Esprit Turbo project car - part3 - the further continuation

[Lotusfab]

Just switched over the voltage regulator and temp indicator to ones calibrated exactly by Andy to match the sensor. The temperature indication will be as good as it can be using this set up. During testing it was found the Old regulator voltage is not very stable and depends on the angle of the regulator, which is why there is a TOP marked on it. The solid state one is not affected by orientation. Of course if the voltage varies so does the indicated temperature! The aim is to keep improving this car.

[Lotusfab]

Due to pressure from everyone to see skis on this car I am getting on with it. I have finally sorted the rear ski bindings. The fronts cant go on until the racks are fitted so I know the clearance. Metal is ordered for the racks so fabrication starting Monday.  By end of July it should have skis!

Just in time for summer and to confuse all the young people who havn’t got a clue who Roger Moore is or what the car is! 

[Sparky]

6 minutes ago, Lotusfab said:

Due to pressure from everyone to see skis on this car I am getting on with it. 

I'm on the edge of my seat for the test track video.

[Andyww]

2 hours ago, Sparky said:

I'm on the edge of my seat for the test track video.

MIRA should be quite quiet at the moment, maybe they will offer a discount

[Chillidoggy]

5 hours ago, Andyww said:

MIRA should be quite quiet at the moment, maybe they will offer a discount

I was thinking more Bonneville salt flats.

[Lotusfab]

Just been out for a drive and the tailgate managed to open because I didn’t lock it! I was doing 50 mph. The only reason I knew it was open was when I looked in the rear mirror I couldn’t see it! This bodes well for skis!  

[v8vantage]

Fab here's a good way to test the integrity of your ski racks.

 

[Lotusfab]

Fire extinguisher system now complete and armed, hopefully will never use it!

Ski racks are proving tricky. Difficult to make without a fully equipped workshop. The other problem is the design the prop makers used is tricky to covert to a useable everyday design. I have got the basics now.  I have decided none of the loads on the upper  rack will be taken by the fibreglass. An aluminium and steel structure underneath will deal with it all. So far its very light weight and has four 6 mm anchor points.  I am having difficulty designing a locking system that can fit in the small space available.between the roof and underside of the rack. Just waiting for more materials to arrive. I am building a roughprototype first and then will refine the design. 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Lotusfab

[snowrx]

Use big ones

[CHANGES]

On 21/06/2020 at 14:50, Lotusfab said:

Just been out for a drive and the tailgate managed to open because I didn’t lock it! I was doing 50 mph. The only reason I knew it was open was when I looked in the rear mirror I couldn’t see it! This bodes well for skis!  

I bet that was a surprise..   Many years ago I lost my bonnet..  And i never saw it go .. Yes i was looking forward , but it happened so fast i never saw it , only heard the wind noise change..   I had to go back 3/4 mile to find it impaled on the central reservation barriers ... and yes it just ripped the hinge  plates straight out of the bonnet ...     Ohh, one of the many joys of owning an Esprit.   ( I may have been doing a bit more than 50 mph at the time  )

At least you were saved any damage ..     

[ChrisJ]

@Lotusfab Happened to me a number of times in the early days. Learnt you have to press both sides down firmly to ensure that both catches are engaged. 

 

[Andyww]

8 minutes ago, CHANGES said:

I bet that was a surprise..   Many years ago I lost my bonnet..  And i never saw it go .. Yes i was looking forward , but it happened so fast i never saw it , only heard the wind noise change..   I had to go back 3/4 mile to find it impaled on the central reservation barriers ... and yes it just ripped the hinge  plates straight out of the bonnet ...     Ohh, one of the many joys of owning an Esprit.   ( I may have been doing a bit more than 50 mph at the time  )

At least you were saved any damage ..     

Thats exactly what happened to the Bond car. After this photoshoot the bonnet had been damaged and flew off on the way back to the factory apparently. Thats why it now has the later HC two-slot one. 
I suspect Fabian will not want to try re-creating this shot.

 

[CHANGES]

@Andyww   I call that great research and development,   Shame they did not carry it forward onto the Stevens model..  

[RobinB5]

Bet this bloke is just looking at the car, not the ladies

 

[ChrisJ]

Looks like Trevor Eve

[Lotusfab]

Ski racks

Well I think at last I may have turned a corner! I have almost completed a locking prototype for the upper racks. I now have all the materials to complete both of them. As all things it will just need a lot of man hours to complete. The best bit is I have done the difficult bit. When your thinking up something from scratch it takes a while! Once you have something physical its so much easy to refine and replicate.It isn’t very tidy at the moment, but will be when I remake it. Its remarkable I seemed to have squeezed everything into a very small space. I will of course have to test it through several cycles to ensure its robust.

[RichardJGC]

Better?

 

[Lotusfab]

Ski racks 

Had to start again with the lower rack design. My first one was too difficult to fit into the underside space. I have finally made a mark 2 version. It needs four bolts welding on and then with be painted and fibreglassed into the lower rack. This really has proved to be a mammoth task. I had considered giving up, but I’m still sticking at it for the moment.the idea is to drill some holes and bond this to the structure using more fibreglass. Its tricky to fit a structure Inside as the fibreglass  Isn’t perfectly symmetrical. There must be better ways of doing this but this is my solution.

[Choppa]

If Plan B, or is is Plan C fails, I'm not at all sure anymore,  and you find yourself forgetting about making the racks, as a last resort you could try these if you really need to carry the Olins on the back of your car

https://www.seasucker.com/collections/racks/products/ski-rack

I think Harry used them on his trip to Cortina.

[Lotusfab]

I have been making these for so long I have forgotten as well! Those sucker racks look quite good. I should finish the lower rack mountings in the next few days. Maybe a week before the upper ones are complete. Then I have to prep them for spraying. Once they are finished I’ll decide whether to bolt them on. 
This has been by far the longest and most difficult job on this build, it seems to just go on and on.

[Sparky]

52 minutes ago, Lotusfab said:

it seems to just go on and on.

Ain't that the truth.

[Fridge]

7 hours ago, Sparky said:

Ain't that the truth.

I think this is a blow-by-Blofeld account of the progress.😝

That gag works, but any Bond fan worth his Harry Saltzman knows the baddie in FYEO was Kristatos.

I must try harder.

[Lotusfab]

Speedo

Well it stopped working again. I have looked back through all of the threads on here and like a lot of threads theres not much of a conclusion. The issue is at the gearbox end and I think the problem is the angle drive shaft is not really long enough to engage in the speedo gear shaft. Any slight upward movement of the angle drive seems to disengage it.I could be wrong I will have to take the exhaust off and measure the distance inside the nylon bush to the top of the gear. I wire locked it, but found the metal had stretched allowing the drive to disengage. This time I have tried a cable tie. Not really a satisfactory design or I might be missing something? I think wear on the speedo gear shaft is allowing it to disengage more readily than it might otherwise do.  A solution would be to make the angle drive flat piece where it engages longer. Its working again at the moment. If it fails again I will take the exhaust off for a more detailed look. I did notice the parts manual lists two nylon bushes. They are sold by S and J one for pre c35 and the other for post C35. Does anyone know the difference they look very similar on the pictures? 

 

 

[Lotusfab]

At last!

[Paul Coleman]

Don't think I'd be drilling holes in it if it were mine!