jk952 wrote:Hi Gary, inspiring work...
So if you fit a used chassis to a different body, what is the probability of the bobbins lining up with the threaded holes in the chassis, ie. close enough to work?
And what is that sitting over your Elite a few pictures up....?
Jack
Hi Jack
I don't know how close the manufacturing tolerances were but this chassis was from an S4 and the body is an early S2 (some call them S1 1/2 ) and 9 (the 5 that went straight in and 4 more into the flat 16/18 gauge steel. One bobbin enlarged on the left front turret. The boot bobbins missed as did the ones in the foot wells and I think the two by the seat belt mounts missed as well. The Elite shares the shed with a Mk1 Cortina GT roller (V8 swap?). The Elan and Cortina are partners and I have always thought that they just are a natural to have if you own the Elan as they share quite a few parts.
This is the easy part and looks to get a lot done in a short amout of time.
Saturday 6:00 am
Saturday 9:15
Its pretty well stripped clean at this point, The two front lower back arms halves are still on as are the fuel line clips but pretty much ready for sandblasting. I will burn off the re rubber in the metalastic bushes before I sandblast the chassis
Sunday 2:30 pm
I started cleaning the front uprights to get off the heavy accumulation of crud before they are disassembled to be blasted, the differential is cleaned as are the brake lines. This one I feel will be a quickie, the Calipers had new pads just before it was parked and the pistons are fully retracted so caliper kits may be all that is needed.
I also pulled apart the two damaged diffs that need to be welded and machined. Kark said to get them clean so I tried to do just that, I used some kerosene and Gunk, the stuff was well used so when Dale stopped by he recommended that I use Brakleen and the blow gun to force it through the crack. I used up nearly a can of it (thank you Bill) before there was no color coming out of the crack. Dale went off with a can of it to do another job that he had (something about fiberglass repair on a sailboat rudder packing box that needed to get done on a Sunday). have to see how it works out but the cost of replacement is nothing I want to think about.
Monday May 14, 2012 8:30 am
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.