Esprit Turbo project car - part3 - the further continuation

[silverfrost]

To be honest Buddsy, looking at your pictures i thought you had already had it painted !  But yes the wording shake down is spot on  

[Lotusfab]

Yep, will cost for a decent one. Well hope to get this beast road going soon! 

[silverfrost]

Exactly Buddsy,  Just to own one is more than enough   The silver esprits paint is decent but sadly has a mark where i presume a vandal decided to key the door and part of the reat quarter, thankfully not under my ownership, I tried a touch up with a apint brush but to be honest it made it look worse, so removed the fresh paint.   Other than that the paint is fantastic for a 32 year old car, wash and wax and it looks spot on,  I my eyes way to decent still to invest in a complete respray,  may look into one of those mobile scratch repair people people though, not sure how difficult it would be fro them to blend in the repair on old paint though.  

[Lotusfab]

Not sure where you live but Rob Lumas, of smart refine is an ace. He will spray the door if necesary and you won't be able to tell. Hes Horsham based but anyone in Surrey etc he's the man. He has sustancial experience and has done work for me and you can't tell! I was going to get him to smarten up the red but if he does it will be so good I won't want to respray☹️☹️☹️☹️

[Lotusfab]

Have ordered new grommets for the fuel balance pipes( large circular rubber pieces with a hole in for the balance pipe) .They are riveted in position, anyone found a good method for removing the rivets, there's not much room in there?

[910Esprit]

sharp wood chisel being abused....

[Lotusfab]

Ahhh might give that a try, theres not much room for a drill! Will let you know how I get on.

[silverfrost]

Cheers for the Info Fabian on the Touch up    Way to far from me sadly, but pleased to hear it can be done, so will keep that in mind and may look into getting someone to do mine at some point. 

Regards Dan

[silverfrost]

I bet wood chisel is not listed in the lotus repairs manuals as  tool number 987 rivet removal tool 

[Andyww]

1 hour ago, silverfrost said:

I bet wood chisel is not listed in the lotus repairs manuals as  tool number 987 rivet removal tool 

Strangely cant find the "EZ-Rivnut 5 second removal tool" either. It must be in there somewhere....

 

[Lotusfab]

Hacksaw blade and a lot of effort! Have to get my chisel out!

[fjmuurling]

Dremel, flexible shaft and small grinding stone in addition to EYEPROTECTION.

[Lotusfab]

That's a good idea! I have a dremel. 

[Andyww]

Yes, Dremel and flexi is what I used the other day when removing the grommet plate for the handbrake cables. The new cables would not go through the plate without removing it because it had originally been fitted with the holes in the plate and body out of line.

[Lotusfab]

I think my handbrake mount is shot so have to remove the sill and repair!

[silverfrost]

Look forward to the pics Fabian of what sort of state those and seatbelt anchors will be in  

[Andyww]

I did that and had to buy a new carpet unfortunately as it wasnt possible to remove it without destroying it.

So I sorted out the handbrake mech and put it all back together. Then later on when I came to replacing the handbrake cables I found the new ones from SJ were about 20mm too long and it could not be taken up by adjustment. So I had to remove the link from the handbrake to shorten it by doing the most difficult piece of keyhole surgery ever, accessing it through the ashtray hole, to avoid writing off the new carpet again!

I didnt even bother phoning SJ about the wrong cables because I knew the answer would be "The factory made your car wrong".

[silverfrost]

Andy,  lucky for you folks have ash trays in the sills 

[Lotusfab]

Andy, nightmare! Have you got any suggestions before I set to work,removing the sill to replace the handbrake mounting?

Yes as always will post some pics of all these jobs so people don't have to repeat my mistakes! 

I'm liking this dremel idea and also the Chisel! 

The weathers changed and I'm coming back with a vengeance to make so progress on this!

[silverfrost]

Matts tool of choice is a metal rule to tap through the sealant that is bonds  the sill top to the bodyshell, this works well apparently and Matt has used it plenty of times it is his tool of choice for this job  

[Andyww]

The problem I had was partly with the area of the carpet on the top of the sill which was glued to the sill and the body, but worse was the part of it on the vertical face where the door hinge nut access cover is. The glue they used on the carpet was so strong that if the carpet was pulled the tufting of the carpet stayed stuck to the body and the backing pulled right off through the tufts.

After removing I had to clean off all the old glue which took ages. 

I am wondering if using a hot air gun on it might have softened the glue, didnt try that.

 

[v8vantage]

No need to remove the outer sill cover completely. I had to repair my handbrake mount on my S2 JPS so opened up the front of the sill to remove it and weld up. The cover can be prised back once the rivets are removed, then slowly peel it open with a flat blade until you have enough access. Once repaired, reseal the sill and rivet back in place.

[Andyww]

On mine the rivets on the bottom of the sill were visible but the ones on the top surface were under the carpet and glue so it was not possible to lift up the sill at all without something breaking. 

[Lotusfab]

Thanks chaps!

[Lotusfab]

Met a chap who worked in the car industry for jaguar. He had a lot of experience of manufacturing and believes the cx500  centres were originally hand finished. He said you can see the tooling marks in the picture. If you look closely it's actually quite poorly made.

He also had a lot of CNC experience and believes this design would be quite straightforward to CNC. So fingers crossed he's correct!