Lotusfab

My new cam cover is waiting for install with a new gasket.the gasket seems far more substantial than previous ones its much thicker which would help seal the casting imperfections. The gasket is made from the same material as the original Lotus specked ones.

Your in an ideal position to refurb the loom yourself, its really easy! Buy the blue crimp tool and connectors from Auto sparks. No need for additional wires just upgrade the loom wires you have. Colour coded from Autosparks they cost pence per metre. Cut the old crimps off and put new ones on. I will do some pics on how to crimp if you get stuck, seriously the only difficult bit is matching the crimp tool to the crimp and wire size. Auto sparks have done this for you as the tool comes with insulation and crimps. Disagree on the solder. Crimp and solder which it what I have just done to the fan wire where it joins the relay. You need a really powerful soldering iron. I bought a 90W for £17 on Amazon. When you solder it welds the wire to the crimp making much better contact and if your crimp is dodgy like my one was it won’t matter. I have a modern blade fuse holder in my glovebox now just for the fans. To be honest I only soldered that one because of the high current load and I am confident in my crimping ability. My electrical engineer friend always does both. Hes currently traveling across Europe in a car he restored. Oh I bought a new glovebox from S and J it was too thin to support the fuse holders so I fibreglassed the end to reinforce it. No problems after that.

Just finished the fan wiring, it was pretty simple apart from removing the trim!

Have you still got the 65amp on the car? Maybe it was a one off? I will do a lot of driving in the coming days and try and get it to fail.

Thats a worry! Thanks Jon they were fitted dry and no traces of oil. I check the cover and couldn’t detect anything I also dressed the surfaces. I fitted an S and J gasket and that lasted for some month and then failed. I may try the feeler gauge test I only checked it with an engineering straight edge.

Well after about 35 miles my new nitrile rubber exhaust cam gasket is leaking. I put it through one deep heat cycle by deliberately hunting out a traffic jam. To be fair I don’t think the cam cover is warped, but it might be - its difficult to check as my engineering rule is short. Anyhow in my search for perfection I am going to use another gasket made from the original Lotus material and the very best sealant Reinzosil. Its a silcon based compound and has excellent reviews. I am going to clean clean clean as I did before and have a new cam cover coming that is perfectly straight. If this doesn’t seaI then I can’t see how it is possible to permanently seal the exhaust cam cover. I have lost count of how many times I have done this job. They always seem to fail eventually with heat cycles. I have never used the original gasket material or this sealant, so will be interesting to see the result. The gasket vulcanises and bonds to metal under heat. I am planing on pushing this car to it absolute limit so I need everything spot on. I don’t want any weak points at all on this car and have tried to build in a level of redundancy where possible or exceed the design limits where able. With this in mind I decided to bypass the loom for the Kenlowe fans, as David Jinks has done. I want the fans running all day without issue. I estimate the fan load is about 18 amps, so I am installing thinmwall 26 amp cable fused and connected directly to the positive on the starter. I plan to have an addition blade fuse mounted in the glove box for quick change. I have already installed the wire which was very tricky to route without removing all of the trim. It took a day and I have still got to complete the job. The car is driving amazingly well after all the additional work! Still going to be ramp checked this Thursday.

Heres the Axminster tanks… Maybe if enough people ordered them he might change his m8nd and make some more.

Axminster, but sadly he won’t make them anymore.

Nice

New alternator fitted. Exactly the same charge voltage as the Lucas 14.2 v. All four fans on 13.98 V. My engineering friend is a retired electrical engineer, late 60s. He has been building cars for most of his life and was a director and technical adviser for years at a very prestigious car club. What he doesn’t know about cars isn’t worth knowing. He crimps and then solders the crimp with a high powered soldering iron. He has had crimps fail in the past and finds this method more reliable. I find it more useful to go with practical experience rather than the internet. I read so many conflicting bits of information on line most of it seems to have an objective like selling something. My crimping has improved massively now I have a quality tool paired with the correct crimps.

Has anyone else got one of these? I looks far better than my Lucas, but a lot of things from China do!

Thing is I am at the experimental stage with the blower. I could have it controlling itself, override switch or coming on with the main fans. Not sure what the best option is so I have a manual control. I have never needed an extra fan even in 10 hours at 35 degrees. My new alternator and 25 amp wire just arrived so I will be busy fitting the alternation looks very decent, if it fits and works it will be a very good upgrade.

Thats I have a digital controller and a separate temperature gauge.

Done runs well. At the moment pulling cold air from below and operated by a double pole switch. I did have it in automatic mode. Need to do lots of testing to find out the best set up. Thanks Jon Roberts who sent me some pics of his set up.

Its funny how some cars are restored and work flawlessly until they are sold! 😀😀😀😀