520Y - Continued

[EXCEL V8]

You're right Paul - they are all Metalastic bushes as you describe.

Pete

[Lozza74]

Thanks for pointing that out - I had not registered that the bushes were Metalastic.

It looks like I will be taking the front end apart again then. At least its fairly easy to do at the moment

[Lozza74]

Thanks to Pete and Paul for pointing out that my lower wishbone bushes had separated. I'm now most of the way through fighting to replace them with poly bushes.

 

The drivers side bush pushed out easily but left the outer steel tube in the wishbone. A few minutes with a hacksaw split the tube and I could push it out in the vice.

 

The passenger side was another matter. That was firmly attached to the wishbone so in the end I took it to a friend's workshop where the 10T press soon saw it defeated.

 

I am now most of the way through rebuilding the suspension again. Fitting the new poly bushes is fairly easy, but as I always find, once the inner crush tube is inserted into the bushes they end up just that bit too wide to make fitting the large washers easy. However they are in now, so I'm almost back to where I started with the front end. 

[Lozza74]

I reached a big milestone last weekend - the body is now reunited with the chassis!

I have very few pictures for this update, I seem to be doing things that didnt warrant a photo at the time. However for the record, and because pictures are good here is one of the lower wishbone where I had to cut the outer steel tube out. From the look of the wishbone this had been done a couple of times in the past. Im pleased to say that none of the cut marks are mine - I was more careful than that.

 Another little job I did was to replace all 4 jacking points. Well, to be honest I replaced one. The other three were missing completely. I also cleaned up some cracks in the fibreglass above the one remaining jacking point plate. These cracks turned out to only be in the gel coat, but I have now added a couple of layers of new glass fibre over them. This is where I ground out the damaged area.

And here after fixing new plates on all around, and also painting the inner wheel arches with stone chip paint to give them a bit of a clean up from the faded and chipped original black paint.

Finally I dropped the body back onto the chassis. This was surprisingly easy, and as with lifting it off, was done alone.

To do it I aligned the chassis with the body by eye then lowered my scissor lift with the body on it. Once sitting on the chassis I had missed the body mounting holes by a few mm, so I used a trolley jack to lift one corner of the body a cm or 2 and gave the chassis a good kick to move it a bit. Then I tried a bit more science, and used a screwdriver through the mounting holes to 'tweak' the chassis the last few mm. After dropping the body back down the mounting bolts simply pushed back into place.

I put spacers back between the chassis and body in the positions they came out from.

The real test was the rear mounts I had re-made. Amazingly these aligned perfectly and the original spacers fitted back in. To be honest I could have done with about 0.5 to 1 mm thicker spacers, but I wasnt going to try to wrestle for that amount. This is a picture of the (shiney) rear mounting bolt without the spacer in place on the side of the body I did the most work to.

 

Im happy with that.

[Lozza74]

Before I took the engine out of the car last year I drained the gearbox oil, and found that there was a lot of sludge in it, most of which was stuck to the magnetic drain plug. The sludge was quite shiny and metallic, but with no large lumps of metal in it. I thought it didn’t look too bad and considered leaving the gearbox alone, but as I didn’t want to take the engine out again in the future I thought I may as well get it rebuilt.

The sludge looked like this

When the gearbox  came out of the car it looked like this - not very clean, and there was obviously an oil leak around the input shaft.

 

Whilst removing the gearbox it was clear that the bushes around the gear lever had served their time and given up the ghost.

 

Although some people have rebuilt their own gearboxes I decided that it was a step too far for me and I would get someone else to do this work. Reading around on the internet Hardy Engineering Transmissions Ltd seemed to have a good reputation and are not too far from me, so I asked them to rebuild the gearbox - which was no problem. On taking the gearbox to them they have a suitably old fashioned workshop with that deeply ingrained oily smell you only find in places that have been in business for a long time. On a quick walk around there were gears, parts and completed boxes all around. There was also an ambulance up on the lift - obviously in for some work.

 

When I dropped the gearbox off I said I was in no rush as the rest of the car was in bits, and that was perfect as far as they were concerned.

A few weeks later I got a call as they had done an initial inspection. The usual synchro's and bearings could do with being replaced - but also 5th gear had been trying to destroy itself, with several teeth missing bits.

