stevem

Lex's car is currently for sale I believe. I guess he ran out of patience.

Usual reason, Missus want s a new kitchen............. And when I took it for it's annual safety check I realised I had done less than 300 miles in it since the last one.

After 4 years if relatively trouble free motoring, great Sunday runs, hours spent underneath fixing things up, practicing the Lotus position and generally having fun, today I sold the Esprit. It has been an absolute pleasure to own and drive, fun to work on and great to be associated with such a grand bunch of chaps. Thanks heaps to DanR, Rodger the Dodger ( the wingless wonder ), Sparky, Bibs, Simon, Justin. Kimbers in fact everyone that has helped me out with advice and words of wisdom and encouragement over the last four years. I might get another one sometime in the future, it's the best car I ever owned and fulfilled a teenage dream - even though it took almost 30 years to achieve. I will keep in touch and try to help out where I can ( as I always have ) but to all of you - cheers !! ( Watch out for a good looking bloke call Vinnie joining soon - he is the new owner.)

They used an XK8 convertable in a later movie too, it's a fine line between tacky and fun ( Just like Austin Powers ) but the paintwork needed covering up and it was an easy solution. I used Avery Dennison SC900 vinyl which is guaranteed not to fade for 8 years and apparently peels off quite easily with a heat-gun. Fingers crossed ! It certainly puts people into two camps, you either like it or you don't. I havn't decided yet, but I have a heat-gun in the garage just in case. We have three British cars now, the red Esprit Turbo, blue XK8 and a white Landrover. We have found that the biggest advantage is that we don't accidentally switch on the windscreen wipers when changing between cars.

I picked up this old Jaguar XK8 a few months ago as a winter project as the Esprit is all sorted ( for now ) . The mechancial bits are all done now and it runs like a dream. As it's the Queens Birthday coming up and the paintwork was looking a bit sad, I thought i would be fun to give it a face lift. What do you reckon - Shagadelic or what ? It will be for sale later in the year at the All British Car Show in Sydney if anyone's interested.

After the problems Justin had with the pins, i would suggest you speak with Sparky about his method of removing the drive shafts at the spider yokes at the gearbox end instead. I'm not sure how that works, but hopefully we are about to get a description here I guess if you're about to do the clutch, I wonlt be far behind you as I seem to trail you by 3 months on everything. Take lots of pics.

Check the balance pipes that run between the Carby's. I had a problem similar to yours and eventually found the banjo fittings were a bit loose and were leaking air. It took me a few days to find it and only 5 minutes to fix once i had.

Sorry to here that you are having more issues with your Esprit Alex, when you are ready to try again there are plenty of people here on the forum, some in Sydney, who may be happy to offer help and advice if required. Maybe come along to the meeting point at one of the Sunday runs in your daily drive and hitch a ride. You will get to meet everyone and ask as many questions as you like. Don't lose heart, when you eventually get the Esprit on the road it will give you lots of smiles.

Hi Lex Are you anywhere near on the road yet ? Danny and I are itching to get out for a run and I believe Justin is roadworthy again too.

I bought a full set of silicon hoses off ebay , I think the company was Autobahn and they were about $180 for the set. They seem to be good quality and didn't cause any problems when fitting them. I noticed your earlier post about the cam belt and oil seal being about 30 hours work. That seems to be over the top, I would have thought 10 hours would have seen the job done. Hopefully you can get it all sorted and on the road soon. Just think, if you had done all the work yourself you could have purchased a 4 post lift and a full mechanics tool kit and still had some change left over.

I bought a Jaguar XK8 ( MY2001 ) a few months ago, but the Esprit isn't going anywhere. For a daily drive the Jag is a great car and as expected very different from the Esprit both in comfort and performance. I like it. It's taken 2 months to get all the work finished on the V8 engine, as with Esprit's there is a whole list of stuff to watch out for, and of course none of it had been done by the previous owner despite a good service history. Nothing too serious, all bits easy to get shipped out from UK and fairly easy to work on too. Let us know what you get.

There's always something to do, it;s all part of the fun of owning an Esprit I guess. Right now I'm working on a Jaguar XK8 I picked up a few weeks ago and wondering if I have done the right thing. My Esprit is a joy compared to this lump of British Engineering - but as much as I complain, I love working on older English cars. Let us know when you're up and running and we can organise a Sunday morning Esprit run to give your beasty a welcome to the Aussy roads..

Then your fuel tanks will start leaking

Hi Guys Well we have a new addition to the family, whether it's a long term relationship or just a holiday romance I don't know yet, but this old girl is now part of 'the fleet'. The price of these in Australia is astronomical compared to UK ( just like Esprit prices ) but this one was imported by the previous owner and as such it came with a realistic price. Mechanically it's sound, bodywork and chassis all good too. It just needs some TLC to replace missing badges, tidy up the interior and replace those mis-fitted number plates. It's a 2001 XK8 with 81,000 miles and good service history and originally lived in Ireland until last year. I was amazed that it had very little surface rust underneath, the suspension, brakes and steering hardware is all clean and rust free. I'm sure it will be happy sat next to my Esprit.

I'll be there Danny, Justin is coming too as a passenger this time. See you at Maccas, don't leave without me..