soldave

Question for you all: are the heaters in these things particular drains on the battery? Have been driving recently with the heater on and have noticed that when it's on power 1 my voltmeter drops right onto the 13V mark; on power 2 it drops a little below that. All of my other accessories can be on and make almost no difference to the voltage. First thought was the alternator not giving me enough voltage but it was rebuilt probably 12-18 months ago so shouldn't be that I hope. It could very well be taking all the power of the car to turn the fan as it does seem to squeak and rattle a little when I initially turn the heating on!

Thank you. It's certainly a fun drive, and you just have to be patient with things and realise that a small job may turn into a big one with a 40-year old car. You start taking a few bits off and you find more and more that need replacing. Tools and skills help too! But it's a great feeling - had a one-hour round trip today to visit my mother (support bubble), and the number of people who were smiling, pointing, looking as the car went past is certainly something to be proud of :)

Looks very good in Absolute Lotus too, and a nice little backstory on it. You find that a lot of these older Lotus have interesting histories to them.

Oh gawd... my back hasn't forgiven me for being in that position a year ago. On a side note, I was in that position under the dash of my Evo about 8 years ago doing some soldering back there. Dropped the soldering iron in the middle of it. Fortunately the carpeting was saved by the iron dropping onto my forearm and sticking there melting into my skin. That burn took a while to heal!

Wasn't sure if this should go in here or in the engine section, but let's try here as it relates to the interior! Invariably when I pull the choke knob out and turn it to lock it in place, it will come off whatever stopped it's on and pop back in. I'll end up having to pull the choke out two or three times and then carefully turn the knob so it stays in place. Once it's there then it won't jump back in unless I turn the knob and push it back in manually. Before I start taking things apart and inevitably have the car off the road for months(!), does anyone know what would be causing this and how to solve it please?

Not seen something for every single bolt - the best resource I've found are the parts lists on rdent.com

Fun to see at the start how quickly the headlights should go up and down!

That is looking pretty damn awesome. Kudos to you for having the skills to get it done.

True, that. What pipe did you go for in the end? And did you replace the fuel lock valve at the same time or use the existing one?

I think I'm following. So a length of copper pipe that would feed through the chassis (and through the required holes). Then attach one end to the new hose and pull through. I spotted from a previous post you used an endoscope to check that you'd gone through all the chassis holes. Sounds a delightful task!

If replacing, whats the best way to get it through all of the holes in the chassis that the original line feeds through?

Had the radius arm off the mounting but still a bit of a mystery to me. The snubber washer doesn't appear to be sitting off the flats (and therefore not as far "in" as it should be, mount is behind reinforcing plate as it should be etc. Took a couple of shocking quality photos but nothing is jumping out to my untrained eye

Isn't the mount (6) going inside the subframe plate (3) normally (see pic below) or am I misunderstanding? Putting it on the outside of the reinforcing plate would give me more toe out. Take the back end apart before and nothing seemed untoward.

How thoroughly predictable! The passenger side doesn't have any spacers between the radius arm and snubber washer on the mount. So unless I'm mistaking, there's no more toe in I can get unless other radius arm mountings have a thinner rubber/poly mount. If that's the case, it's going to have to be something I live with for a while. Whilst the mountings are probably due for a refresh as most of the older rubber bushings are, I'm not even sure they would be any thinner and fix my problem.

Thank you, I didn't know that. There's only minimal movement, so maybe I am good there. Which is good on the one hand but bad which means if there is a wheel bearing droning somewhere it may be a rear one!

Will definitely consider it. Just checked the front wheels and there's a bit of 12 and 6 play on both sides (driver's side a bit more); will see if I can nip them up just a little and without the wheel starting to drag. Would be a very quick fix if it was but I don't think I'm that lucky!

Well I actually just had a quick lie down on the garage floor and a feel of the radius arm. The driver's side doesn't seem to have many washers between the radius arm and the mounting snubber washer - maybe 5mm worth. Even stranger, the passenger side radius arm seems to be flat against the snubber washer with no spacers inbetween. That would mean that there's no more toe in I can get on that side. Hopefully that's not the case; if so I might leave them as is so at least both sides have about the same amount of toe. Will report back on Saturday.

Much appreciated. Await the inevitable post this weekend saying "there's only one bush on the inside of the arm"!!!

I usually use copaslip on...well pretty much any bolts that go back in the car!

Ahhh, this contraption? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-2000-2-5PI-MK1-MK2-STAG-GT6-FRONT-HUB-BEARING-SPACER-KIT/143226142059? Looks a very interesting concept. Might have to look into it a little more, thanks

Trig always destroyed me. Was much more of a statistics man . So I'm trying to get around 1/4" or 6.4mm or toe in no each side, give or take a bit. That kind of makes sense though. Had a reply from someone on Facebook who said similar, but who said it would be ArcTan of shim thickness divided by distance between trailing arm mount to body and center of the inner U-joint cross (ie, center of differential output shaft). Whereas you seem to be saying it's length of the arm itself. Can you confirm which one to use? May use the estimation option you gave though. Basically calculate the front to back distance between centre of wheel and mounting bolt for arm, and then measuring the rim (excluding tyre) from centre to outer edge, and using that to give me my denominator. Won't get me perfect, but should get me closer than I am now.

Thanks dude. Wheel bearings with a grease nipple? Mine are just standard bearings like this: https://www.sjsportscars.com/parts-and-accessories/SJ036C0002.htm Actually I looked back and my last ones were bought in June 2018 so 2 and a half years old but not many miles. I bought Firstline ones from eBay last time.

Right, I'm back on the road! What a mission that one. So after deciding I'd replace some front suspension bushes, I ended up getting the steering rack rebuilt after damage to a track rod. A new track rod was almost impossible to get but a Ford Granada Mk1 rod was sourced from Germany. That track rod turned out to be too long so the steering was toeing out like crazy. Finally got a garage to cut the track rod a little to make the wheels face in vaguely the same direction! Seriously though, it feels much better I did find the rear wheels are toeing out and so I need to move some spacers to bring them back to where they need to be. The garage did highlight a couple of things that I might want to take a look at: Bellhousing seems to be missing a couple of bolts for some reason. Droning coming from the car, and the mechanic was wondering if it's wheel bearing. The Eclat seems to go through a set of front wheel bearings every 18 months so I'm hoping its those and not the rear ones. Might just get the garage to do them next time to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong when installing them; surely their lifetime should be longer than this. Weekend task is probably going to be bringing the rear alignment roughly into spec, and then checking rear wheel bearings.

My front wheels face in the same direction! Had this replacement track rod cut a tiny bit and adjusted so I have the right amount of toe in. The car doesn't want to crab any more so I'm happy. An alignment was done on the rear but no adjustments, so both are toeing out; I have -0°0.' toe on one side and -0°11' on the other. I know that aligned correctly it's got 0°25' of toe in, plus or minus 0°06'. Do we think that moving a single spacer from the rear radius arms on both sides would bring them into alignment a little better, or would it be multiple spacers? I know the best bet is to get it aligned once more but I'm just wondering if I move one or two spacers how much it's going to bring in the toe at the rear.

I did a bit of research around this around a month or so ago and I'm using the Halfords Transmission & Power Steering Fluid, which is Dexron II compatible.