Glutton for Punishment!

[Artie]

Well mates, it seems I cannot leave a good thing alone! The car has been running excellently for the better part of 2 months and about 2200 fairly "reliable" miles since the engine overhaul again. BUT, I've decided with winter closing in and boredom not far behind, I need a winter project is in order! A slight change is brewing!

I seem to have some parts laying around my garage....

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I haven't gotten the entire car broken down yet, but hopefully tomorrow I will get the front bumper off and can start working on the old sills. The weather should be nice so I will pull her into the driveway to start cutting and chiseling away at the sills. I will finally install the SE sills that I have had for almost 4 years now, and most importantly I will be doing a colour change to BLACK! I have a few area's on the car that have some cracks in the gelcoat that need to be addressed and then reinforce the LotusPrepared by Claudius V8 light panel that I bought and installed a few years back, as it has developed some cracks at the rounded corners due to flimsy construction. I will be blacking out most of the car, to include the custom 3 piece wheels I had made 5 years ago. I will disassemble them and paint them all black including the wheel barrel and leave the rim bolts that hold the center piece on the rim, silver. I will also have a shop do a professional black out of the round V8 taillamps as well as change the esprit emblems and some other badging to a custom yellow close the Lotus brand colours. DON'T worry! The yellow accents will be minimal, just a subtle hint of color! I think it will look fantastic. I have never been happy with the white paint on the car as it's an off-white and it has been painted several times for different repairs, so every corner has a slightly different blend line and slightly different colour. This will address all of those issues. I will post progress as I work on it. I am taking my time on this, as I want the end result to be nearly flawless! Wish me luck!

Artie

Edited October 30, 2011 by Artie

[nigeninja]

subtle yellow,na mate go for a full F1 race rep gold JPS all over,decal it up like the F1 car,now that would look cool

[Artie]

Black and gold was the first thought, but I wanted a little "different" flavor! I'm temped to rebadge the front and rear "Lotus" emblems with the older black and gold however!

[Artie]

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Well, I got the front bumper off and am ready to have a go at the sills. Anyone cut off their old sills have some tips or shortcuts to the procedure? I like having a heads up to shortcuts to make it easier. I have all the tools I think I need. I may pick up a hot knife today to help with the glue/adhesive.

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[Ginger pig]

Hi Art,

Once you have pulled the sills off you will find the bolts and retaining sleeves (tubes)under the sills will probably be totally corroded. If you want to replace the tubes then give me a shout as I had a load made up out of high quality stainless steel as I could not bare to replace with mild steel, considering what a mess the originals became. There should be ten per car. The bolts are not unique so these would be easily sourced in SS. I did post a link under the stevens section which gives the part number etc.

[Artie]

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Mark,

Thanks, mine seem to be in fairly good shape. I didn't notice much corrosion considering what the lower links on the suspension look like! Lol!

By The Way: Does anyone know what the bolt sticking out to the left of the two cross tube bolts are? And is it supposed to have a washer and nut on it? I find no reference in my service notes to it.

I did make some more progress today. I removed the old standard turbo sills and fitted up the SE sills which will go back on when I reassemble the car. Everything fit fairly well, a bit of trimming to the inlet on the sills rear ductwork and she will fit as she belonged there to begin with! The first sill took me the better part of an hour to remove. It had all the original factory rivets and without reference I had to find the three under the fuel tank overhand by feel with a narrow chisel. Managed to get them off without damaging the old sills or the body. Lot's of adhesive to clean up and rivet remnants to remove, but a productive session for me today.

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I will take a break from the car tomorrow and get lumber to build my spray booth and install the water separator for my compressor. I will make a downdraft ventilation system for the booth to aid in removing particles from the air so the paint goes on as clean and dirt/bug free as possible! I never imagined there would be this many pieces to contend with when I started! WOW!

Edited November 4, 2011 by Artie

[Ginger pig]

Isnt it one of the seat belt mounts!

[Artie]

Good question, but both sides are missing an outer retaining nut/washer. Seems unfinished without a nut and washer. Hmmmmm.

[nic996]

I have read quite a few times on various forums where certain parts are replacing mild steel with stainless. Even an entire kit car chassis built from stainless. The thing is, I spoke to a metallurgist when I contemplated building a kit car from scratch (I saw sense and bought an Esprit :-) He said that using Stainless is not a good idea. Its more brittle than mild steel and tends to fracture where you need some bending particularly in an impact or high stress area. I don't claim to be an expert but surely replacing seat belt mounts with stainless would not be a good idea. Please correct me if I am wrong as the case for corrosion resistance in such areas is a good one and I will be replacing such parts on my S3 as part of the rebuild.

