How to survive a 2000 mile journey with a newly acquired Elite?

[Kimbers]

Don't lose that rear badge, or damage it mate. They are impossible to get hold of. I recently sold a new one.....well, you don't want to know what I sold it for, even I was astounded. It sold for nearly half as much as my fathers James Bond Coat, with Authenticity and signed by MJK.

[eclat22]

That's what you call a tool kit!

Good luck with the rest of the trip

Regards Dan

[mikeeech]

Don't lose that rear badge, or damage it mate. They are impossible to get hold of. I recently sold a new one.....well, you don't want to know what I sold it for, even I was astounded. It sold for nearly half as much as my fathers James Bond Coat, with Authenticity and signed by MJK.

Isn't the rear badge available from sj sportscars?

Mika, your confidence is clearly building since you have all the boot space full now. What a great trip your on

[Jorge E]

  lome, what great travel!! Go ahead!!

 

The first time I drove my Eclat some electrical issues were related to some bad earth/grounds here and there... seems Lumenition ignition needs a minimun amount of electric juice to work properly!

 

Good luck and have a nice trip 

[Denis247]

Suggest you replace your fuel line with some good-quality rubber stuff, that pipe you have is prone to kinking, as you've found out, and also to cracking, where the resulting fire would warm-up all your beer.

[johnpwalsh]

Brilliant Mika and well done. My wife and I have had some epic trips in old cars and never knowing how they will end is some of the fun but your seems to be going really well. And once again it shows just how much support you get from all these guys across Europe on TLF and I am sure if you have any problems on your last stretch the offer of a free beer will have them all running to help.Unfortunately where I am I am not able to get the photographs but I am sure they will be good to see once I get home. All the best for what remains of an epic journey and please, please keep us up to date on the cars and your future time together.

 

John.

[cdfps]

Seconds on replacing the fuel line.  I pulled mine and replaced it with steel and rubber.  When I took the line out some of it just cracked in half.

 

Also, if you got rid of the brake shoes there would be room for another liter or two of German beer (or German mustard which is equally good)

 

Also,

 

How is this trip not a segment on top gear?  I would rather see this than another test of a one off Lambo.

 

Safe travels!

[Iome]

How is this trip not a segment on top gear?  I would rather see this than another test of a one off Lambo.

 

Have you not seen the recent Patagonia special? James May drove Lotus Esprit and it turned out to be very reliable. Very solid piece of consumer advice for us who consider driving an old car for long distances, as can be seen from my trip with almost no problems.

 

Today I drove through Sweden. I stopped only once to tank some fuel. I've had quite a many fuel stops, since the AA guy told me not to have less than half a tank of gas, so that rust and sediments don't start to move. By the way, I've also added some engine oil, total about 1 liter, in Denmark and now in Sweden. And little bit of power steering oil too. But water has been good all the way. I'll check the fuel receipts when I get back to home. Which is very near now. I decided to take a ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, so it's not much more than 200 km driving to go. Tomorrow night is -3 degrees, but during day +2, so main roads should be good for summer tires. Next night is -10 degrees and Friday day -3 degrees, so that would have been less good. This morning in Varberg was quite slippery already, icy roads in the dock there.

[The Pits]

Awesome job.

 

this thread is TLF Gold!

 

[Arregueti]

^^ Indeed. Which makes me think that Mika should get the 2015 TLF award for the Trip of the year.

 

@ Moderators, Seriously, I think it would be a good idea to collect/encourage threads about trips of our Lotus cars in the forum and make a poll to decide who did the best trip each year (preferably the older cars but also the newer).

[Bibs]

I could start a new section called 'epic Lotus road trips'?

[cdfps]

Can't wait to see pictures / video of your Elite in the snow.

 

 

I have more snow here than a little, but I'm too scared to drive mine in the salt.  
 

[pbharcourt]

Loads of salt on the road here but not a sign of any snow!

Still driving mine daily, galvanised chassis takes some of the worry out of it.

[Jorge E]

- Today I drove to the airport 300km/200miles and tried to sell my old car, VW Passat -90, before getting to airport.

 

So... you were thinking on use the Lotus as a daily car?? Before the trip??

 

A "non turning back" attitude, maybe?

 

[Iome]

This is where we started with empty street. Now I'm finally here with my Elite:

 

 

Traveling through Finland car lost power just once. I was overtaking a truck in a motorway, quite steady cruising speed, maybe 110 km/h. Before the incident 100 km without problems and then suddenly loosing power and engine died. Luckily again there were no other traffic so it was a safe stop. Didn't start right away but after some time it did. And then ran 100 km more without problem again... So it seems the fuel line was only partial solution. But I have now time to study it...