 

I had mentioned the rebuild kit available from the US for these gearboxes, and they asked if I could buy that as their suppliers would not carry parts for this box. They also passed me across an ebay link for a new 5th gear set. So I ended up ordering the parts on eBay and getting them shipped straight to the workshop. I bought 2 parts which both arrived after 2 or 3 weeks:

"Toyota W55 W56 W58 W59 5th Gear Set" from 'cobratrans' on ebay ($190 including shipping and import tax)

"W55 W56 W58 Toyota Transmission Rebuild Kit 5 Speed 1978-91 (BK162WS)" from 'usa.industries' on ebay ($199 including shipping and import tax)

 

Many months later I was getting close to putting the body back on the chassis and called to ask if the gearbox could be ready for Easter. I think the response was 'We'll see what we can do', but that’s also what they said when I asked for the diff back with a few weeks notice, just to have them call up a week later to say it was done.

 

This time I got a call just before Easter to say the gearbox would take a little longer. It turns out the input shaft had been sleeved at some point in the past, and the sleeve was cracked. It would need replacing.

However a couple of weeks later I got a call saying the box was ready for collection. It looks significantly smarter - and cleaner than it was.

 

While the box was away I had been on a bit of a shopping spree for bushes and bits for the gear lever.

The manky mess in the pictures in my last post is the remains of the 'seat sub-assembly' part number 33505-35020. Also needed is the bush that presses onto the end of the gearstick. This is simply the 'bush' - part number 33548-31010.

I also needed the rubber boot that covers the top of the gearbox - part 33555-22050.

I got all these parts from megazip.com - and for a very reasonable price.

I also needed the gasket that goes under the gear lever retaining cover - but to be honest I cant remember where I bought that from - however it turns out it was also included in the gearbox rebuild kit.

 

As well as ordering those parts I did some googling and found some references on Celica and Supra forums to the fact that the socket the gear stick bush fits into also wears. A solution to this has been created by a guy in the states who sells inserts that fit into the socket - from his website - http://www.w58bushings.com/. I placed an order for that kit as well, which arrived a week or so later.  The kit came in a small brown box and contains 3 items. A new 'seat sub assembly', a new gearstick bush, and a bronze bush to replace part of the socket.

The web site has good instructions for fitting the bush, and a trial fit showed just how much slop there was between my new gearstick bush and the original socket - its definitely worth removing this slop.

Since my gearbox was on the floor I removed the top cover for the gearlever mount, took out the rubber gasket and then used an old cloth to stop any debris from getting into the box itself. Then it’s a case of attacking the metalastic bush that is the actual socket with a screwdriver to remove the inner metal ring and the rubber joint.

 

Once that is done and cleaned up the bronze bush gets glued in with JB-Weld, which I need to buy, so have paused for the moment.

[Lozza74]

I've now glued the bronze bush into the gear selector knuckle.

[Lozza74]

To finish off the gearbox before fitting it I needed to replace the rubber mount. These are still available from lotusbits, SJ Sports cars and I'm sure a few other suspects, however the £120 wanted felt a lot to me. As with the rest of the gearbox the mount is a standard part. It is 'Toyota 12371-34020 - insulator, engine mount, rear.

Looking online rockauto in the states have pattern parts for about £5, but I kept looking for a genuine part. Amayama.com claimed to have several available so I gave them a try. The part was £22, but shipping and import taxes were another £40 (from Japan). There was a cheaper but slower option that I didn't use.

10 days later the new gearbox mount arrived. £60 Isn't cheap, but it's a lot better than £120!

From this picture you can see why I needed a new mount.

[Lozza74]

Its time for another update to this thread, and once again this is going to cover work that took place over an extended period. This time mostly whilst the engine was out of the car.

As part of stripping down the car to remove the engine and then lifting the body off the chassis I drained the brake system. The fluid that came out was fairly clean indicating that it had been changed recently, but it was also full of bits of dirt and rust particles. This made me decide to replace most of the parts of the system that had not already been replaced.

The external state of the servo and master cylinder made it clear that both of those would benefit from replacement. Looking at the usual sources both the servo and master cylinder are pretty expensive - the Lotus tax again. However several forum posts suggest that Land Rover parts can be used, and may even be direct replacements. I decided that for the £30 for  master cylinder, and £60 for a servo it was worth finding out for myself, so I duly ordered a Master cylinder (part NRC8690) and Servo (STC1816)

The master cylinder swap is quite well documented, and the only real change is that the Land Rover item has different sized ports front and rear - since I wanted to renew the brake pipes that wasn’t a problem.

The servo swap is less well documented

As can be seen in the pictures my original servo was very rusty. What can also be seen is that the pushrod that attaches to the brake pedal is very different. However less obvious is that the mounting studs are exactly the same length and separation, meaning no modifications to the Excel body are needed.

