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I remember the spring being on the electrical switch side of the ignition. The electrics are quite easy to disassemble so should be reasonable to inspect and repair.

Good point! I have looked around on the internet and can't find a specific convention. However I was taught that the front of the engine is where piston one is and according to the Lotus-Big-Black-Book-Of-Curiosity this is the one nearest the water pump.

Thanks Steve, there is the definitive answer! I think when I do this job again, I will follow convention as I know it would bug me seeing arrows pointing the wrong way and I would still have a tints y-wintsy amount of irrational doubt every time I see it😃

Here is a pic of the new belt with arrows pointing to the front of the engine. I dug the old lotus supplied belt out of the bin and there are no direction markings, however the text would be the right around if you were standing in front of the engine. I have always assumed that flat belts have a direction, guessing that when made, the belt would be layered in a kind of spiral and then cut to width so the layers would either naturally tighten or loosen in use. I have no idea if that is fact, just kind of feels right.

Thanks Pete, I will look into buying one 🙂

Hi does anyone know of a cross reference or the thread size for all the bleeder screws on a 1978 S2 Esprit. Thanks all!

Recently changed the Cam (timing) belt on my Lotus Esprit S2 (1978) as I realised that the belt had been on the car for nearly 10 years, even though it has probably done about 1000 miles in that time. So lucky there then! As I have never done this process before, I took photos and notes for my own reference and have posted them here in the hope they are useful for other intrepids. Tools: 10mm spanner, sockets and wiggle drives to remove airbox 13mm (actually half inch) socket and spanner to remove alternator pivot. 17mm socket and spanner to remove alternator tensioner slide. 24mm spanner to loosen locknut on belt tension adjuster. Wide screwdriver for loosening adjuster. 17mm socket and spanner to remove bolts holding tensioner. Low profile pulley puller to fit 4.5” pulley preferably with 4 or more “hooks” to spread load on aluminium pulley. 19mm socket for drive shaft centre set screw. Torque wrench for above socket. Brace bar for above socket. Effective way of locking flywheel in place. (I used a large screwdriver and wedged it tight.) Random pry bars, chocks of wood, old big screwdrivers etc. Pillows, sheets of hardboard, blankets etc:- to make clambering around the engine bay as comfortable as possible. Parts: Toothed belt: GATES 5146 (check this is correct for your vehicle) V-Belt: 6218 GATES (check this is correct for your vehicle) Lets Go! => First I unbolted battery then the air box (10mm spanner, sockets and wiggle drives), then I unbolted the alternator tensioner (17 mm socket and spanner) and then the pivot shaft (13mm socket and spanner). Below is a photo of this stage. The below photo is of the various pulleys and things. Next I turned over the engine to find Top Dead Centre, set this to the pointer in the flywheel window, checked Inlet and Exhaust marks opposite each other on the Cams, then locked the flywheel in place with a large screwdriver and an old hammer as a wedge. See photos below. Above - TDC lined up with pointer in fly wheel window. Above - IN-EX markers lined up on Cams. Above - flywheel locked in place. There is a recess behind the fly wheel that the screwdriver fitted in and conveniently held the fly wheel stationary. Then cable tied the two cams together, as below… At this stage I marked up the belt and pulleys to match up with the new belt using various distinctive marks, as in photo above. Next, to remove the Belt Tensioner. Using 24mm spanner I released the lock nut on the belt tensioner adjuster and used a large screwdriver to release the tension. The Lotus-big-black-book-of-curiosity states not to wind out more than 12mm however as can be seen in later photos, on my tensioner 20mm is OK. Also the hole to lock the tensioner with 4mm rod is under one of the bolts’ washer so impractical and when I inspected the tensioner on the bench, the unit would not compress enough to locate this hole to the groove in the tensioner piston anyway… Photos below. In the photo above can be seen the two retainer “bolts” that hold the assembly to the engine. One was easy to remove with a 17mm spanner the other tuned out to be a stud that I had to extract by locking two suitable nuts together and using these to wind out the stud. Sadly I didn’t note the thread size of the stud. Above can be seen the tensioner assembly bits ready for a good clean and inspection. The 4mm drill was to lock the piston in place but was redundant. Note there is a flat washer inside the plastic piston that the springs work against. On the right are two spacers that wanted to drop down in the engine bay when I removed the “bolts” from the assembly. The anti static earth wire needed repair too. Next to get the drive shaft pulley off. The drive shaft set screw unscrewed with a hefty push on a 24” brake bar (normal thread) and 19mm socket. I had my knee against the screwdriver holding the flywheel in place. There is a conical large washer also. I assumed the pulley was brass by the colour so I made a simple puller out of three bolts and a length of steel flat. However when I tightened this to extract the pulley I noted the pulley was starting to warp. I realised then that it is anodised aluminium. So redesigned the puller to have four points of contact to spread the load. Photo below. The drive shaft set screw has been wound back in to place without the large retainer washer to give the centre bolt of the puller something to work against. Even with this puller, I was exerting too much stress, so time for Plan B. Usually a blow torch to heat is the answer but with such confines, rubber pipes and old oil about, a bad idea. So I tried a paint stripper heat gun with a fan shroud to direct the heat over the pulley (photo below). Within 30 seconds the pulley released and from there I was able to wind it out with the puller. Now to remove the belt. With the new belt, I transferred the marks over from the old belt making sure that the “direction” of the belts matched. I used a 6mm rod clamped in a vice to “jump” the teeth over in parallel. After many checks, I installed the new belt. After a good cleaning and checking for distortion, the drive shaft pulley was next, using a torque wrench [value to follow] to bolt this in place. Next install belt tensioner unit. I found this very difficult to install as the unit would not compress enough to align the bolts and the angle of attack was too awkward to get any muscle power to it. So I wound out the adjuster screw completely and removed the springs. Then bolted the unit in place. To get the adjuster back in, I tested the thread with the adjuster to find where it starts and marked up the adjuster and case. Next, inserted the springs and using a palm sized block of wood with two panel pins in (to locate with the slot of the adjuster), I compressed the adjuster and twisted. After a few tries I caught the thread and from here, winding the adjuster in was easy. As I don’t have a Belt tension tester, belt tension was set to ¼ twist on the top section which is the same as the old belt (A job to deal with when I get the correct tool, but for the moment, OK to get going, I had noted that other people have written about setting the tension in the same way). Next to check all the timing marks and fully turn the engine by hand to ensure all is good. Next was V-belt and alternator. Getting the tension on the V-belt was not easy but with small chocks of wood and old big screwdrivers, tension was achieved. Airbox on, Battery on, Fingers crossed and start the engine. Next to repair skin and bruises.

