502M

[Trunnion 74]

2 hours ago, EXCEL V8 said:

Great work Roland.  It will be worth it in the end!

Pete

That's what i keep telling myself Pete!

[Trunnion 74]

Day 18

Roof done! 

Sides still need doing but the bulk of it is off.

 

[Ivan Wood]

Hi Roland,

Does not seem to have been much activity on you thread recently so was wondering how it was going.?

I live in Canada and bought I believe a 75 Elite same colour red but have not started any serious work on it yet as it is winter and my garage is not heated. It would be great to get in contact with you as I am sure I am going to need help although I recently finished (sort of) restoring a 65 Elan.

Cheers

Ivan Wood

[Trunnion 74]

28 minutes ago, Ivan Wood said:

Hi Roland,

Does not seem to have been much activity on you thread recently so was wondering how it was going.?

I live in Canada and bought I believe a 75 Elite same colour red but have not started any serious work on it yet as it is winter and my garage is not heated. It would be great to get in contact with you as I am sure I am going to need help although I recently finished (sort of) restoring a 65 Elan.

Cheers

Ivan Wood

,Merry Christmas Ivan! 

Bet it's cold where you are lol. 

You will be glad to know that I have not been idle!  I am now at the stage where I need to get rid of the paint off all the fiddly bits.  The fuel filler recess on the rear quarter along with the swage line. Rear quarter is now finished.

And then onto the edge of the roof line, the B pillar and the rear door jamb.  Very few of these surfaces are flat so it has been slow progress, but I am pleased to say that I think I'm nearly done.  The nearside is done and I am half way through the offside.  Only another two days away from completing the task of stripping all the top exterior paint work off!!  Not too sure when those two days will be yet lol.

When That's all completed I then have two major repairs to do (I will be taking pictures as I do them) before we can move the body to it's new position and then I can get on with sorting out the underside of the car.  Which shouldn't take nearly as long as the top half has done!

Feel free to PM me

Roland

[Trunnion 74]

I'VE DONE IT!!

All the paint is off!  Well off the top half anyway. I have now done the two repairs I needed to do as well.

This is what needs repairing top of nearside sill.   Chase all the loose material and make it look 10x worse!

      

 

All layers were pre-cut ready.  Once I was happy I gave the whole area a good coating of resin (used 100ml + 2% hardner for the whole job) then applied the first small layer. Stippled and roller'd

     

 

Then applied layer number 2. Same again stippled and roller'd

  

 

Then on to layer 3. As you can see each layer got progressively larger. Then I applied a final layer of tissue.

      

 

Pleased with the results.

     

 

[Trunnion 74]

I have also rebonded the offside rear bulkhead.

Chased out all the loose old bonding material.                                 View through the filler

     

 

View from the boot.  I know it doesn't look pretty but It will get tidied up once it has fully cured.  That board and tube you can see is to hold flush the part of the join that had "sprung" while it cures.

Next week the body will be moved so I have got access to the underside in preperation for cleaning it up.  Luckily I don't have to take all the paint off this time, just the underseal.  Happy days!

[Trunnion 74]

Today was the day of....The big flip!   And no funky cracking noises when we did it either!

 

 

After 3hrs

 

This is going to need some work.

 

 

 

After 5hrs

 

I have been lucky as what I thought was underseal turned out to be years of oil and muck.  There is some underseal but it appears to be mainly in the arches.  Still plenty to keep me busy.

 

[EXCEL V8]

Brilliant work Roland!  I'm coming out in fibreglass sympathy-itch!  😂

Pete

[Trunnion 74]

Thanks Pete.

😂Someone has actually made a video about that.

I may have to get some Tee-Shirts made

[Trunnion 74]

More repairs to add to the list...

This car is made out of Shredded Wheat

! 

 

 

 

Nearly got all the underseal off.

[EXCEL V8]

When I took all the paint off my car there were dozens and dozens of factory gelcoat repairs - mainly voids on the sharper radii.  I think early cars like ours were poor compared to later cars.  The fibreglass on the Excels is exceptionally good.

Pete

[jonwat]

17 hours ago, Trunnion 74 said:

More repairs to add to the list...

This car is made out of Shredded Wheat

Make sure you don't just "V" out the cracks & fill, they need to be properly repaired or will show as "shrinkage" a month or so after painting 

[Trunnion 74]

On 21/03/2022 at 09:52, jonwat said:

Make sure you don't just "V" out the cracks & fill, they need to be properly repaired or will show as "shrinkage" a month or so after painting 

I will be working on the 12 to 1 principal on all the repairs Jon

On 20/03/2022 at 16:43, EXCEL V8 said:

When I took all the paint off my car there were dozens and dozens of factory gelcoat repairs - mainly voids on the sharper radii.  I think early cars like ours were poor compared to later cars.  The fibreglass on the Excels is exceptionally good.

Pete

All the damage I've seen so far Pete seems to be down to careless storage/driving?

[Trunnion 74]

Nearly done.

Previous repair?  I'm sure we can do better than that.

  

 

Almost everything on the underside removed and cleaned up.

 

This is the last big bit, offside wheel arch.