After buying the servo I kept looking at it for several months trying to work out how best to modify it. The push rod on the LR servo is shorter than the Lotus servo, and is obviously a different end so the clevis would not fit. I have seen some people simply bolt plates either side of the 'loop' to make a new clevis, but I didn’t like that as there is a possibility of movement.

I decided to cut the loop off and extend the rod itself - and to do that by cutting a thread into the push rod and using an extension piece.

To cut the thread I had to remove the push rod from the servo, which luckily cam apart very easily with just a bit of wiggling (Im actually worried it was too easy). Since my original servo was very dead I decided to see what the original pushrod was like. Getting that out required a fair degree of brute force, but let me compare the two.

 

The Land Rover pushrod is perfect for an M10 thread, so that was easy to cut. I started off using an M10 to M8 adapter - as shown, but that was a little too short.

The final version uses an M10 to M8 internally threaded bar, and a length of M8 rod to go into the clevis, with a lock nut. I was happier with this as the length was better, and the threads were a tighter fit.

 

This was fitted to the car with a new gasket, along with the new master cylinder

(and for some reason I cant rotate that picture)

 

This all took several months, and during the time the brake system was empty the rear bias valve - or 'G' valve completely seized up. It got to the stage where it was not letting any air, let alone fluid pass in either direction through it. I can only assume that the old brake fluid had lots of water and rust in is, and the internals of the g valve rusted solid.

I bought a replacement part, and being me took it apart to see just what they are. For some reason I don’t appear to have taken any photos which is a bit of an oversight. However I can confirm that just inside the end cap is a rubber seal (square profile). The valve itself is a cylinder inside which a piston is free to slide up and down. The cylinder has about 3 more seals around it, but a small hole through the middle. Behind the piston is a large, heavy ball bearing and a weak spring. The spring pushes the ball against the piston. The angle the valve is mounted in the car mean that under heavy breaking the ball will push forwards against the piston - and I presume stop the flow of fluid to the rear brakes. Without the heavy braking the ball falls away from the piston and fluid can flow freely in either direction.

So these really are simple devices, and the only challenge to rebuild them would be to find the correct size seals. However in my original there was no way the piston was coming out of the cylinder, hence it now being in the bin.

[Lozza74]

For a while I was waiting for the engine to be rebuilt, so I ended up deciding to tackle some of the interior. I had originally planned to put as much of the car back together before starting on the interior, because the garage was getting to the stage where there were more car parts on the floor than attached to the car.

However I had a few spare weekends, and the offer of some help with the sewing, so went ahead with trying to replace the headlining.

Removing the old headlining was fairly easy, most of it was pretty robust material that I could just peel off the panels. Scraping the foam backing off the roof was a bit of a pain but didn’t take long. However I found it impossible to scrape the foam from the front part of the roof without also removing the foil insulation/electrical insulator - so it all came off.

 

I cleaned up the trim panels with solvent to remove the old glue residue.

 

I had some foil backed dynamat left from a previous project (and under the bonnet), so stuck a layer of that to the front part of the roof. I also put some copper tape over the arial cable to replace what was there originally. Unfortunately I could not remove all the creases from the dynamat and it was only after I had stuck the new material over it I realised these creases were visible.

Only 4 seams need to be sewn for the bulk of the headlining, and getting someone who knew what they were doing to do that for me saved a lot of hassle.

The sun visors also need some sewing. These are made as 'pockets' with three sides sewn together inside out. The top edge is left open.

The visors themselves are pretty simple, a bar across the top, and a wire around the edge. The interior of mine were decayed beyond re-use, so I striped everything off and glued 2 bits of closed cell foam (camping mat) to the bar/wire. I then wrapped some 4mm scrim foam around this to allow it to 'give' a bit.

This was then inserted into the sewn pocket. I then had to sew up the top edge of the material by hand - a curved needle made that easier than it would have been, but Im not the best with a needle and thread (my willing helper had left by this point).

Luckily the top edge isnt really visible when its all back in the car.

 

My A-pillar trim was in a bad way. The sun/water had got to it and the bottom of the posts were all curled up away from the dashboard. I removed the material from these and realised that in true lotus style they are very simple - a layer of closed cell foam glued to one side of the a-pillar, and then material glued around all sides (including between the windscreen and the a-pillar).

 

I managed to glue the original foam back to the pillar and left it a few days.