[Artie]

Nic, yes, you are correct. Stainless is more brittle than mild steel. It is a fine substitution for certain fixings and bolts, but as far as a structural substitute I wouldn't do it. I am leaving the fixing points and all original metal as is. My frame and mounting points are not corroded or damaged in any way so no point in retrofitting any other material. I simply am curious about the bolts that have no retainers on them!

[Artie]

Okay, another installment today. I sent off a few items for blasting and powdercoat. I wanted the door handles to be a bit more robust in their finish and the flat/satin factory finish leaves something to be desired. I stripped them and had them along with the fuel fill trim rings, sunroof stopper tabs and front tongue guides powdercoated so they would last longer than just paint.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Artie

[Vulcan Grey]

check the action of the door handles if you can. Sometimes the thick paint/powder coating will rub off as the door latch is opened.

[Artie]

One step ahead of ya Travis. I sandblasted the old black coating off all the way to the base metal, then slightly ground each possible friction point for the coating! I also put small bolts in each bolt hole, removed the little rubber bumper under the back of the handle and sanded the sharp edges of the hole for the lock cylinder so the powdercoating wouldn't build a lip there and prematurely cause a failure point of the powdercoating surface.

[Ginger pig]

Actually guys, My understanding is that SS has a higher tensile strength than mild and that certainly was the case seeing as the sleeves and bolts were almost like dust when I removed them; hence the SS replacements. The trouble with SS is if it is flexed and put under pressure in; lets say a suspension component, the SS becomes 'work hardened' and can sheer.

[Vulcan Grey]

Nope, stainless steels typically have a lower tensile strength than a hardened grade 5.5 or 8.8 or 10.9 or 12.9 bolt. Stainless is usually more ductile, not more brittle. It will stretch or bend long before the hardened bolt will shear or break, as long as the hardened bolt is loaded properly.

Definitely don't want to use stainless for anything critical like suspension bolts! They are fine for fixing small items to the fiberglass or more decorative stuff.

[Artie]

Okay, a bit of a slow weekend. I did some more wet sanding and smoothing of a few old drip spots in the clear and on the front windshied cowl piece. I also finally got started disasssembling my 3 piece wheels, which I am also going to color match to the car. The bolts will be repolished and the center face will be painted black and the barrel will also be painted and cleared. I'd powder coat them but I'd rather paint them since I won't have to disassemble the adhesive bond that is still perfectly intact. I've seen problems before when people have disassembled their three piece wheels completely and put them back together

[Ginger pig]

Hi Art,

A word to the wise.....I have just bonded my sills to the body. The body was from an 89 turbo and the sills were from the 89 SE. I could not get the sills to butt up correctly to the body, so after much head scratching I found out what was obstructing the sill. The tube which intrudes into the engine bay was actually grounding out on the hole which it penitrates. The solution I found was to make the hole egg shaped by removing a small piece from the front of the hole. This stopped the bend of the tube contacting with the body. Yours might be different but this certainly was the case on mine.

[Artie]

Thanks for the heads up, already discovered the same problem with mine, I just trimmed the end of the ducting and don't plan on molding or using adhesive on my sills. The rivets will work fine. I've installed many body kits on several of my cars and the rivets make it easy to remove damaged parts if needed. The sills are light enough they won't cause any issues being riveted in place. Thanks.

Artie

[Artie]

Okay, been feverishly repairing lots of broken and damaged fiberglass on a few parts. Got the wheels off to be painted, so hopefully they'll be back soon and I can see how they look. My rear lower valance has seen better days! The opening for the exhaust has been severely scorched by my exhaust so I've glassed and filled the opening and while I was at it, I finally fixed the cracked leg adjacent to it that has been broken since I've owned the car. I cleaned the back side of the fiberglass and sanded it with 80 grit paper. I proceeded to run 4 layers of glass mat and resin up and down the full length of the leg to support above and below the cracked piece. I filled it with body filler after sanding smooth with 80 grit paper and cleaned it with grease and wax remover. I also had to glass and fill either side of the valance due to cracks that had occurred before my ownership of the car. Apparently someone who did the body work was in a hurry because they didn't prep anything and just filled over the cracked fiberglass with bondo skim coat, especially thickly applied, it just cracked!

