Paul Coleman

Ah sorry, I thought you were referring to the small on on the handbrake arm. Ignore anything I previously said and I'll go back to sleep...

That's an impressive collection of cars you've got there

There shouldn't be any brake fluid in the handbrake mechanism bit should there? I can't remember.

I think people just use round ones.

PNM have supplied me with obscure bits for the rear brakes in the past.

Engines have been known to move and people have proposed engine stay designs in the past. If you drop the engine/gearbox out the bottom you can just leave that connected and undo it from the chassis? Then worry about it when it's out.

The car that these photos came from is a pretty unmolested car so I'm guessing it's correct. The wire goes from the outside to the inside near the bolt and then runs parallel with the seal down to the connector on the screen...

There are a few owners in Northamptonshire. Try a post in the Wanted section...

I have PMd you his details...

I will ask him and let you know. My S1 wouldn't make it past Northampton hahaha

Okay, too far for me but I know somebody (not on the forum) close by who has a white S1, when is it? Do you have an exact date?

Where is it?

This will probably be my last update as I have now sold this car to a fellow TLF member. So a big thank you to everybody who allowed me to buy all those missing obsolete parts. It was certainly a challenge but between us we've managed to save another one from the scrap heap. When I factor in all the other parts I've personally donated to the project I broke even, which is fine with me as I think the car has gone to a good home. I hope the new owner will keep us updated on his progress and I look forward to seeing it back on the road in the future

With great difficulty! With the first one I managed to pull it in one pop rivet at a time but you need to be able to put a lot of force on the pop rivets hence the big pop rivet gun. The second one wouldn't pull in using that method so I drilled a few holes in the body and used long self tapper screws to pull it together. Once it was tight all the way down I then pop riveted it and removed the self tappers. Not an easy task.

Intermittent bad earth?

They're SJ aftermarket ones and a bitch to fit

That radiator looks like an early S1 vertical radiator but the ends of the frame look different.

I am knackered! I've been fitting the new sills I bought from SJ a while back. The quality of the parts are fine but when you offer them up to the car there is a massive gap between the centre of the sill and the body which has to be pulled together as you fit it. It was something like 1/2" or more... That was at the back of the door and the gap is nearly big enough to fall down. Those two surfaces need to be touching and the sill needs to be tight against the body but you can't get behind it to push the two together. If you need to do this job... give it to somebody else!! With the first sill I fitted I managed to pull these together by fitting one pop rivet at a time and as I went along it pulled it bit by bit but on the other sill it pulled it out of square and I had to take it off and do it again. This was the first one... The pop rivets are 6mm diameter so don't bother trying to use one of those things you squeeze together to fit the rivets unless of course you have arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I used one of these and they're dead easy to use and don't require a lot of effort... I did not enjoy doing this job at all and wasn't sorry when it was over... And before you fit them make sure you've put the seatbelt brackets and the handbrake bracket on or you'll have to take them off again! But at least it now looks a bit more like an S1... If you'd like me to fit some for you at any time... you can bugger off... I just need to drill the drain holes in each sill now and I can tick that job off the list. Then I have a couple of big holes in the body at the back that I intend to fill in and then I'm done with the bodywork. I will let the new owner deal with the star cracks and any splits that need fixing but that will be easy work and anybody could do it themselves. All the new panels will easily blend in with a coat of high build primer and some blocking. There won't be a lot of filler needed at all. I will probably be itching for a week now as fibreglass really is horrible stuff to work with.

Time to deal with the 80s sunroof. I started by cleaning all the black gorilla snot off which had been used to seal the aluminium sunroof frame to the roof... And then stripped the paint off around the hole... It makes life easier when you can rotate the shell... There wasn't any primer underneath the paint and whoever painted this just slapped it straight onto the gelcoat. I've got an external roof mould so I gave it a coat of wax... Then, with the shell up the right way I used nearly every clamp I own to hold it to the roof... And then flipped it over before painting a layer of gelcoat... Then it was a case of laying up some fibreglass... At this point I thinned down the area of the existing roof around the hole and started laying up more fibreglass but going onto the roof as well... And at that point I ran out of resin so I removed the mould and flipped it back over... It's difficult to photograph from the outside because the gelcoat is clear... There are some air pockets between the gelcoat and the matting which you can see when the gelcoat is clear which I need to fix when I get some more resin. This was due to the fact that I went and had lunch between the gelcoat and first layer of matting... Once this has had a coat of etch primer and then a coat of high build primer it will be easy to blend it all together but according to Miles Wilkins these repairs need to be left for six months before painting to let the gasses out and stop sinkage... I left the repairs on my white car for six months and there is no sinkage on any of them... The next job is to fit the two new sills I bought from SJ Sportscars and at that point I just need to fill a couple of large holes and then the difficult bits of bodywork will be done. Any bodyshop will be able to finish it if the new owner doesn't fancy finishing the body themselves.

I have a mould for the fibreglass bit so just a couple of metal caps would do.

Everything leaks when it gets old

Has anybody got a pair of Eclat fuel caps they're willing to sell? I want them for an Esprit but I believe the Eclat ones are the same.

I managed to get a bit of time to work on my car today so I decided to do a bit more on the bulkhead so I started by sticking some matting to the top section... If you don't do this and try to fibreglass it fully in place it will be very difficult. At least this way, once it's dry, it doesn't slide all over the place. I fitted this piece with the shell upside down and then did the fibreglassing that way so that gravity was working for me instead of against me. It's very tight getting the brush in to bond this panel to the body as the gap is so narrow... If you do this make sure it's tight against the metal bracing panel at the back... I had to modify the slots for the seatbelts because they weren't big enough or even straight. A few of the holes didn't line up either so I had to modify those as well. I think this was a Friday afternoon one... Before I could fit any more of the panels I had to deal with this... I did a dry fit of the other two panels and this side looks fine... But this side is a bit short... It gets fibreglassed to the body so nobody will know (or care). You have to remember to get the holes on the correct side for the handbrake as these are where the cables run through to the back under the fuel tank. I then glued the centre section and screwed it together along with the bolts... I didn't bother with all the bolts as I'm going to remove the metal brace to finish fibreglassing the back. In the factory I think they fibreglassed it all and then fitted the brace which stuck the two together and explains why it was difficult to get the brace out. Then it's a case of fibreglassing a strip of matting to bond the back of the panels to the body and also to stop any fumes getting into the cabin... I've got a bit more to do but I'll wait until this lot has dried... At this point I got bored and decided to call it a day as I was itching and needed a shower. I will try and finish it off tomorrow if I get time. I think I'm going to sell this car once the bodywork is complete although I'm not going to do all of it, just the awkward difficult bits. I'll leave the star cracks and paint stripping to the new owner I think. Not sure if I will have taken it far enough to move it on at that point?

SJ sell them... https://www.sjsportscars.com/parts-and-accessories/X050B6078Z.htm

I spent very little time at school but I got all A grades, A=Absent. The first and second pictures show the same area. If you look bottom left on the second picture you can see the big hole which is also shown in the first picture.