I then used some leather to match the new dashboard to cover the pillar and foam - simply gluing it to the body. I obviously couldn’t get it all the way between the windscreen and a-pillar, but did manage to feed it a long way in, so the edge of the new leather isnt visible.

 

With that done I put all the trim pieces back in the car, and of course the rest of the interior now looks horrible.

[Lozza74]

Back in August 2021 I asked if anyone could recommend an engine rebuilder. I didn’t get a lot of response but decided to use a local Lotus specialist. Towards the end of the year I took the engine over to him so he could rebuild it as winter work.

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake as some 5 months later he finally admitted he would not be able to do the rebuild for a few reasons. However he did help arrange with a different but still fairly local specialist to do the work instead, and even took the engine over to the new person.

As it happens a friend had already recommended the second specialist, so I didn’t have any real concerns, and had just lost a bit of time but nothing more.

Talking to the rebuilder we agreed just to rebuild the engine to the standard LC spec. upgrading to HC spec seems to involve replacing lot of parts at pretty significant cost and effort - many of which were unlikely to need replacement due to wear.

In the end we found that the interior of the engine was absolutely filthy, which corresponded to it sitting for many years before the previous owner recommissioned the car. We also found that 2 of the liners were pitted beyond use, probably from having water sitting in them - so all 4 were replaced. However the crank was OK as were the pistons, so new rings and crank bearings were all that was needed.

I collected the engine in about June, and put it back into the car over the hottest weekend of the year in the middle of July. It must have been in the low 30's in the garage which mad for hard work.

 

The bearings in the alternator were pretty grumbly, and since the resin from the regulator was also leaking out I decided to get a replacement. That also looked a lot nicer with the now clean engine.

A question though - can anyone tell me how the new alternator needs connecting up? The terminals are labelled differently to the original

 

Thanks!

 

[Lozza74]

The answer to the alternator wiring question came from SJ Sportscars (who supplied the alternator) within a day of asking a question.

The large wire from the starter motor goes to the large terminal within the black shielding at the bottom of the picture above, and the small wire from the ignition goes to the small terminal within the black shielding. I had to swap a flag connector on the ignition wire to a ring connector, but otherwise it was a simple job.

[Lozza74]

Part way through recommissioning the engine I got distracted by replacing the rest of the interior trim, including the carpet.

I think my logic was that the front seats were out of the car and it made sense to replace the trim and carpet before putting them back in. I wanted to get them back in the car as they were sitting directly behind the exhaust pipes and starting up the engine would probably cover them in rubbish from the exhaust. Or something like that.

I decided to buy a carpet set from Coverdale, and I had already bought most of a trim set that has been languishing in the loft for a year. Swapping the trim over is just a matter of unscrewing the old pieces and attaching the new one - however the carpet is a bit more involved than that.

To replace the carpets the first thing to do is remove all the existing trim panels, and then the old carpet can be taken up. That includes the rear seat back and bases, the side panels, the rear cant rails and the front side panels.

Stripping out the old carpet was a dusty job. I must have got wet and dried out countless times as much of it was degrading into dust. Under the carpet is a lot of sound proofing, and that all stayed.

The carpet set from Coverdale arrived after a few weeks (as advertised, they make it to order). It arrives as a large number of pieces, and you have to work out what goes where. As has been said before their set uses separate small square bits of carpet to cover the hump under the front of the seats. Not the most pleasing fit, but it will not be visible once the seats are back in.

A few pieces need trimming to fit, and I did have to have the drivers side toe panel remade.

The rear parcel shelf piece comes edged all around, but is too large for the space. I used the old piece as a template and cut the new one down to size. All sides of this piece are tucked under other trim pieces, so the lack of edging actually makes fitting it easier.

 

The drivers side toe piece comes with a heel protector, on my car this was too wide and prevented the carpet being creased to fit properly. Generally the toe pieces are a little too wide, but the passenger side can be trimmed to fit. However the heel panel meant I asked Coverdale to remake the piece. This is the original piece and alongside it the remade one (with a cut out for the steering column).

 

I should say that Coverdale were excellent with their customer service. At first I thought I would need 3 or 4 pieces remaking, but they gently pointed out that I had got the toe pieces confused with the front floor pieces. Once that was pointed out the fit was much better. When it came to remaking the drivers toe piece there was no quibble and I had the new piece about 3 days after sending in a template.

 

This is how the passenger side should fit - the main floor piece has a cut out for the side panel, and also fits around the raised hump for the seat mount. I did cut slots into the toe piece to allow it to bend up without creasing.