 

 

[Trunnion 74]

Difficult to see all the underneath but ALL the underseal has been removed and it has all been keyed.  Repairs anyone?

 

Shall we start with this bad boy?  There are three cracks that need attention so they will be tackled individually, worst one first.

 

Angle grinder with a flappy wheel Looks brutal, and is.

 

First couple of passes and still chasing lose and delaminated glass

 

Finally get back to some clean glass but had to take some of the foam as well as it had degraded (water I think), the good stuff is harder than I expected.

My concern from here is that there is nothing rigid under the repair so rollering the glass sheets to laminate it and get rid of air bubbles would be difficult and I want to end up with a good solid repair that will last.  The two options are 1:  fill the void with fibreglass bridger to raise the level, but I don't know how well it would stick to the foam, and then run fresh glass over the top.  2: Run a couple of glass sheets from the edge into the void and then out the other side (sort of hammock) and then use some bridger to fill the gap.  That way I end up with a solid foundation to lay the final layers of glass over the top.

Roland

[Trunnion 74]

Small repairs will be done with CSM which is a fine fibreglass filler

    

 

And medium repairs will get flled and skimmed with bridger and then some CSM for profiling.

   

[EXCEL V8]

I'd fill the hollow with filler containing fibre glass (available off the shelf) - it will stick pretty well.  You could always lay a single layer of CSM before filling.  Flat off and lay up over the top.

Great progress though!

Pete

[Trunnion 74]

Thanks Pete.

I went for the hammock approach in the end

 

Then filled with bridger

Then a final layer of CSM

Sorted the other two as well, So on this bit I have the gouge to sort along with the other crack that can be seen between the V of the other two repairs.  Once all that lots done I'll then do the final finish.

 

[Trunnion 74]

Don't know what's going on but I seem to be missing some pictures on this page and some of the others as well???  Not sure what's going on or if I can get them back?

Well here are some fresh pictures.

Rebuilding the area where the steering column comes through.  Looks like a weak point but I have a plan for it.

Glass mat in. Once gone off and I'm happy I will cut out what is not needed.

 

And finally.  I think we'll call those sill repairs done.

 

[Trunnion 74]

An update on the area where the steering column comes through, It's all been re-built.  It's always bothered me that it seemed to be a weak area as this was where the inner sill crack started and I have been told its a common problem.  Not wanting any future issues I decided to add some extra strength so I have bonded in a steel plate and I will do the same on the inside.  This will ensure that any movement from the steering column will be evenly distributed and hopefully no more cracking.

Having completed all the major repairs I asked my paint guy to go over the underside and mark any areas that he could see that needed some extra work.  He was very thorough..   Most of the areas marked just need a light skim of Fibreglass filler, nothing major.  Should keep me occupied for a little while

N/S inner wing

 

Front end

 

And the rest

 

 

[EXCEL V8]

Great work Roland - it will all be worthwhile!  I like the reinforcement idea around the steering column fixing area.

Pete

[Trunnion 74]

Masking up ready for underbody coating

 

Etch primer going on

 

One coat of etch primer done now ready for tinted Raptor coat.

 

Here's a thing.  There has always been something that has bugged me with this car.  Why a brown interior with a white car?  To me it didn't make sense, surely black is is the interior colour to go with white, isn't it?  Another more recent thing that has puzzled me is whilst preping the underside I came across several areas of paint that looked more an ivory, off white (?)  See below.  I put this down to aged paint work....Seems I may have been wrong.

 

We ordered the paint code L04 Cirrus White and this is what we got!

In the words of a certain Mr MacEnroe "You cannot be Cirrus"! Can you? Seems it is.

 

All done.

I decided in the end not to go for textured application not a smooth one.  This is the area in the rear arch where i removed the steel fuel pump plate and re-bonded it back in and used fibreglass filler to blend it in with the body.

 

The interesting thing is that this picture of the front wheel arch was taken with no flash

 

There is a yellow tint to it, but this one was taken with flash, and

it looks white! 

But this one was taken without any flash

And it also looks white! 

Having checked the Lotus paint chart they only did two whites a Cirrus white (L04) and a Monaco white (L25).  The earliest I have seen referance to Monaco white on an Elite on the internet is 1977.  Having had a look back at the original photos I was sent of the car when it was two weeks old I have to conceed that there is an off white look to it.  I am confident it's the right white, but must confess not what I was excpecting. Seems that this paint has a bit of a split personality.

Roland

 

 

 

 

[EXCEL V8]

Mine is Monaco white - 1974 Elite - was in cellulose.  Now Monaco white in two-pack (black Raptor underbody).  Love your work Roland!

Pete 

[Trunnion 74]

4 minutes ago, EXCEL V8 said:

Mine is Monaco white - 1974 Elite - was in cellulose.  Now Monaco white in two-pack (black Raptor underbody).  Love your work Roland!

Pete 

That is interesting Pete.  We really must get together sometime, the workshop isn't very far from where you are I believe.

Roland

[EXCEL V8]

That would be great Ronald.  I've spent the last 3 months on a mini-restoration of my Mercedes daily driver (rust!) but that goes for it's MOT on Thursday so back onto the Elite then hopefully!

Pete