Ian's S4s refurb

[Sparky]

Not all of us have wood in our Esprits, Ian.

[swindon_alan]

Hah! You might remember that the previous owner decided to cover the veneer door trims in a horrible grey vinyl, keying the lacquer to get it to stick. I had an attempt at repairing them with snowglobe type resin which was okay. However being the perfectionist I am (and you are!) I wasn't completely happy with the result so have taken them off to redo. They've been sat on the kitchen table annoying my good lady for a fair while. I've convinced myself that it's all ok for now, it makes the car lighter and faster...

[Chillidoggy]

Only asked because I've just had mine redone locally by this bloke http://www.carwoodrestoration.co.uk/#home and he's made a nice job of it. Cost me £120.

1 hour ago, Sparky said:

Not all of us have wood in our Esprits, Ian.

Tracy told me different story.

[pete]

21 minutes ago, ian29gte said:

Only asked because I've just had mine redone locally by this bloke http://www.carwoodrestoration.co.uk/#home and he's made a nice job of it. Cost me £120.

Tracy told me different story.

that was lead in his pencil

[swindon_alan]

£120 Ian? That's the equivalent of a lot of pop-up establishment activity in Swindon mate...

[Chillidoggy]

2 minutes ago, swindon_alan said:

£120 Ian? That's the equivalent of a lot of pop-up establishment activity in Swindon mate...

What you choose to splash out on is up to you.

[swindon_alan]

HA HA HA HA 

You have no idea...

[Chillidoggy]

Oh, I think we do!

[Chillidoggy]

Yesterday, I had a trial fitting of the plastic bits before the trimmer collects them. I reckon I've finally cracked it (no pun intended), and the caaant rails now fit pretty much as they should do at the top of the A-pillar. Were this a Porsche, I'd be sending it back in disgust because they're not much of a good fit, but in all honesty they're probably about what you'd expect for a Lotus. They'd stuck cloth headlining behind all the joins, so the gaps in the plastic weren't so apparent. And once trimmed, I'm sure they'll look fine. They did take an inordinate amount of hours to repair, and get the shape correct but with new ones NLA, I wasn't left with much of a choice. I also eased out the holes for the motion sensors in anticipation of a thicker material than the original cloth stuff, but I've left the interior light hole for the trimmer to sort out in that respect as it's a clip-in job, and the tolerances are closer. I also beefed up around the header rail fixing holes and sun visors holes with some CSM to prevent further cracking.

Another thanks to Alan and Steve who provided me with photos of their trim, that was very helpful.

[Chillidoggy]

Just removed the mock-up, and dropped one of the caaant rails, which broke in half.

Where's that facepalm emoticon?

[Sparky]

Is it bad that I laughed like a drain?

[Chillidoggy]

12 minutes ago, Sparky said:

Is it bad that I laughed like a drain?

 

Not at all, mate.

I've already had great laughs at your expense reading about the SE high-wing, and I'm convinced there's even more in the wood.

[Sparky]

15-all, Miss Clark to serve.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, ian29gte said:

 

Not at all, mate.

I've already had great laughs at your expense reading about the SE high-wing, and I'm convinced there's even more in the wood.

The high wing is made of wood?  Oh my. That's not good.

[Sparky]

Actually, I believe this one is made of string.

[Chillidoggy]

Some small updates:

I repaired the broken caaant rail once more, thankfully it hadn't broken where I had previously altered its front angle, so a quick fix with Superglue, and some CSM on the back, and it's a goer again. I hope to God I never see another caaant rail for as long as I live.

Fed up with trying to refit the seatbelt covers after a wasted half hour, I decided to tap the bottom two holes out to M6, and fit them with studs. This was easier than I thought, if a little awkward. Shame Lotus hadn't thought about that one, we'd be a lot better off.

Earlier, I managed to drill and secure the alarm sounder bracket in the passenger footwell. The sounder itself was originally found waving in the breeze, cable-tied to a bit of wiring loom, which explains one of the dashboard knocking noises. Due to my anatomy not resembling an octopus, I failed miserably to get a decent solder joint on the anti-hijack wire, so I can see another Lotus-position on the horizon. That's going to be fun whilst holding a soldering iron, but I don't have much option.