(how do I rotate that image so its the right way up?)

 

As I had bought extra carpet (to use in the boot) I decided to carpet the trim panels that fit under the dash alongside the tunnel. I have since found these pieces with the grey leather, so I  may change them in the future - but for now I quite like the carpet.

As you can see from this shot of the passenger side completed my new trim is light grey leather, which goes fairly well with the dark grey dashboard and carpets.

 

The only down side is that I didnt get any seats with the new trims. I will be putting the RX8 front seats back in, but Ive had to use the original rear seats. Ive promised myself I will get the car back on the road before making any attempt to re-trim those!

 

[Lozza74]

well after another days work I have put the interior back together properly.

New 13cm pioneer speakers fitted from and rear, and the under dash panels re-trimmed and fitted.

Then the seats re-fitted. The drivers side is really rather heavy!

Time to move back onto getting the engine running properly and maybe getting an MOT.

 

[Lozza74]

My efforts to focus on getting the engine back running did not go so well. When I bought the carpet set I also bought an additional 3 meters off the roll. This was sitting around in the garage and getting in the way. I thought the best way to clear the space would be to fit it to the car.

I had already used a corner of the 3 meters to cover the lower dash side panels on the prop tunnel, but the other pieces for the boot fitted easily on to the rest of the carpet.

After a while with a can of spray glue the boot looks like this. I didnt have quite enough glue so at this point the tank cover panel was on the floor waiting for me to buy another can of glue. But this gives you the idea of what I have ended up with.

 

After fixing the boot carpet I really had to get on with the final pieces for the MOT.

I checked and adjusted the tracking using the string box method, checked the castor - which was way out, however after 2 attempts to adjust it made no difference I decided to get the garage to fix that.

I also bought some LED stop/tail lights and front side light, as the bulbs were really dim even though they were new. Finally I had a go at bodging the peeling lacquer with some spray cans on paint/lacquer. There were several patches on the car where the lacquer was peeling badly. These got rubbed down, then painted with some not very well color matched paint, very lightly rubbed down again, then lacquered and again lightly rubbed down before cutting back with T-cut (since thats what I had), and then a light polish. This sounds quick, but it was going on between other jobs over a few weeks.   

  

 

That brings me up to date.

The car is currently at a garage for a few final jobs, including the MOT and tuning the carbs properly. They put it through an MOT before touching anything else, and I was quite pleased to see that the only failure was a slight leak on one of the brake calipers - I expect that is just a union I had not done up tightly enough. Its always very nerve racking putting a 39 year old car through an MOT, especially one I had completely pulled apart and put back together. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Lozza74

[Tony D]

Nice work in the boot carpet and paint. Carpets on my to do list and lacquer peal is just something to stay on top of. If you leave it, it just goes wild. At least once rubbed down and a new top coat, it stops growing. The colour match is probably that the lacquer on the old paint has yellowed, changing the original colour.

Tony

[Grizzly]

Well done that man. After 10 years or more I'm not that far behind you.

A year or so aga I tried to source a set of Boot carpets, but to no avail. It would appear that you have what I and others need is the templates for a boot set. I for one  would be grateful if I could borrow your templates to make my own carpets. 

Alternatively cardboard templates would work just as well if you would knock them up.

 

Many thanks,

Brian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lozza74]

Hi Brian,

Im afraid my boot carpet template was just the original carpet ripped out of the boot. Since making new carpets I have chucked the old ones away, and of course the new ones are now glued into the car.

Regards

Richard

[Grizzly]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for letting me know.

I'll keep trying. One day.,.........

[Lozza74]

Ill take this as success. MOT passed. The initial failure was just the bleed nipple being a bit loose.

I had the garage tune it up properly and adjust the caster angle too. Now I have to get it working nicely.

The heated rear window only has 2 or 3 lines working on it so I need to take a look at that.

I also have a feeling I may have to take the dashboard out again. The heater fan motors are back to squealing horribly. I think I may need to actually do the replacement I bottled out of last year.

Given our motors are out of the Opel Manta has anyone signed up to read these, or even done the work (bearing replacement, or full replacement with VW Polo motors)?

https://mantaclub.org/forums/topic/43816-heater-motor-bearing-replacement/

https://mantaclub.org/forums/topic/51275-manta-b-ventilation-fan/

 

[Lozza74]

 

Once again I have let this thread get behind. After getting the MOT I set about the little jobs to make the car nice to drive, rather than just legal.

One of the first things was investigating the strong smell of petrol every time I put the car back in the garage.

