in a week or two by which time I hope I will have all both sides stripped and the replacement parts bought and ready to go back on. £150 sound quite reasonable. Cheers Dean

Hello to everyone on the forum. I originally registered and posted 3 years ago with the thread title "New Boy" when I bought my S3. Although I've not been active on the site I've really enjoyed reading the great advice, banter and encouragement of you all to those active members but also those reading but not contributing such as myself. So whether it's been replacing the clutch hose to a braided item or replacing the old tyres to new Vredstein, what you have written must have helped others as well as me....incidentally I've done both these on my car since so keep up the good work. Like others on here I have learnt new skills and learnt so much about how the car works which being a Lotus fan all my life makes you feel connected to the Lotus history not least Colin Chapman and what he strived to achieve. My S3 has been a good and running car since I bought it but had many frustrating problems and I still have many jobs to complete. I have an immediate task to resolve though and that is to replace the offside rear hub carrier. Mine has a crack in it and I can only think I caused this whilst trying to remove the bottom pin that was totally seized when trying to remove the spring and shock, once I'd identified the part was cracked then I used some force as the damage was already done but prior to that was trying to use minimum force yet still managed to crack it.....either that or there was a crack there to begin with which I then accelerated. So do any of you lads know where I am able to buy a replacement hub carrier please. I phoned mike at Lotusbits this week and he has two but both are nearside. I see Steve at SJ has new ones at £250 + vat but only lists nearside, I'm sure a call to Steve he would have a nearside one and that might have to be my action finally so if you know of someone that might have one for a reasonable price I will be grateful. Dean Wright dean.wright@testexndt.co.uk

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and have really enjoyed reading the various topics. I've been a lifelong Colin Chapman and Lotus fan and am fortunate to have finally been able to afford one. I have an 82 S3 NA and am looking for a wheel jack and brace, a steering column plastic cover (top part) plain plastic not covered type and am also seeking to buy new the driver's and passenger's floor mat in light grey/blue. Any advice please? Thanks Dean