soldave

Agreed. I would say if fluid is up to the bottom of the fill hole when the car is level then you should be good

Welcome to Elie ownership! I have an Eclat but part of the same family. On tyre pressures I run 24 at the front and 22 at the rear. I has a similar threat on this when I got the car (https://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/topic/88808-what-tyre-pressures-are-you-running/) Not sure what colours were available - If I recall, in a lot of the literature the Elite was a dark blue. Yellow looks really good for these cars, as does red (do a search for the Red Panther for something a little different). I'm personally not a massive fan of white on these cars but black can look very good. As for gears, 5th is the noisiest for me but it's not too bad. Not sure if I've been any help or not, but welcome to the family

My Eclat is the same in some areas. I've heard dark brown suede dye is the thing for this and I've had some success when I've bought small pots of it in the past. You need a fair amount though to do it all. Good luck!

The Eclat continues to hurt my simple brain. New wheel bearing, new hub carrier, new inner and outer UJs fitted and all torqued up to spec. Initial drive is short and I might be able to hear a noise on rotation, but then again I may just be imagining it. Get home and jack the car back up to make sure everything is still tight and there's 12 o'clock movement when I push the wheel in towards the diff. Rotate the wheel 90 degrees and there's no movement anywhere, rotate another 90 degrees and it's back. put a jack under the hub carrier to simulate drive height - no movement ("obviously", some might say) Checked everything is torqued, including going as far as the inner driveshafts to driveshaft assembly, and all good. I really don't want to believe another wheel bearing has failed on me :if it has the car may have to stay on jackstands for a while as I've just been throwing money at it recently and my wife will start to ask questions about why we're only eating rice and drinking water each day!

This has probably been asked elsewhere, but are those seats original? Whatever they are, they look lovely as does the rest of the car!

Brilliant build and progress. Huge kudos to you for the attention to detail and taking the time and effort to make everything just right

I looked at that paint can and thought it might have been citrus white and not cirrus! Really good to see you making progress

Looks like mystery may be solved. That clanging coming from the diff area... outer UJ had gone. Three ends looked good, the other had no grease in. Am assuming linked to the bearing failure. Took all circlips off the UJs but ended up just replacing the outer UJ and replacing the clips on the inner one. To tell the truth, I'm so nervous now about whether the circlips are in the UJs securely. It all looks good but it did with the wheel bearing and I just don't trust myself! Might have to do some very gentle drives then come back and check them to build up my confidence. Or I just take the shaft to my local garage and ask them to sense check it for me.

Will do Am also wondering about the outboard driveshaft part that goes through the bearing and hub and whether that took some less noticeable damage. If that's warped a little or something it could be causing the movement both at the hub carrier and maybe backwards putting force on the inner driveshaft and causing that very slight movement in drum. This is all speculation right now but the UJs and outer driveshaft are probably next to replace.

Thanks. The Eclat is undriveable with the noise it's making so I need to diagnose it and fix it. Right now I refuse to believe the second replacement bearing I got was dead on arrival but will check the torque on the hubnut to make sure its at 200ft-lbs. What bothers me is that even when the wheel bearing went last time and i was limping the car back home, there wasn't this noise. It seems to have developed either just as I got home or afterwards. I've had the inboard driveshaft out again today to recheck that and it looks fine. Looks like I hadn't done a great job on seating the o-ring last time so I've put a new o-ring in place. Rotating the inboard driveshaft 180 degrees doesn't see to have moved the "point of clanging", which gives me hope it isn't something in the diff. But I'm also losing confidence it's the UJs too. I do have a pair of new ones though so might just get the driveshaft out and replace them so i can cross it off my list of possible issues. The only other tiny thing I noted is that as the brake drum rotates with the driveshaft connected, it moves probably a mm or 2 vertically when it gets to that clanging point. My suspicion is that's just an effect of whatever else is wrong rather than it being a brake drum related problem causing this, but thought it worth just dropping into the conversation.

Right, I might have a small lead on this. Baby was sleeping so I dashed to the garage again! Driveshaft bolts loosened individually and still sound there so not the bolts causing collision. Took drum off and inner driveshaft rotates with no sound. So then I got a little creative by my standards and connected driveshaft to inner driveshaft without brake drum. Tightened bolts so they were snug but nottorwued or anything and slowly rotated. Take a look at that random video below for the results. You see that little bit of movement, that's on the forward and back rotation where it makes the noise. Something is causing some in/out movement when it reaches that point in the rotation. Nowhere else. The question now is what that "something" is.

Yeah it does sound like more of a clang the more I heard it than a knock. What's throwing me is that when there's no load on that corner there's no sound at all. Add the load and you get the clang. Once per rotation but a different point when going clockwise and anti-clockwise. And you have to give it a good old spin to get a noise. Really strange but I'll get driveshaft off and brake drum and see if anything is obvious.

New rear wheel bearing on and test drive this morn. Got about half a mile down the road before I noticed a knocking on rotation from paasenger rear end (aka new bearing area) Got the car back and jacked it up. No noise on rotation. Got creative and jacked the hub carrier up too to add some load, giving you the sound you can hear on the video below. Happens rotating forward and back, once per rotation at different points. My thinking is when the wheel bearing died and trashed the hub carrier, one or both UJs were damaged too. Seem a fair diagnosis from that sound? The UJs seemed fine when reinstalling but of course no load. Should say I can't feel any notchiness as it turns or stiffness as it gets to the part where it makes noise. Faster rotation = louder noise.

Right, well once one of the brake drums was off it was clear this wasn't going to need Sherlock Holmes to figure out the problem. Yes, I should have absolutely noticed that right away. Not sure whether to blame it on the lack of sleep and focus on new baby, the lack of confidence causing me to miss even more things than usual, or just complete ineptitude! So yeah... the handbrake was adjusted waaay out of kilter. Loosened up the nuts on the adjustment rod going through the tensioner and bingo. Clearance minimised, no brake drag on either side, and once I pick up the new hub carrier I'll be able to get the car back together. I know a lot of my issues seem to be quite simple, but hopefully down the line it will help someone else and show that people aren't alone when they make simple mistakes

The putting together of the rear end of the Eclat is going slowly but surely, but I've come across a bit of a sticking point, quite literally. Got new brake shoes as one of mine was getting to the limit and the other was right at the limit. Everything was apart so I thought I may as well. Pistons all retracted and adjusters as far into the wheel cylinder as possible and on go the shoes. And then the drums, Except the drums are a tough fit over the shoes, especially on the passenger side. Both went on in the end but not without a lot of persuasion. Right now only the driver's side is back together but there's a LOT of drag in the brakes (i.e. with the wheel on it's not easy to rotate the wheel). I'm guessing the passenger side will be similar.As expected, rotating the wheel backwards allows some more rotation but there's still a lot of friction there. I did have the car running in gear with no wheels attached. Of course because of the open diff there was only one wheel moving, but I have seen both sides moving when in gear. Afterwards there was a bit of heat in the drums; nothing too excessive, but it was only in 1st & second gear for a couple of minutes. Handbrake has around 3-4 clicks of movement and then becomes tight. Now that's tighter than it's ever been, but there is that bit of pull in the handbrake before it gets tight. And previously, although the handbrake wasn't great (cable and tensioner are new), it did tighten the rear brakes so it does work. I guess the question I have now is whether the handbrake is under tension even at rest. Will try to check it tonight, but does anyone else have any other thoughts? I knew that new shoes would be closer to the drum, but not this close. I'm half tempted once it's together to drive on it for a few miles and see if the first bit of the shoe material wears down, but not sure if that's a good idea of a reckless one.