Taking a look in the boot to work out why the fuel gauge suddenly stopped working (that’s a story for a later post) I realised that the fuel filter and flowlock valve were both slightly damp with petrol. It looked as though they were both fine while the engine was running, but weeping once the engine was shut off with the residual pressure.

I originally had a glass see-though filter and on looking closely the glass had a crack in it - underneath where it was not visible.

The flow lock I had to remove from the car before I found where it was leaking from - the fuel pipe union at one end was rotating on the main body, and the petrol seeping out from around the union.

I decided to change the filter for one in a solid aluminium canister. I cant  remember the make, but I bought it from a random online motorsports vendor.

For the flowlock valve I didn’t fancy the £80 odd that a new one would cost, but I have heard of people using the fuel cut off valves sold for LPG conversions. I bought one from Amazon and though I would see how it worked out.

I was a bit surprised how small it was when it arrived, and more importantly the bore of the pipe the petrol would flow through was pretty small. I measured it at 3.5mm.

Looking at Car Builder Solutions page their 'normal' flow lock valve also has a bore of 3.5mm, an I think claimed to flow about 6 gallons per minute.

Looking up the Lotus fuel pump that can only flow 1 gallon per minute - so that gave me confidence to fit it and try it.

I used more AN-6 fittings and some short lengths of hose just to connect to the valve. If the valve fails in the future I can connect the AN-6 fittings together and by-pass the valve for a short term fix.

After fitting the new flow lock and filter a road test showed no more leaks, and no fuel starvation issues after about 100 motorway miles.

[Lozza74]

Once the smell of petrol had gone and I was happy I wouldn’t suffocate in the garage I bit the bullet and got on with the next 'small job'. In fact this was three jobs. The heater fans didn’t work any more, the fuel and temperature gauges over read, and the windscreen wipers no longer auto parked.

 

I was pretty confident that the fuel and temperature gauges were due to a faulty voltage stabiliser. I must have thought that a while ago as I had a new stabiliser sitting on the shelf. Once the instrument panel was out it was easy to swap over the old regulator for the new one, and with that both gauges started working properly.

 

With the instrument pod out I then carried on and removed the full dashboard. Having only put it back after recovering it a few months before this was fairly easy, if frustrating.

 

With the dashboard out the heater box could then come out.

All this in order to get to the two heater fan motors that live inside the heater box.

I really shouldn’t have tried to save time and money last time around - I knew it was a risk not reconditioning the motors last time, but I didn’t spend the time to do it properly, so ended up back here again.

 

The heater fan motors are from an Opel Manta B, or Vauxhall  Cavalier Mk1. There are a couple of facebook groups for the mk1 Cavalier as well as a buy and sell group for the Manta. From those groups I was able to buy two old fan motors, and I actually rebuilt those before pulling my dash out.

 

To rebuild the motors I removed the squirrel cage fan then removed the circlip from the end of the shaft and bent open the metal tabs holding the rear part of the case on, to open up the motor itself. Be careful with the tabs, they are very easy to break!

 

This allowed me to remove the armature. Then the circuit board holding the brushes needs to be removed from the rear part of the case.

 

Depending on the state of the bearings I either just cleaned them up with an 8mm drill bit, or pressed them out for replacement.

Finding new bearings for these motors is not easy. I tried a few different varieties from different places, none of them are ideal. The original bearings are spherical oilite bushes, they are retained in the case with star type washers. I found getting hold of these washers equally difficult, as the ones I found hold the bearings much tighter than the originals.

In the end I bought new oilite spherical bushes that were too large, but had the correct circumference and too small a bore diameter from ali-express. I then turned these down on the lathe to the correct bore and width.

My advice is that cleaning up the original bushes is preferable.

 

The armature needs to be cleaned up - this is where most of the corrosion is, on the axle where it passes through the bearings. I put mine in a drill and cleaned them up with emery paper, including the commutator.

 

It is then a case of putting the motors back together again. If any of the tabs holding the case together broke then a small bolt can be used to hold the case together.

Keep checking that the motor spins freely, and if not figure out where they are rubbing.

With the motors renovated I put the heater box back together and set about reinstalling everything into the car. Heater box, dashboard and everything associated with it.

That left just the wiper parking to fix. This ended up being harder to track down than I thought. Firstly I thought it may be the wiper stalk, so I pulled that apart to clean up. Then I thought it would be the park switch in the motor itself - but that didn’t help. Finally in desperation I bypassed the wiper control module by plugging the stalk straight into the loom - and the park function returned. Luckily there was a NOS 6DA wiper control module on eBay, so that was quickly bought and when replaced full park function worked again.

