'85 Esprit Turbo Restoration

[Steve4012]

I don't believe there is vacuum advance, this is my 81 Turbo and pretty sure my '85 is the same.

*Sorry no time to edit pic the right way round.

Steve.

[910Esprit]

4 hours ago, martynw said:

Plenty of other bits to work on though - but latest is the distributor.  Looks in very good condition, but doesn't have a vacuum advance and instead seem to have a blanking plate fitted where the vacuum would go.  Can't find reference to that in my service notes - am I missing something or is it the wrong one?

Sounds absolutely correct - A Lucas 43D distributor.   Presumably with a Lucas Constant Energy pickup inside?

[martynw]

It is marked as a Lucas 45D M4, but does have the constant energy pickup. I've left the service notes in the garage but will add a pic of the relevant page here tomorrow, and check whether this number looks compatible.

[910Esprit]

A '43D' is just a '45D' without a vacuum unit, so suspect the bodies are all stamped 45 as the casting is the same.   The 'M' also indicates its a CE distributor,   so I'd have no reason to suspect its not all original, however there will be a 5 digit model number, commencing '41'  also stamped, which will confirm exact fitment

[Gis]

It’s the same as mine on an 84 turbo. No vacuum, just a blanking plate. Looks original. Nice clean engine block 👌

[martynw]

Work has pretty much ground to a halt because I am rebuilding part of the workshop.  I have managed to respray bits of the Turbo Plenum and smarten up the manifold and paid other people to finish the turbo rebuild, removed snapped studs etc from the wastegate adapter and machined so I can put new ones in. The seized Bendix rear brake calipers and a very stiff water pump are also away being sorted out.  When the builders have gone, I need to sit down and do a big order for gaskets, seal kits etc and then hopefully quite a few bits can be attached relatively quickly now all the problems are sorted.

I've also been sorting through a huge selection of pipes, trying to work out what goes where.  I think I have pretty much everything to plum up the oil system and cooling.

The air conditioning is more questionable - there is no compressor but I do have a condensor, and a lot of pipework.  I am hoping the evaporator is still in the body of the car - but that is currently 7 foot up in the air, with another  car underneath it and nothing can be moved because the workshop is rammed with stuff due to the building work.  I am assuming the general view is that it is worth sorting the air con, in which case is there a modern compressor that can be used?

[CarBuff]

Lotus used a Sanden 508 compressor, readily available.  They make them for both R12 refrigerant and R134.

 

We  always recommend sticking with R12, it is more efficient so it cools better. 

 

Leaks are commonly on the Schrader valves in the RH bottom of the engine bay.

[910Esprit]

I. Converted to a smaller sanden r34 compressor. Maybe 3 years ago. Would not recommend r12 in UK.  It's obsolete. Would also recommended changing hoses. Then it will be good for years to come

[martynw]

OK, after a pretty long layoff due to workshop building, rewiring, repainting etc, but I am now getting back into this. There is another temporaly divertsion putting my Elite back on the road (rear brake drum problems) but that shouldn't take long at all. 

I've sorted and refitted rear calipers, disks and drive shafts, fitted the manifold (a pig of a job I don't want to do again thanks),  refurbed the wastegate/wastegate adaptor and got a new exhaust from SJ, so can refit that lot soon. I'm now trying to locate all the gear linkage parts and coolant pipes in the many boxes I got with the car so that I can order whatever is missing and move onto those.  Also need to sort out the timing belt and associated bits.

However, while the worskhop was out of action, I did rebuild the carburettors and master cylinders,  and freshened up the turbo diffuser with some nice new crinkle paint, so more bits are ready to go on nice and easily (hopefully).

Does anyone know a thread on here that sets out how far it is advisable to go before refitting the body? Just a little worried I'll start fitting too much and have to take it all back off again when I try to fit the body over it...

 

[silverfrost]

Restoration so far looks fantastic,  I would put a rag or cover over that open manifold though as Murphy law something will end up in there  while working on the car, worse case scenario somthing like an m4 nut  or such like ! 

[martynw]

Good point Dan - it is masked off now.

I think I have successfully retrieved and tidied up all the bits of the gear shift linkage from the various boxes that came with the car - moment of truth now as I try fitting them...

 

[martynw]

Right...when I dug the stuff out I was quite pleased to see the gear shift rods had been upgraded to rose joints at the ends (other than the gear stick end), but having fitted them, the rear rod now has enough movement to touch the rear brake disk.

Has anyone else made a similar mod and is there a quick an easy solution to this, or do I need different rose joints with less side to side movement? 

Hope the pics below taken from behind the gear box show the problem.

 

[martynw]

I think I have fixed it by moving the rear rod to the outside of the pivoting arm rather than the inside.  My manual seems to have a different set pictured up with a rear rod that comes up from below the the gear box lever, and fixes to the inside of the pivot arm.  This one seems to work fine if you do it fix it to the outside (at least until I try to fit other bits and find there is no space now....)

[snowrx]

I would say a larger, maybe nylon washer between the shift lever and the rose joint to limit it's leftward movement. Thanks for posting, I had been considering doing this on my '85.

[TAR]

Have you got or do you need the nylon and rubber bushes from the original setup to reduce the "twist"? 

The pre 1985 setup had an underslung rod. Yours is the 85 on setup.  

