GreenGoddess

No. Not mine. Although it does look very similar. Mine’s a year newer and has a light interior. I watched that video a few days ago. My car seems more reliable than that one. Not something you can say about a Lotus very often 😂

Last rays 😎

The garage that did the engine rebuild was Ellison's Garage in Swindon but I am not holding any sort of grudge against them. They don't pretend to be Lotus specialists and the standard of work seems to be good (with the exception of fitting the thermostat incorrectly). They were also very helpful when I called them up a few weeks ago to ask about the reason for the rebuild. These new thermostats are a different shape to the original ones and, at first glance, it's easy to understand why they fitted it the way they did.

Yes. But I’ll be watching them like a hawk 😂 I’m reasonably confident that the engine is ok. I have always kept a very close eye on the temperature gauge and have turned off the engine when it was getting hot. The coolant has never boiled over. Unfortunately the thermostat was installed as part of the engine rebuild for the previous owner 18 months ago so I have no recourse against the garage.

Thanks guys. I’ve been out in the car for a couple of decent drives since getting it all put back together. No more overheating. 😊 I will NEVER replace the thermostat on one of these cars again. It was a total nightmare of a job 😂

I think they may have also butchered some of the other coolant hoses to get it to fit. I’m having a nightmare trying to install the thermostat the correct way 🤬

*** SOLVED *** Today I have finally confirmed the problem. Take a look at the attached photo. New thermostat on the left. The thermostat I’ve just removed from the car is on the right. Both thermostats are IDENTICAL and both are WORKING PERFECTLY. However, notice the difference in the way I have laid them on the desk? Turns out the garage that did the engine rebuild 18 months ago fitted a new thermostat but hooked it up in the wrong orientation (as seen on the right). They even went so far as to install a reducing hose in order to get it to connect. That should have sounded alarm bells! So, for the last 18 months, the thermostat has been getting to temperature and opening but it was only letting a tiny amount of coolant through to the radiator. That explains why the fans never came on (because the water entering the radiator wasn’t hot enough to trigger the otter switch). Most of the coolant was simply recirculating around the engine. Weirdly, the temperature would stay bang on 90c when driving but as soon as I stopped and let it idle, the temperature would quickly rise to 120c and even up to 140c occasionally before I noticed. The cool British weather probably helped. So I’m now waiting for a piece of standard 30mm hose to arrive so that I can install the thermostat properly. I remember another forum member suggesting to me that the thermostat may be the wrong way around in another thread. I did check it at the time but the new thermostat design is different to the original and I was sure it was installed correctly. Only when I bought a new thermostat in a desperate attempt to solve the problem did I realise which way the coolant flowed through it. That’s when I checked it again and saw the error. I’d just like to thank all of you for your help in this long running saga. I have learnt a huge amount about the Esprit when trying to solve this. It will stand me in good stead for the future. I am sorry this dragged on for so long. 🥹

I compare it to going to the dentist. Not pleasant, but necessary if you like having nice teeth 😂. My car is in generally nice condition so I'm hoping I won't be lying in pools of oil every weekend. Yes, that does make a lot of sense. I just assumed that the battery ones wouldn't have much oomph. Now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time I saw a professional mechanic use an air powered impact driver. I'm obviously showing my age. And, after reading up about media blasting, it seems like I would need a large and expensive compressor for that too. Thank you chaps.

Thanks fellas 🙂

I am about to buy my first air compressor and am unsure about what to buy. I hate working on cars so it's not something I will be using a lot. Therefore I don't want to spend a lot of money. Ideally under £150. I would be using it to power an impact driver for removing stubborn nuts and bolts on my car. One other thing I would like to use it for at some point is sandblasting or media blasting metal parts to remove rust etc. What sort of CFM/PSI and capacity volume should I be looking for?

I've just got off the phone to the garage that did the engine rebuild. He was actually really helpful. Apparently the car came in because it was smoking and burning oil (nothing about overheating). The guy doesn't specialise in Lotus cars and he tended to agree with me that the water pump or thermostat were the most likely culprits. He also suggested I take off the hose that feeds back to the header tank to see if there is a good flow coming out of it. That would suggest that the water pump was OK. He also advised blowing the radiator through with an airline. Lots of ideas to try.

Technically the guy I bought off off is the previous owner but I think he was a bit of a dealer on the side and he only had it a few months. He had other cars for sale at the same time. The “real” previous owner was the guy who had the engine rebuilt. He owned it for years. There is no phone number for him, he’s not on social media so I wrote him a letter last year. Sadly I didn’t get a response.

Can't get hold of the previous owner, I've tried. 😒 Trouble is, some water is passing through the rad because the outlet hose gets hot. I've never blown through a radiator before so I don't know how much, if any, resistance there should be when blowing through it. I am beginning to think that too.

Most of the coolant hoses look new. Many still have the labels on. The engine rebuild invoice from last Feb shows that lots of hoses were replaced. I don’t think it’s a collapsed hose but thanks. The rad is virtually brand new so I think that’s unlikely. It’s the rad for the V8. It’s definitely an idea I hadn’t considered though, thanks. I am going to call the garage that did the engine rebuild. It was only done in Feb last year and it wasn’t a Lotus specialist that did it so I’m hoping someone there will remember the car. Hopefully they can remember why it needed rebuilt and also if they looked at the water pump.

I think fitting a new water pump is beyond my capability. Turning the fans on using an override switch will make no difference because the coolant doesn’t seem to be flowing through the radiator at a rate fast enough to cool it. It looks as though I’m going to have to change the thermostat. Apart from the water pump, it’s the only thing I can think of that could be restricting coolant flow. 😞