Nomination's for most awkward jobs on an Esprit

[Sparky]

Pedant.

[APB]

12 hours ago, Barrykearley said:

Not sure why they needed to remove the engine to do the clutch. It’s a couple of hours to pull the gearbox on an Espirt.

Well that's odd, I've been going to this guy for 20+ years, all kinds of cars, exotic and mundane and he always seemed to be reasonable. Maybe there's something different with the California cars and all the emission requirements.

[ramjet]

Anything under the dash.

Anything on the front of the engine insitu when you don’t have a lift.

Bleeding the master cylinder. 

[Escape]

11 hours ago, APB said:

Well that's odd, I've been going to this guy for 20+ years, all kinds of cars, exotic and mundane and he always seemed to be reasonable. Maybe there's something different with the California cars and all the emission requirements.

Unlikely the emission equipment could have that big an impact. Maybe a few hoses to clear but still no reason to pull the engine. Even the workshop manual says to leave the engine in place and just pull the transmission...

[mike_sekinger]

11 hours ago, APB said:

Well that's odd, I've been going to this guy for 20+ years, all kinds of cars, exotic and mundane and he always seemed to be reasonable. Maybe there's something different with the California cars and all the emission requirements.

No. Nothing different that would necessitate that.  Puling the transmission to change the clutch is a straight-forward task that takes only a few hours.

[APB]

On 01/11/2022 at 11:09, APB said:

Not me doing the work but I had it towed to my mechanic this morning. Something went wrong with the clutch, it wouldn't disengage and I couldn't get it into gear. It's going to be at least a $10K job as they have to remove the engine.

 

Just getting it out of the underground parking here was quite an ordeal.

It's a pity I didn't get any replies to this one until after the work was done, ten days days later. I could have questioned the need to remove the engine...

[APB]

FYI, I called the local Lotus dealership when they opened today and they don't work on cars older than 2005. So I'm going to stick with my trusted mechanic of 20+ years, despite the opinions of the armchair quarterbacks here, LOL! No offence...

[Barrykearley]

It’s been a while since I’ve had to remove an esprit gearbox - my careful driving had only resulted in me smashing and removing 3 gearboxes from different Esprits. I’ve definitely been sat in my armchair a fair bit in the 2 years since i took this 🤣

[APB]

20 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

It’s been a while since I’ve had to remove an esprit gearbox - my careful driving had only resulted in me smashing and removing 3 gearboxes from different Esprits. I’ve definitely been sat in my armchair a fair bit in the 2 years since i took this 🤣

So you remove the body instead, makes sense, LOL!

Btw, he also recommended replacing the original belts and hoses while the engine was out, which made sense. Only 15K miles but a 25 year old car that had been stored for a while...

Edited November 14, 2022 by APB

[Barrykearley]

No chap - that was for an entirely separate issue of replacing coolant chassis pipes etc.

if you are doing belts etc - then it suddenly makes complete sense to pull the engine. 

[APB]

Chap, LOL! I may live in Santa Monica but I'm from the UK and know how to pronounce Worcestershire...

[Barrykearley]

Don’t you dare buy the imitation sauce from Walmart 🤣

[APB]

3 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

Don’t you dare buy the imitation sauce from Walmart 🤣

Ha, ha, wouldn't dream of it. Santa Monica has a huge British community and the local pub, the King's Head, has a shop. They even have HP sauce!