 

With the car back together I then moved on to the next job - while all the coolant was drained. 

[Lozza74]

One of the other problems I found after the MOT was that the radiator had a slight leak. It was not bad, but just enough to be annoying.

Looking at prices I saw that an exchange radiator from the usual lotus places was more than a new aluminium one from China. After a bit of reading around of the mixed opinions of the 'Winner' aluminium radiators from eBay I decided to give one a try.

The new radiator arrived about 10 days after placing my order. It was very well packed with lots of foam protection. Whilst I had the coolant drained out I decided to fit it.

The radiator itself looks well made, but is slightly different from my original.

• The mounting studs are M10 instead of the original M6
• It is 50mm deep instead of the original 35mm
• It is about 5mm wider than the original

These differences made it quite a pain to fit. In my 1983 Excel the radiator is mounted to the upper duct at the top, and on to the undertray at the bottom. I believe later cars have a steel beam, but this isnt on my early car.

A trial fit showed that the extra width was an issue as the radiator didn’t fit into the duct. To resolve this I took the duct out and trimmed away some of the body shell next to the wooden crash panels. This allowed the ducting to flex outwards more, and accommodate the wider radiator.

While the duct was out I also wanted to enlarge the holes for the studs. This was the second painful area. The holes are in the right place for a 35mm deep radiator. The extra depth of the new one meant that it fouled the reinforcing strip in the duct, and so didn’t sit tight against the duct. To resolve that I re-drilled the holes far enough back to allow the radiator to clear the duct indentation. I made the holes large enough to accept rubber grommets to 'soft' mount the radiator (at first I tried Defender mounts, but they were too deep, in the end I used generic 'top hat' grommets from ebay).

In the picture you can see the grommets and also the reinforcing rib in the duct

I loosely fitted the duct back to the car using the mounting bolts at the top, but leaving the sides free to flex.

I fitted the fans to the radiator - captive nuts are already welded in the right places.

Then I lifted the radiator into the duct and fitted the top mounting bolts. I wedged packers down both sides of the radiator to push the duct out wide, and then re-drilled the mounting bolt holes and fitted them. This meant the duct was now wide enough not to rub on the radiator.

 

Finally I had to fit the lower undertray. Again I found that the original mounting holes held the radiator against a strengthening rib in the panel. However if I moved the holes backwards then the fans hit the oil cooler hoses. Instead I moved the holes forward far enough to put the radiator in front of the rib instead of behind it.

Again I made the holes big enough to use rubber grommets to mount the radiator. The picture shows the original holes (red) and the new ones (green).

 

I am hoping that all this work means the radiator lasts a long time. Some peoples experience shows these radiators failing after a few years, but they have also put that down to the tight fit and therefore flexing of the radiator in use. I hope that the rubber mounts and clearance work I have done prevents that flex.

 

In the mean time im keeping my old radiator, if this one does fail I will get the old one re-cored.

[Lozza74]

After a long time putting it off I have finally got around to re-trimming the rear seat. As previous posts show I have fitted RX8 front seats, and the rest of the trim panels were a second hand leather set, however the rear seat was still the original ripped fabric.

With all the rest of the interior done it was really letting the car down, so I decided it was time to fix it. I don’t seem to have taken any pictures of the seat in the car before I started.

The Seat back cover is fairly simple being made from 5 panels and the headrests. It is also relatively flat, so I decided to have a go sewing up a replacement myself. I used the same colour vinyl I had used for some of the other small bits of trimming.

I started by carefully removing the old cover so I could use it as a pattern. It is held on by staples through webbing sewn into each of the seams, so I removed the staples to take the cover off.

I then carefully un-picked each of the seams to give me the old material from each panel separately. I used these to mark out the back of the new vinyl the right shape, and added 1cm all around for the seams. I checked the left and right hand sides were symmetrical - which they were not due to the old material having stretched.

Next I cut out the new vinyl to give me a set of new panels that needed sewing together.

 

Then was the tricky bit - sewing the panels together. Ive not done much sewing before so after a while learning how to thread the machine I made up some test pieces. I actually started my making the head rests as I figured I have enough material to start again if I got them really wrong. As a result I now have a spare cover.

The hardest part of sewing the 5 panels of the seat back was the very tight turns at the top of each back panel. I missed the sewing line a little on these, so the end result is a little uneven, but its really hard to notice.