I still don't have winter tires so I'll probably do Finnish registration inspection in March when it's legal to drive without winter tires. Lights probably need to be adjusted for right hand side traffic, but hopefully not much more. Well, when I drove the car in my garage, I tried to adjust side mirrors. Left one turned very nicely but right one just broke off. So that's unattached now.

One interesting thing I noticed when I was browsing the papers was that the previous owner really hadn't driven much. He said he had had MOT couple of times so I obviously thought he had driven the car too. Why take the MOT inspection and not drive? But papers show mileage from last MOTs: 

2011, 53003 miles 

2013, 53004 miles

2015, 53007 miles

And it was 53007 when I bought it. So he really hadn't driven almost at all! And now 2000 miles at once. I might have been more scared if I had known this before the trip.

I will check my fuel bills maybe tomorrow. But the trip is over now and it went really well. Some troubles to not make it too boring, but nothing too serious. Almost as if it was scripted, like some television motor shows might be.

There hasn't been any photo of me so far, so here I am with the car in the harbour of Helsinki:

 

[Bibs]

Great work, epic trip

[CharlieCroker]

Well done, a great achievement. What now, a full body off restoration?

[ChrisJ]

Great trip.

[cdfps]

To celebrate you should go on holiday.

 

I would suggest a road tip to Scotland.

 

Well done.

[Iome]

One hero, maybe the biggest, must be Mel from MPH Autocentre, Lydney, who sold me this car. Very modest person who sold me a better car than was to be expected by the eBay ad. Especially that I've heard bad stories about buying cars from UK, warnings not to trust dealers there. But it's probably near big cities where dubious car dealers operate? And Lydney was a nice small town far from cities. For example one could have read the emissions in the ad that it almost failed. But in the test report CO 0,30% (limit <= 4,5%) and HC 561 PPM (limit <= 1200 PPM) so passed with wide margin. 

 

What I'm going to do next with the car? First I need to make sure it passes the registration inspection which is like MOT inspection. I would like to do full restoration but I have some other projects and children too, so it's not going to happen quickly. During this summer I would like to check it mechanically, steering, suspension etc, so that it'll be a good to drive. Also heating would be nice, for the engine and for passengers...

 

We have some historic car meetings here and I think it would be nice to present this genuine eBay find there before the restoration. It's possible to register car as a historic car and get lower taxes, but they are quite strict with originality and quality of restoration so I must find out if what is required for that. I don't want to make it look like a new because it's an old car and I think it should look like it has had some history.

 

And one of the first things is to document the car. I'm going to take many photos, maybe put up a website for this project. My garage is very small, just for keeping the car safe from weather, so I'll try to find some place to work with the car.

 

I was going to have this as my only car, but not as a daily car since I don't drive daily, not even every week. I was even considering installing a tow bar to help my wife with gardening (like they used to have in the toy car: http://www.chezbois.com/photogallery/photo_large/1929b.JPG). There is one "minor" setback though. When I'm driving in a comfortable seat position, there is no leg room at all behind my seat! See photo below. Notice also that "neck support" is an "upper back support" and not very comfortable as such. I must evaluate if I can use this as a family car after all... We'll see about that too.

 

 

Also notice I'm wearing a so called ice fishing suit while driving, as there is really no heating.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Iome

[Pau lito]

Well done - Respect

[The Pits]

Congrats on a great trip. Inspiration for us all.

 

[basalte]

That`s amazing - the Elite can now join my Austin Ambassador Vanden Plas as a rare and entertaining sight in Finland 

[Jorge E]

  Great trip, lone!!!

 

This travel gives great information about the car, and now you can list the work to do next.

 

The heating problem could be tested at first with a garden hose and a flush of water to the heating core and colling radiator. That helped a lot on mine, with a perfect heating power... but still a poor cooling capacity...

 

Somebody fitted front seats on a Elite/Eclat from a XJS Jaguar donnor, maybe the backrest is taller...

 

Remember to check all wiring grounds and connectors related with sartarting/charging/firing... that makes a lot of difference!

 

Enjoy your car at home 

[Wally Finland]

It is shame that I read this story now and not week ago. I made almost same kind of journey in march 2013. Esprit was in very little use before the purchase. We made twice milaege in two days from Horsham to Travemunde (Germany) that car had traveled in last five years. We didn't have  any major issues throuhout the journey luckily.

 

I took a classic car insurance in advance that covered any roadside assistant/towing.

 

We made an article about our journey as well ( first issue of Mobilisti 2000 magazine). I can put pdf here as well on monday. Article is in sadly written in Finnish.

 

Mika, I will reply to your message today later.