[martynw]

I need a new nylon/rubber bush for the bottom of the gear lever as the one that came with it is missing one side of the plastic (and is a bit worn). I've fitted it for now, will pick one up with my next order of spares.

The new rose joints remove the need for these though, just think I need to fiddle a bit to ensure the lengths are right and the alignment is spot on. The rose joints also have washers with a chamfer on the outer edge of one side - fit that towards the ball and they have more sideways movement, turn them around and it is more limited.

I got it working pretty well tonight, but think a bit of tweaking will probably get it even better next week. As I get to grips with it, I'm impressed with the way the upgrade works, though having never tried the old system it's hard to say how much better it is.

[eeyoreish]

Watching your progress with interest Martyn! You're about 2 years ahead of me working on basically the same car 😳

[martynw]

Been a while since I have been on here but the gear shift mechanism is now all done. I removed some of the play in the rear control rod by fitting large diameter nylon washers to each side of the rose joints.  However, this still left ~10mm side to side movement in the rod that passes the brake disk - not enough to make contact, but still not ideal.  I got rid of by setting the rose joints slightly offline in opposing directions. - hope the photos show the idea.  The new gear lever bush was the thing that made the biggest difference though.

 

[martynw]

Next problem is the cooling system.  I've cleaned up all the pipes and hoses that came in boxes with the car, and worked out which are salvagable.  Having bought replacements for the missing/knackered bits from SJs I've discovered I appear to have a modified cooling system - apparently there was an official service not in 1986 that led to a small number of cars being fitted/retrofitted with a sort of hybrid system between the original turbo cooling system and the HC one that followed.

The main difference appears to be that the parts that came with my car suggest the bypass circuit and the pipes connecting the header tank to the system were 22mm pipes/hose.  The parts Steve has sent me are 32mm.   I've not managed to track down the  Service Note , so not quite got to the bottom of this, but it anyone has a copy/know a link to one it would be much appreciated.  In the meantime, here are the parts I got with the car.

 

 

[martynw]

Mystery solved on the heating parts - service bulletin 1987/26 has details of modifications to the cooling systems with a new layout to make it a bit less marginal on the European models.  My car is one of 63 UK models to have been done this way from the factory.  Nice to be exclusive, just a pain in the a**e when working from the parts manual. 

Good news is that now I have seen the new parts diagram, a further rummage in the boxes has turned up all the bits, so I can send lots of the wrong new bits back and get a refund .

[AvalineV8]

Hi Martyn, just reading up on the lotus refurbish, looks and sounds like you're doing a great job! Re the Turbo refurb/rebuild, I work for a company that specialises in all things lotus related including turbos and full engine rebuilds. if you wanted to send an email to info@apsmotorsports.com and we can see if we can help you out if you haven't already got yourself sorted. Good luck and keep up the hard work. 

Just now, AvalineV8 said:

Hi Martyn, just reading up on the lotus refurbish, looks and sounds like you're doing a great job! Re the Turbo refurb/rebuild, I work for a company that specialises in all things lotus related including turbos and full engine rebuilds. if you wanted to send an email to info@apsmotorsports.com and we can see if we can help you out if you haven't already got yourself sorted. Good luck and keep up the hard work. 

 

[martynw]

After much too long working on other things, holidays and so on, and so months of very slow progress, i have started to move things forwards again with the Esprit.

The cooling pipes are all fitted as per the modified set up, just awaiting one missing heating pipe from SJ before I can properly cross it off the list.

Carbs are now on, and the back plate of the plenum box is loosely fitted - I understand the final missing heating pipe fixes to it somehow, so left a few bolts off until I have that and work out how.

Timing belt and tensioner are fitted and engine has been turned over several reveolutions.  All went very nicely and all stayed lined up.

Alternator and air-con compressor bracket are fitted, but I am missing the compressor itself at the moment, and waiting for new v-belts for the alternator and water pump, so there is a little bit more to do there.  I'm finding it easy to get an equivalent Sanden compressor, but struggling to get one fitted with v-belts, so trying to locate an old set that I can swap onto a new compressor.

I've attached a few pics to show progress, (a couple have the plenum and diffuser on as a quick test fit.)

 

[martynw]

I think next steps will be to fit the turbo, wastegate, exhaust etc when the final missing parts arrive and are assembled.  Advice on how much of this to put on before dropping the body back onto the chassis would be appreciated.

The body needs a couple of minor cracks and holes on the underside fixing and I'll probably tidy up the inside of the engine bay and touch up all the underside paint etc before reuniting them (as well as take the mandatory photo of me standing in it).  Anyone know of a plan/drawings showing where the paint should go from body colour to black/stonechip paint?  Also, what do people recommend using on the underside?

One final puzzle is the oil gallery cover photographed below.  I know one port is for the oil pipe going to the pressure gauge - but I can't work out what the other is for.  I'm also not sure what the blue fitting in there is. But hope that will become clear when I find the gauge pipe in the body somewhere.

Hopefully some more updates next week...determined to keep this moving now.

 

[Steve V8]

35 minutes ago, martynw said:

Also, what do people recommend using on the underside?

Raptor bed liner paint was recommend to me after id finished painting the underside, it looks like a better choice than standard satin stone chip, what do others think?

[Barrykearley]

I’ve used it @Steve V8 - that raptor stuff is bloody ace