The trimmer should be here later today, so the wife will be pleased to get the interior panels out of the conservatory. I should also be able to get the leather for the carpet trim, and get it off to Steve so he can move on with the job.

[Chillidoggy]

The seatbelt stud idea got canned in favour of caphead bolts at the bottom, as they're smaller and easier to get in, a hex-head nut with a socket would have been too big. Might finish it off with a cable-tie around to make sure the insulation doesn't peel off, as it's stretched round a bit of a radius, but other than that, I'm well-chuffed, and it should make any further removals and replacements a lot easier. Hopefully that will cut down a bit on transmitted noise. When I took them off originally, there was a pile of sponge-coloured dust in them, the sound-proofing had just crumbled to nothing.

[Chillidoggy]

Today's efforts included replacing the overhauled gearchange master. I thought it was going to be a simple job, but hadn't reckoned on the overhaul kit not providing new split-pins for the Morse cable ends, and spent half an hour grubbing around before I found a couple that were small enough to fit. The next hold-up came when, despite religiously bagging and labelling absolutely everything I took off, I just couldn't find the four nuts that hold the thing down. I swear there's a poltergeist in the bloody garage that comes out at night and moves stuff around, just to piss me off. As a result, I fitted new nylocs. No doubt I'll find the original ones tomorrow, staring me in the face on the workbench.

I also managed to contort myself enough to solder the Meta alarm anti-hijack wire to the brake stop-lamp switch, which was an awkward bugger. Following that success, I sat pondering for a while on the twisted thought processes of whichever moron fitted the aerial cable and left about a metre of it uselessly coiled up behind the centre panel. I shall get to that later.

Meanwhile, I unchained the wife from the kitchen to clean and treat the interior trim that will stay grey: the binnacle, crash-pad, steering column shroud and dashboard in front of the windscreen. So far she's not made a bad job of it, it's looking kind of OK, but not finished yet. The Gliptone colour match is spot-on, though.

Noticing the rusty state of the rear aerfoil bracket bolts in the boot, I may just take the rear bumper off to get them changed, although it might not happen this time around, maybe next winter. Anyone taken a rear bumper off before?

[swindon_alan]

My rear bumper was replaced in the accident repair. I didn't take it off myself but saw what was involved. Lots of horror stories about removing them apparently.

It does look quite a job with all of the fixings:

It's probably worth doing at some point if only to replace the commonly rotting rear splitter brackets before the thing falls off...

 

[Chillidoggy]

Excellent photo Alan (even if it's one you never really wanted to see), and it's for precisely the reason you state, replacing my aerofoil brackets. I hadn't realised that there were steel spreader plates, either. It looks as though the RH side bracket fits onto the spreader and through it, but the LH side does not. I wonder what purpose they serve?

It looks very much like my rear bumper has been taken off before, none of the nuts are rusty, they look in good condition. As I assume it's the removal of rusted nuts that makes it such a problem, I've got fingers crossed.

[Loose Cannon]

I replaced my hangers and lower fixings (49 and 52) with stainless without taking the whole bumper off. It is possible if you are concerned your expensive aerofoil might go AWOL in the short term, then do the whole job later.

I took the whole front bumper off which was a real nightmare of access, TBH the back bumper looks a lot better which is why I wasn't concerned postponing it with so much else on my plate.

[Chillidoggy]

I'm not sure how replacing 49 and 52 is going to stop the aerofoil from falling off, or have I missed something?

[Sparky]

I believe they're the brackets that keep your gauges in the binnacle.

[Chillidoggy]

55 minutes ago, Sparky said:

I believe they're the brackets that keep your gauges in the binnacle.

 

In that case they definitely need changing.

[Loose Cannon]

They are the flat clamps on the lower edge of the bumper moulding, you can then reach inside to get at the actual aerofoil hangers! It helps having long arms or someone standing to reach inside the boot