Yet another resto

[duncan42]

Long shift today with what should have taken an hour or so taking n early 5 hours. Moving my rolling chassis to it new home. Turns out the shed i built 4 years ago around her with the idea of disgarding it when she was rebuilt i had to dismantle to get her out. So here she is in her new home

 Although the chassis will be good once shotblasted and recoated ,the front end is not so happy, with a wee bit of fabrication required where the anti roll bar mounts are ,quite annoying as the rest is good under the surface rust.

[mikeeech]

Getting the rolling chassis done is strangely rewarding I found. Once all the bushes and brakes are refreshed and restored on a solid chassis you can imagine that the car will drive as new once completed. The chassis is fairly easy to do (with the exception of the engine and gearbox) and the parts cheap. The body on the other hand is a very different kettle of fish

[duncan42]

Cheers mikeeech, planning to shotblast,red oxide then top coat. Anyobe know best place i can get all the bushes?

[mikeeech]

Unless you can do this yourself and save alot of cost i got mine (a previously galvanised chassis I brought second hand) sand blasted, which of course stripped the zinc coating, then hot zinc sprayed and then powder coated. 

Powder coating alone is better than painting since the electric charge used to attract the powder tends to attract the powder to the thinnest areas of coating and makes it very robust.

The reason I got mine sand blasted and hot zinc sprayed was the oil on the chassis which needed cleaning off really well to get the powder coating to stick. Hot zinc spraying was more expensive than regalvanising, however I needed to hire vans to transport the chassis between different companies and the van needed to be big and therefore was about £100 each time. The guys that did the sand blasting also did the hot zinc spraying and powder coating

Getting my chassis cleaned up and coated was about £350 excluding the van hire and it sat outside for a winter after being done with know sign of any rust developing anywhere.

If you can transport the chassis, getting it galvanised is surprisingly cheap and there will be a company near you that can do it! From memory galvanising was about £100. Obviously you don't need to powder coat then.

[johnpwalsh]

Why not try find a galvanized chassis, save all the welding and be ready to go.

 

[silverfrost]

Agree with John, 

Just call Mike at Lotusbits.com 

[duncan42]

Agree with that too but can blast and repair chassis myself so thats a lot of money can spend on other parts.

[tom kilner]

galvanised chassis are hard to come by these days. Lb have a waiting list.

[silverfrost]

That is bad news Tom 

I think Mike at Lotusbits should maybe send that large stack of bare chassis s of to be galvanised ! 

Would be a worthwhile investment for him and he would also probably get a rather large bulk discount on a job lot to be galvanised and at the same time clear his waiting list ! 

Come on Mike get it booked and get the van filled up ! 

As Del Trotter says " You know it makes sense " 

[SimonOmeara]

Hi Duncan

Try this company http://www.appliedsurfacetreatments.com

Speak to Richard he will shot blast it and either hot zinc or aluminium spray and then powder coat it. He did mine and it was the right money...

[Filbee]

On 08/06/2018 at 23:58, silverfrost said:

That is bad news Tom 

I think Mike at Lotusbits should maybe send that large stack of bare chassis s of to be galvanised ! 

Would be a worthwhile investment for him and he would also probably get a rather large bulk discount on a job lot to be galvanised and at the same time clear his waiting list ! 

Come on Mike get it booked and get the van filled up ! 

As Del Trotter says " You know it makes sense " 

I'm afraid there's a waiting list for even non-galvanised Elite/Eclat chassis. I've struggled to get a replacement chassis for my Elite and have ended up going down the Excel chassis swap route for this reason...

[esprit s2]

Didn't Spyder make a chassis? Are they still going?

[silverfrost]

I thought spider was only for elan and Europa ?  I remember they may of done a set of cv rear shafts for the Elite, eclat?  

[Dunc]

Spyder are still going, and their stuff for elites and eclats was still linked on their webpage, but the last time I spoke to them (castle coombe about 8 years ago) they said they didn't really do stuff for elites and eclats anymore.

They once did a complete replacement chassis for the elite and eclat (usually painted red with circles cut out of it), as well as producing the Donnington kit, which was a completely redesigned chassis designed to accommodate a rover V8, and optionally a Jag IRS rear end.

The CV joint thing you are referring to was their attempt to "cure" the driveshaft UJ issue on elites and eclats by adding in a mount for a top wishbone link and inserting a cv joint. Despite adding durability, it wasn't well thought of and was said to interfere with the handling of the car as the mount at the chassis end wasn't really in the right place, and it did strange things to the camber angle as the suspension compressed. Needed a bit more development I believe.

You occassionally see cars with  Spyder stuff showing up (a friend has one with a replacement chassis). I also have a set of tubular rear arms which I think were made by them, but I heard they had lost the measurements and wont make more.

They seem to make their living putting zetec's into elan +2's nowdays, which creates a very nice car indeed!

[silverfrost]

Cheers for posting Dunc, 

Have never seen their elite or eclat chassis. Would love to look round one of their chassis designs. 

Must if been a hard sell a few years ago with what those cars used to fetch as most got broken and hardly ever rextorted let alone revamped with ano all singing and dancing spyder chassis lol.

Maybe now days they would probably earn more money of their products for the elite/eclat cars going up in value with a more widespread following also. 

[Dunc]

I'll see if I can persuade him to take some pics.

I think you hit the nail on the head with resale values. It was probably a viable product when the cars were valuable and had chassis issues, but as their values fell into semi-bangerdom, nobody was willing to spend that amount of cash on a chassis as it didn't make economic sense.

Hope your right on the last part (if they still have drawings).

Dunc

 

[silverfrost]

If folks are saying that Mike at Lotusbits not only has a waiting list for galvanised elite/eclat used chassis's but also standard non galvanised ones also according to one of the members that posted on the forums today.

Then this would be a good time for spyder to step in and strike while the irons hot. 

Maybe folks could possibly do a group order and this would probably spur Spyder on to possibly consider dusting off the cobwebs on the drawings they will probably find very quickly once they see a possible group order spring up.

May be worth pinging them an email to get them to post on here to get the ball rolling.

, They are obviously true lotus enthusiasts and hopefully will look into the option of starting producton again maybe.  

You never know ! 

[mikeeech]

When I was looking for a replacement chassis the Spyder chassis was still listed on the website at around £1200. I brought a second hand one for £100. They do come up on eBay from time to time. Repairing this one is not a major job for a competent welder but imo it should be galvanised after the repair for peace of mind

[johnpwalsh]

Just come across an Excel chassis if its any good for you.

[duncan42]

John,do you know if this is still available,spare time is something thats been evading me lately be quicker swapping chassis. Cheers

[johnpwalsh]

Yes it available. I am currently in Dubai, but will check what he wants for it when I get home in 3/4 weeks time.

[Christof Jantzen]

Hello:

 

I just found this thread as I am beginning to restore a 74 Elite 503 (here on its way to the paint shop) . One issue is sourcing some parts 

such as the rocker panels and the small S1 spoiler. I am based in the US and I understand most of the parts are

better to source in the UK. Any sources for the above items?

Christof

[black eclat]

Lotus Bits

and

SJ Sportcars

are your best options.

 

 

 

 

[mikeeech]

If you could get away with it I would ditch the federal bumpers (fenders?) too. The us spec looked a bit of an after thought. Nice work though. Fancy starting another thread with more photos?

[johnpwalsh]

So another with an odd set of wheels. I purchased a bitzer the other week which is way past redemption and it has the weirdest set of wheels I have yet to see on an Elite/Eclat. The car is sitting on fencing post to hold it up as the chassis has totally gone.

Anyone recognize them.