I've had it for about 20 years but it has been off the road for most of that. its nearly ready, but after renovating the carbs and it running reasonably well, I changed the cam belt and since (despite the timing being correct,) it is not running well at all now. I am hoping it is just an air leak or such. It could even be old fuel issues. Sadly when I bought this car, I bought a pup. over the first few weeks I found very poor repairs and replacement parts that clearly were not correct. When the gear stick fell off, I had to take it off the road and It has been off the road mostly since. However now the car is nearly straight and will be on the road soon. How do you find living with your Esprit? - M

Hi Chris, good to make contact! My S2 has cloth dash and leather seats. I've just renovated the dashboard so here is a pic. I just love the look of the console!

Well, Turns out that the thread for the spare tyre bolt is M12 x 1.5 and the nut was quite cruddy so using a Tap to clean the thread was useful. Thanks all for your help!😊

Thanks for your helpful replies Lous and Chris. I hava a selection of metric bolts at home and found that M10 was too small and M12 too large. Also the pitch looked tighter than the metric bolts I have. I was hoping to buy a useful bolt on the way home, however I have a set of Thread Taps at work so I can try different threads tonight in the hope it isn't a phantom imperial oddity ....

Hi, could some kind person tell me what the thread and pitch is of the bolt that holds the spare tyre in place? Mine is missing and I need to make one/ source one. Thank you

