Esprit Turbo project car - part3 - the further continuation

[Lotusfab]

I had a electric toy of the green car! How things have come on!

[Andyww]

Hope the toy has proper ball joints at least

[silverfrost]

1 hour ago, Lotusfab said:

Just picked up another batch of plating and powder coated stuff. The whole car is 95 percent done. It makes such a difference in time saving and finish. Some of the bolts are like new and  in zinc and so are the studs! Now I just need to get it all back together!

I was always under the illusion until recently that stuff sent of to the platers always needed tapping out due to the new Zinc plating,  but after working on rather large batch of stuff with m3 m4 holes etc that got plated i was amazed that nothing needing doing.   I think getting all your nuts and bolts etc done Fabian is a fantastic idea  Also 95 percent complete sounds great 

[Fridge]

Getting nuts, bolts and other pieces zinc plated makes a lot of sense. Though I've found in the past that the coating brake callipers doesn't last due to the corrosive brake pad deposits and general exposure. So I generally spray mine with HT paint. I had all the gear box bolts yellow passivated prior to rebuilt which look great.

[Lotusfab]

Is that the pedal box tube?

[Lotusfab]

Protech solution

Spoke to Protech and have had a detailed look at the shock. The adjustment knob is held on by a grub screw. When you remove this there is just the slotted  brass adjustment spindle that the knob turns. The knob has a ball and spring with indentations in the shock allow it to click position. The damper can be adjusted by turning the slotted spindle like a carburettor mixture screw.

Solution, remove adjustment knob and put a rubber dust cover over the spindle or washer in the recess to keep dirt off the body. Use a thin screwdriver to adjust. Before taking the adjuster knob off wind it all the way out and set to about five clicks in. Job done no more fouling on the spring. Can't believe they haven't already done this for Lotus Chaps it's simple and easier to adjust!

[Lotusfab]

The shock now has full movement, just need to source a dust cover off eBay!

[Fridge]

Yes @Lotusfab I got everything zinc plated as the amount wasn't massive and you pay by the job. About £30 for silver and yellow (gold) passivated.

So even the pedal box stuff went in also.

Turned out quite nice.

[Lotusfab]

That looks perfect! My pedal box is in the final batch for powder coat. I've also go all of the headlight linkages fir zinc plate. 

[Lotusfab]

The best value Ive had on this job is the plating and powder coating. It's such good value and restores most parts to new. Even though I have blasting equipment, it just not worth the time or money for paint and there's no fumes to inhale!. Anyone who lives near Aldershott, Aurora powder coating did all my work. They can  help you with whatever you need doing! All the bits come back as new and wrapped in plastic. Got my handbrake done it's perfect, just like the S1 which they also did.

http://www.aurorapowdercoating.co.uk/

Cooling pipes

Have bitten the bullet and new chassis pipes are on their way!

[Andyww]

I will definitely try them next time as I am not going to use the place I used near Croydon again.

The problem with plating is if the part is somewhat rusty, it needs a lot of time spent on preparation, and they didnt. What they did was coarse sand blast the crap out of everything then plated, so everything came out with a matt finish. The only way to do rusty parts is to fine blast, coarse polish, fine polish, before plating. All very time consuming. For small parts I have a plating kit and have had great results when I have spent a very long time on prep.

Powder coating they cant really get wrong, it will cover a multitude of sins! 

[Andyww]

The other skill needed is aluminium part restoration. I found a great guy to do this: http://www.aloh.co.uk/

Some people silver paint castings but thats just wrong. The process he uses gives a totally original finish and lasts for ages. I did my Ferrari engine 4 years ago now and it still looks perfect.

[Fridge]

Powder coating does indeed cover a multitude of sins, but like with any other process, it is only as good as the preparation. I had a good quality sub-frame powder coated and it looked brilliant. However 15 years later (12 years of them in dry storage) and the you could peel some of it off like egg shell. I therefore do not recommend powder coating of chassis or running gear assemblies, which are exposed and need full removal to be refinished.

[Lotusfab]

Everything on a resto is interlinked! I need to get the chassis rolling. So I need to build the suspension and the wheels. In order to build the wheels I need to match the cx500 gold to the decals. So I need the decals. Problem!!!

Decals

has anyone out there got a dry sump with the original side stripes? In the picture the lower stripe looks thinner? Is this a camera angle or is the lower stripe thinner?

It doesn't give a clue in the parts manual.

[Andyww]

8 hours ago, Fridge said:

Powder coating does indeed cover a multitude of sins, but like with any other process, it is only as good as the preparation. I had a good quality sub-frame powder coated and it looked brilliant. However 15 years later (12 years of them in dry storage) and the you could peel some of it off like egg shell. I therefore do not recommend powder coating of chassis or running gear assemblies, which are exposed and need full removal to be refinished.

Thats true but the prep for powder coat only needs to be a coarse blast so its quick and easy. It will flake off if this is not done. Its good for items which flex such as anti roll bars, springs.

[silverfrost]

The picture of Mr Moore with the turbo esprit does indeed show that the bottom gold stripe is much thinner than the upper one,  you can clearly see this by looking at the rear quarter,  I am 99.9 percent sure this would not be a camera angle issue,  it seems as clear as night and day to me 

[TAR]

the parts list only shows 1 part number for both the stripes at 30 ran wide. S, I would assume they are equal.

 

[silverfrost]

 

 

 

 

But remember this car was not built  for standard sales and will be a little different i many areas,  the manual says it should have a turbo engine but in fact it was N/A    So it will not follow the manual in many areas Tim imo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RichardJGC]

They look equal in width in this photo....just how they should be.

 

[TAR]

I have to disagree. The stripes will have been readily available as they were originally designed for the Turbo Esprit.

 

[Andyww]

They should be equal.

[silverfrost]

If you take the picture that Richard posted,  put it into windows picture veiwer and zoom in on the stripes the top stripe measures 10mm on the computer screen and the bottom strip is considerably less ?  Not tried it on the above images, but the bottom one still looks less in those pictures to me just using the mk1 eyeball 

[silverfrost]

Easy way to put this to bed, or maybe not that easy lol.   Has the Miami car been restored or is it still how it was in the film ?  Email the museum and ask them to measure the stripes   

[silverfrost]

And if they do not reply to Fabian on his behalf  we should all email them every day with an email saying " Turbo stripe measurments"  with hundreds of spam emails a day i am sure they would soon pull their fingers out,  

[Andyww]

The Miami car was not used the film, it was a production car which was used for promo purposes after the film was made, then kept at Hethel for a number of years then sold on. So that car would not necessarily be exactly the same as the car in the film. 

Of course there is another possibility, there was more than one car used in the film so we might be looking at two different cars here!