Clean out your front turrets and Rusted metalastic bushes

[garyeanderson]

I finally got around to cleaning out the front turrets of an Elan that I bought in 1996, this was the chassis that 26/4020 was resting on for the last eight years and yesterday it got another chassis to rest on so this one finally came apart this morning. This was a low mileage (40,000 miles) Elan that was driven around Cambridge Massachusetts for 4 years and sidelined with a cylinder-head problem, what that was is unknown as the original head was gone but another was in the boot. Anyway I used the body to reconstruct 26/4597 and the chassis was kind just parked under another body because it was convenient to store both as a unit than in two parts. I had poked around the weep holes before with a screwdriver and I had gotten a fair amount of sand out of them, they looked like dueling hour glasses peeing sand for about a minute or more. I had thought I had gotten most of it but not really. Anyway the chassis was completely disassembled today (a day off from working on the sows ear project) and I got to flip over the chassis and see what I had missed. I had missed a lot but in all of the dried dirt and sand there was no rust at all, I guess I am very lucky that all of the moisture was allowed to either drain or evaporate during its extended slumber of 43 years and this chassis will be sandblasted and painted as I now have an open slot in the living room.

The other side was just about the same, I did say completely but the rear lower arms are sized on the fulcrum pins, any one know a good way to un-seize them? In the past I just burn the rubber to save the arm and then rebush it . I then just grind most of the way through the center sleeve and hope for the best...

See the bottom of page 6 to see how lucky I was with this chassis.
elan-f14/sows-ear-chassis-t24752-75.html
There are some pictures on page 7 too of it blasted and painted.

[Bill]

Gary

After you burn out the rubber bush use a dremel tool with a 1/64th inch cut off blade to get "just" thru the inner bushing sleeve - minimal to no damage to the shaft - then a small cold chisle should spread the cut and off it pops.

Another thing re. the dash crash pad repair. There are guys about that do vinyle upholstery repair and I think they are able to (thermal or chemical) weld cracks (pieces)together I dont know but it could turn out cosmedicaly but I suspect better than any alternative.

My Gizmo says hi to Beauregard.

Bill

[garyeanderson]

I rounded up some tools before the rain started and had at the seized metalastic bushes on the rear lower fulcrum pins. Once I had all of the tools it took about 10 minutes total to get both off. I wrote this up once but the computer seems to have lost that so this is a short version. Heat metalastic till the the bush fails and is easy to pivot and pry away with a suitable screwdriver. next, grind a furrow into the inner sleeve about half way, I just wanted a thin area to apply the heat to and it also gave the stillson a flat to bite on so I could give it some torque with out it spinning. Next re-light the burnz-o-matic torch and heat the inner sleeve along the thin furrow till the residual rubber stops smoking and apply suitable torque (about 30 ft/lbs was needed to get the sleeve to turn), wiggle up and down till it is loose and pull away from the tank and the sleeve came right off. here is the kit.

I finished disassembling the chassis yesterday. I had left the lotocones on Saturday as they had the original thin heads on the bolts and they needed some soaking in penetrating oil, well I didn't have any so I mixed up some acetone and ATF and dowsed the bolts liberally, they still didn't want to move with an open end 9/16 wrench so I got the Burnz-O-Matic out and gave it a good dose of heat and got about 8 turns before the head just wasn't going to turn any more. So I quit for a bit and thought about it. In the photo the top left is the bolt that was removed with the open end 9/16 wrench.

I wouldn't want to use any of them again They are just too long and I can not think of any reason that Lotus used them in the first place, they must have bought them right is all I can think of. Anyway I went out and got the cheap "made in Taiwan" 1/2 inch air impact wrench and the 9/16 socket that came with it and used the same Burnz-O-Matic torch to remove the other 3 and they may be usable but I still cant think of any reason to other than Lotus supplied them as OEM. I almost forgot, Lotus had used a 3/8 inch flat wsher in between the lotocone and chassis for some reason on this build, I have nott seen that before, it makes no sense at all as the lotocone had been collapsed except where the washers were, very odd I thought.