Hi All, for years I’ve been slowly re-building an early Esprit S2 and have often referred to the freely given knowledge shared on this site for guidance; so I thought as my first newbee post, I would share something helpful I do know about, cracking locks. Reasons. The ignition barrel on my Esprit is so exhausted that it can be started with a lolly-pop stick and the key falls out. Despite much research there does not appear to be a direct replacement for the whole unit, unlike many parts on the Esprit. Drilling out/tapping the snap bolts or cutting them is messy and risky. Solution. Extract barrel to recondition/replace and re-install to good functional standard. Necessities. Unclip the battery so no accidental car starting can happen. Cloths and mats to catch bits of swarf from the work. Short machine screws and appropriate threading taps of about 4mm. Inspection mirror, extremely useful. Mini-drill with a wide range of milling and drilling bits, extremely useful. Below is the item to be worked on. As you can see, the barrel is at position one with no key:- The next image shows the unusual steering lock mechanism:- Also in the above image can be seen two of the four pins that hold the base plate in place. The base plate hides the inner workings of the lock. These pins are originally forced in and must be drilled out. Also to be removed is the barrel locator pin. This can be seen in the above image via a mirror. Due to the tight working area, I had to grind this pin out using a milling tool in a mini-drill. I also used a flexible drive attachment for more maneuverability. Once the pin is removed, the key barrel sleeve will slide in and out about 1cm but can not be completely removed. The above image shows the two front pins, holding the base plate, being removed using a 1.5mm drill bit. The rear two pins I had to grind out using a milling bit due to the angle of attack. All these pins behaved like mild steel and were not too difficult to work with. The base plate did not drop away so needed to be persuaded by drilling a pilot hole and tapping a screw near the centre to get leverage on the plate. In the above image you can see the plate coming away. I had not milled the rear left pin adequately so needed to go over this work again. After this, the plate could be teased out and cleaned up. The above image shows the base plate removed, the barrel slightly removed and a highlighted pin that stops the barrel from being removed completely. This pin is very important. When the barrel is in the locked position, this pin locates into a slot that helps stop the barrel from being smashed out using a pull hammer. This pin is a 2mm (-ish) diameter roll pin and MUST be ground away rather than pushed further in. If you do push it further in, it will poke out the other side and jam everything up, making it very hard to continue and hard to reverse the job. Once the locking pin has been ground away, the barrel can be removed, along with the actuator rod. From this point, the inner steering lock mechanism can be removed and inspected for repair. The above image shows the roll pin being removed using a suitable pin to tease it out. Above shows the barrel away from the other components. BE VERY careful to not allow the key barrel to pull out of the barrel sleeve, until you are ready, as all the gubbins will spring all over the place. Above is a reference shot of the barrel located in the sleeve. (If anyone recognises this barrel and sleeve from other vehicles, please share.) Above is a reference shot of the barrel removed using the key to hold the key wafers in place. The wafers have tiny springs that force the wafers away from the centre of the barrel. If the wafers are mixed up, the key will not work with the barrel. I was surprised to find that my barrel and sleeve were in very good condition and in this instance, the reason why I could start the car with a lolly-pop stick was due to burrs on the side of the wafers, holding the wafers in position to allow the barrel to be turned, rather than the wafers springing up into the sleeve key-way and locking it all up. A really good clean and de-burr was all it needed. However I was expecting to find the barrel sleeve key-way edges to be worn so that they now don’t work against the wafers to lock the barrel. My usual way to resolve this is to file away the depth of the stop-cam (see green arrow above), to allow the barrel to sit a wafer’s width further in to the sleeve and pad out the other end of the barrel with a washer that is also a wafer’s width. (A wafer’s width pushed out works well too.) Otherwise, the sleeve’s key way can be rebuilt with careful filing and a brass insert soldered in place as the sleeve is usually a brass/bronze variant alloy and easy to solder to. When removing the wafers, be cautious of tiny springs that work against the wafers. Make sure these don’t fly or roll off never to be seen again. Above are the wafers taped to paper ready for individual fettling. Note the last wafer on the left is not set opposite the previous. This wafer is set only when the key is fully inserted. Once you are happy with your repairs:- Choose a suitable machine screw to replace the barrel location pin and thread the hole to accept this. Slot the key barrel in to the barrel sleeve and replace the collar and actuator rod and insert this assembly back in to the steering lock housing. Gently persuade a replacement locking roll pin through this assembly, being very careful not to push the pin too far in. (Remember to press the steering lock button, to turn the barrel all the way, to test clearance.) Screw the chosen machine screw into the tapped hole until the barrel is locked in place. Check the key still turns. The screw head can now be sawn off, if so wished. Finally, the base plate can be re-installed. In my case, I needed to thread tap the rear pin holes, install the base plate and screw two short machine screws to lock the plate in position. I found two panel pins of suitable diameter, modified these and forced them in to the front of the housing to replace the pins drilled out. Be careful with this last process as there is little room inside and if these repairs venture too far inside, they could interfere with the turning of the mechanism, so test this as you go. Lubricate the lock barrel with graphite rather than light oil, as oil traps all sorts of fine grit and rubbish to destroy your lock. Graphite powder and sprays are cheap enough on internet sites but if you don’t have a handy supply, acquire an 8B-10B pencil and crush up the lead. If you need new keys for your lock, take the complete barrel and sleeve to a proper locksmith who will make a new key to fit the barrel. The Smith should also be able to give you a code that can be used to cut new keys in the future. Happy restorations.