I also sewed some new webbing onto the seams (after sewing the panels together) so I could use these to attach the cover to the back. That was actually harder than sewing the cover together, as it was difficult to get the stapler into the gap between the foam and pull the cover tight to stop any wrinkles. I did end up with a couple of wrinkles, but hopefully they don’t notice too much.

All in the cover didn’t cost very much at all, but it did take me far too much time.

 

[Lozza74]

Ive been rather quiet here recently, mostly because there was a bit of a hiatus in Lotus fettling.

In April I attended a Club Lotus track day at Goodwood. I thought preparations were going well, I had changed the brake pads for Mintex 1144, which made a huge difference to the unknown pads that were on the car - it actually felt as though it would stop. I also changed the oil for fresh VR1.

On the day itself the journey down was great fun in the early morning, the briefing was good and although a complete novice I was made to feel very welcome. The noise test was a challenge, and the car actually failed - however the marshals explained that there were sound meters on the track and they would be keeping a close eye on them as I went past - too noisy and I would be black flagged. That made me a little nervous.

The first session was fun, but daunting as I ended up in a group of Elises - however they soon disappeared into the distance ahead of me leaving me the whole track for quite a few laps before they reappeared behind me.

The second session was with a friend of mine driving. About half way through the session we both heard a quiet knocking, which got louder over the next few laps. By the end of the session it was pretty obvious something serious was wrong.

We couldn’t figure out what the actual problem was, but there was no way we were driving home.

The Goodwood staff were great, they had phone numbers of local recovery firms, and were also happy if we wanted to leave the car there for a week or so.

In the end a local firm could come out - we asked them to pick us up after lunch, since it has a great reputation and we had both paid for it. Lunch was superb, and just as we finished desert a recovery truck appeared over the track.

Once back home I realised there was nothing for it but to take the engine out and give it to someone who knew what they were doing. I decided to take it back to the same person who did the original rebuild.

Im getting fairly good at taking it out now.

 

Several month later I went back to pick up the engine after its second rebuild.

The verdict was that the oil was contaminated somehow - possibly from the old oil cooler. The end result was heavy scoring of the  oil pump, #3 big end bearing was toast, and #3 big end itself was ovalised. All the con rods went off to an engineering shop to be milled round again, the crank was ground for oversize big end bearings, and the oil pump reconditioned again.

On collection it looked exactly as it did when I dropped it off - at least the inside should be in better shape.

The engine went back into the car without much hassle, although I had some help this time as I had hurt my back a few weeks before so I was moving carefully. Previously every time I started the car there was a metallic thump. I realised that the gearbox was hitting the chassis, so on refitting the engine I added a 4mm spacer under the passenger side engine mount - looking in the parts list this is listed as standard, so who knows what happened to the one on my car.

Whilst the engine was away I also collected a few extra parts. I bought a new exhaust system from SJ Sports cars, since I think the holes in the old one were the cause of my noise failure at Goodwood.

I also bought a new distributor from SE Lotus. The one in the car had points, which I had assumed was original for an early car, but I was advised that it much have come from a different car all together as all Excels had electronic ignition - that would explain why there is the mounting plate for the ignition amplifier, but nothing on it. The new distributor doesn’t need an external amplifier so there is still nothing on the plate, but at least I wont need to change points and condenser.

I also bought a new oil cooler and hoses - I don’t trust the old one any longer!

Ive had the car back on the road about 2 weeks now, and the exhaust and distributor do seem to make a difference to its acceleration.

The only down side is that there is a very slight weep from the high pressure hose as it enters the steering rack - very frustrating as I also changed the o-rings again. I may try some snake oil / seal swell additive.

[ChrisJ]

I used to be in Surrey Area Club Lotus and this is where the annual Goodwood track days started in the late 1980s - 20 cars, £50 per car. No noise checking, no marshals either - all organised by Chris Parker, and run by the club. Great days. I went on one when I recommissioned my Esprit in 2013 and can agree 100% with not being able to match the newer cars - especially in the corners. The straights were fine. 

On one of the Goodwood days a friend with a Europa, which he had rebuild, had put in some seriously fast laps, had to leave early. 1/2 hour later he walked back in - his Europa had shed a wheel a mile or so down the road

Your Excel looks great, love the colour. Let me know if you would be interested in coming to a meet north of London and I'll add you to our monthly PM list.

My Esprit is a Y reg same as yours - needs some photos going round Goodwood back in the 1980/90s

The Europa is the one that only had 3 wheels later in the day, and the +2 is still owned by the same person.