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There is another coat of skimcoat that I need to add to finalize the contours, but the valance is much more robust than previously. As I have disassembled the car, I have noted a few flaws or oversights in some of the designs of components. One thing I've known for some time, is that, Lotus used a lot of non captive retainers for things. In other words, there are lot's of things that are attached through an inaccessible portion of the car, or relatively inaccessible parts of the car with a simple bolt, washer, lockwasher and locknut assembly. One such example is the door striker plate. As I removed hardware to prepare the car to prep for primer and paint, I removed the bolts holding the plate on and heard a nice clunk! The backing plate fell straight down under the fuel tank! Another issue I have found is that there are a few loaded assemblies that are attached straight through the fiberglass with the same type of retaining assemblies, bolt, washer, lockwasher and nut. The decklid hinges just aft of the sunroof are simply bolted throught the fiberglass roof and have small washers on the inside, hidden by the header panels of leather inside. I plan on rectifying this particular shortcoming by using some .20ga steel backing plates that I will bond to the fiberglass before reassembly to spread the load of the decklid out better. Another shortcoming I have found is that the original early model door handles are attached directly to the thin fiberglass of the doorskin. When you pull on the handle, you are putting a substantial amount of pressure on that fiberglass with the very small areas of contact from the rear holding bracket. I have made a .16ga steel backing plate to address this to spread the load over a larger area. My door handle openings have several hairline cracks above and below the handle, and I believe it's due to this less than ideal design.

I have rough cut a set of escuchen plates out of steel to better spread the load of the door handle. The angle on the end is so it fits in the outer edge of the door.

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Here it is behind the door handle.

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Edited November 25, 2011 by Artie

[saggitarius]

This forum is allways giving me ideas about how to improve on my own S2. And this post is an example :-)

Thanks a lot Artie for sharing these things.

Geir

[Artie]

]NO problem Geir! There are many little things that can be updated and amended on these cars to improve their comfort level and beauty in my opinion. Whenever I work on mine, I look at ways that things can be improved! When restoring things of this vintage I am not of the mind to go "back" to original. I want to improve on the design and make the final product better and more reliable and if possible, more beautiful than original!

That being said, I have some more progress to report. I ordered a set of S300 wheel arch extensions. After some massaging with the sanding wheel and grinder, I test fitted them to the fender. And they fit almost perfectly! I am just installing the rear set as my front wheels come just to the fender arch, my rear wheels protrude about 3/4 of an inch and the wheel extensions will look fabulous. I also got my door edge trim back from the powdercoater and looks a treat! Much better than the old flaking off matte black finish. While I finish up prepping and sanding the repairs on the body pieces, I have also started work on my paint booth. To ensure a fabulous, dust and dirt free spray job, I am enclosing a self contained pain booth in my garage. It will have a ventilation system and it will mimic a downdraft type setup, although it won't be as sophisticated as a real spray shop, it will be far better than just spraying it in my garage and destroying everything else in the garage. The booth materials cost me about $100 usd with the tarp, wood, plastic and staples. I had some old hepa filters that I will affix to the ceiling of the booth and tape to the sheeting allowing air to be pulled through them and filtering out debris and dust. I will affix a box fan down at floor level on the far side of the booth and tape the edges of the fan to the plastic and a cutout for the fan to draw air through the unit. I will attach another heating/ac unit filter to the back side of the fan to filter out any particles of paint and overspray so I don't paint my driveway with fumes as the fan exhausts outside the 3rd car bay of my garage.

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Edited December 8, 2011 by Artie

[fsrowsell]

Art, I'm also in the process of installing the S300 package on my car also. I ordered the wheel arches from SJs and found that the rears were way of. So, I had to cut them into three pieces and then bond them back together in order to get the right arch shape. So, you say you had no problems with the arches matching up with the wheel arch of the car?

Cheers

Felix

[saggitarius]

Lots of good work in progress here :-)

[Artie]

Felix,

at first look, it seemed that the arches were the wrong angle and dimension. As I worked on notching the seam line portions, it occurred to me that the lower lip on the arches needed to be ground down some to bring the lower portion closer to the body and thus pulled the upper edge against the body and also pulled the arch closer to the body and that sorted out the angles and edges close enough to make the curve of the arch match the curve of the body. Minimal work to make it all line up. I've heard of others having the same issue you had, but mine didn't take much to get to match up nicely.

Planning on starting to shoot some paint this weekend. Will post up pics as I progress!

Artie

[fsrowsell]

That's great Art! Will you also be installing the S300 front bumper?

Great job and I always look forward to your post!

Felix