jason.goad

The first thing a stone will hit going through the mesh will be the radiator, so the cam belt is safe anyway. The large plastic undertray will stop stones from the road being kicked up to the cambelt. The cam belt guards are mainly there to stop 1980's mechanics with excessively long neckerchiefs loosing them.

Have you got a rivited rotor arm ?

Lovely looking 1985 Red Esprit Turbo heading away from Manchester on the M62. Turned onto the M6. Around 15.20.

I did exactly the same when I bought mine ☺ Feel free to join lotusexcel.net Great bunch of people with lots of knowledge. Glad it's sorted. Have fun

Just check the illumination control on the dashboard isn't turned down. There's 2 dials either side of the cigarette lighter. Left side is for the heater controls right side controls the guages.

What year is it? There's differences on earlier models (approx pre 86)

http://www.mossmotoring.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Lucas-Test-Card-6.pdf Here's a flow chart for diagnostics I'd Start by re-making the connections to the coil . That's probably the culprit. The Lucas constant energy system is pretty reliable ( despite what people say about the AB14). Sometimes the Rev limiter can be a problem (black box with a 3 wire multi-plug usually a bit lower down the inner wing). You can just unplug it to remove it from the equation, plug it back in when you are running ok.

I know a couple of people on Excel.net have a put some long cable ties around the catch hanging down through the engine bay. You can reach up from underneath to open the bonnet.

Ahhh. Yes. The 912 HC engine has a manually tensioner. It uses the same bearing which fits onto a eccentric hub and is adjusted by twisting the hub until the correct tension. The only problem is,looking at the parts manual I can't find a spacer that looks like that.

Have you taken to lower guard off. There should be a spacer on that ?

Hello. It fits between the tensioner body and the bracket in the picture. You should have 2 of them though. The middle hole on the bracket fits on a stud on the block, then the spacer. The bottom hole has a bolt through tensioner body, spacer, bracket into the block. Don't forget the earth wire between the tensioner body and the block. It cuts down of radio interference. Cheers Jason

Not the rear seatbelt anchor points, they are on a metal frame that fits underneath the moulding of the rear seats. I think the 2 smaller holes are the for the front seatbelt clips and the larger holes are for the body mountings.

Are they not for the body mounting bolts. There's 2 different sizes on the Excel.

You shouldn't have any backfire through the carbs when the engine is tuned correctly. I would suggest you get the engine tuned. It sounds to me like the carbs are out of balance with each other. The static timing should be about 9 degrees btdc. Any more than that will cause difficulty starting and general running.