ADF
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Posts posted by ADF
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Just came across this, thought it may be of interest to some.
16th – 18th October Goodwood SpeedWeek
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Kenny, your cars so bloody fast you probably can't help but get there early.
If its like school will we have to drink in our vests and pants for turning up without a Lotus?
I was wondering if loving Lotus classes as a religion (or maybe just a mental disorder) as I believe there's exemptions. Lot of similarities when you think of it, blind faith that it'll get you there being the obvious one.
Hope all are safe and well.
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Great to see everyone the other night and the weather was nice, the Lotus gods were truly shining on us. Managed to Off Road successfully out of the car park but could hear the grass brushing the floor pan.
Didn't get much of a chance to chat to you Terry but admired your excel as you left, have to take a closer look some time but it looked like a really nice one.
I will also have to take a closer look at yours Dean in better light but it looked really good.
I tried to tempt Mike into a trade with my 15yr old diesel Leon but he declined, don't no why😁 (didn't realise but rear exhaust is built into car and requires rear subframe removal or cutting!!! or in my case just bodging in situ, bloody cars, Lotus are so much simpler)
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Cheers, ill give it a go (now that's what I call good service)
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Sounds like a plan.
Having some trouble here with TLF, lost half of website and can't interact. I am now on a different browser which currently seems OK (probably updated something somewhere) Anyone else having issues, or is it just me?
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Just a thought, the weather looks good for tomorrow.
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Well it couldn't be any worse. Sounds like a good idea to me.
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No Problem. I will try to keep it short and sweet, otherwise I may get a bit carried away/in-depth and you will probably lose the will to live.
Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question (I know cause I've tested it many times😉)
I haven't seen your esprit so can't comment on that but Pete's is stunning.
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Hopefully I should be there all being well and I am always happy to talk lotus especially technical stuff. Let me know if you'd like me to bring my little meter along and show you the basics (it probably will only take about 2 mins as there's only really a couple of settings you'd ever need)
In case there are any specific questions you could bring the wiring diag. along. Hopefully pete will be able to make it, I believe he's a bit of an esprit guru.
On a completely separate note I've been driving the elan today for the 1st time since declaring it a death trap (to the old mans annoyance) the new bits/changes he's made have transformed it (it still perhaps needs a little bit of adjustment) But its really weird driving the 2 Lotus back to back they really couldn't be more different. I imagine its similar for you, although yours are at least both mid engine.
Happy tinkering, Tony
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Hi Neil, Sorry to hear of your grief
I am not familiar with the esprit but vehicle electrics although seemingly complicated are in fact really simple, I would agree with paul a cheapo multimeter is invaluable (I think mine was about a tenner) although you do need some basic understanding to use it (If necessary I can bring mine along and show you how to use it at a meet). I also find a bench power supply very useful for component bench testing. The most useful thing however is the wiring diagram, depending how comprehensive /correct it is it should tell you the nature/functioning of the various parts in terms of earthing.
We have met, I have the white S1 and annoying amounts of enthusiasm for all things Lotus. I would be happy to help were I can, under normal circumstances I would suggest coming over with the meter and having a poke about for you. The most important thing is to work methodically and take a measured approach, the hardest thing is when dealing with intermittent faults.
There's a few questions there so apologies if I miss something. In general, as it is GRP it will have several earthing points to the common chassis and back to the battery. If any of these are corroded you can get a voltage drop across them. Another thing to be aware of is many gauges are earthed through the sender or can be the other way around I.e. fed a variable voltage and earthed through the gauge/meter.
At a guess, as you mentioned a voltage stabiliser (and what I know from the elans smith gauges) Your fuel sender is fed a stabilised voltage being earthed through a variable resister(sender) causing the reading you see. (it is calibrated to the varying resistance and the stabile voltage). I would have thought the voltage gauge should be reading the vehicle voltage (i.e. straight from the battery, if it has a connection to the voltage stabiliser then this could be a reference voltage but I am not sure about that without looking into it) It is possible that by connecting in another earth you are partly bypassing the sender thus upsetting the readings.
Your rev counter I guess is probably not digital (I believe digital has stabile +ve and earth and then a pulse usually taken from ignition system, nowadays its all different as its Can bus but we wont get into that) It probably has a direct earth.
I don't know what your knowledge level is but things can be wired up in parallel or in series (i.e. daisy chained) normally gauges should be parallel so they all work independently but it may be the auto electrician has wired the rev counter in series with the other gauge (this is pretty unlikely) this could do strange things.
Another thing to consider is the state of the fuses and fuse box, this can often be a source of poor connections and voltage drops (if a connection is corroded it has high ressistance and if there is enough power drawn (i.e. headlights) then the connection will get warm as it is dissipating power if things get really bad you can sometimes see evidence of heat (i.e. melted plastic) (or in the case of my old Lancia Delta smoke coming out of the dash!!!). Not relevant necessarily in your case but when changing/adding vehicle wiring consideration should allways be given to the electrical loads and resultant current to ensure the fuses are not overloaded.an Important piece of knowledge is that the fuses are there to protect the wiring and must always blow before the wiring insulation melts causing shorts, usually leading to smoke/fire.
As for the fans, often the sender for the fans and gauge are not the same and are sometimes located apart, with the engine off the fans can start up due to heat soak at their sender whilst the engine temp may not sense that rise. that being said 70deg seems quite a low temp for the fans to run. Testing the sensors is easy if you have the information, i.e. resistance vs temp. this may be in the manual. Otherwise, if I was approaching it blind what I would do is bench test the gauge to find the calibration of it (the bench power supply displays current), this would give the current & voltage to get a certain temp reading for various points (using ohms law one would calculate the resistance) I would then test the sensor with hot water and thermometer to get the temp vs resistance of that and if the 2 don't correlate there is a fault.
That's the theory but without special equipment and in practice you could leave it wired to the car and put the sensor end into a mug of boilng water and see what you get, if you have a thermometer all the better. The temperature readings do not have to necessarily be exact they just have to be as intended for correct functioning.
Hopefully some of that makes sense and its not a load of bollocks. Vehicle electrics can seem daunting when faced with a mess of wires behind a dash and even those with knowledge and experience are sometimes left scratching their heads at times but as the HHGTTU states "DONT PANIC!!!!!!"
All the best with the investigations.
Tony
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A heads-up to any unaware souls, there is a new thread "Hants Virtual Meeting" to follow if interested.
Its weird, the last virtual meeting seemed very real to me.
Tony
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I'm good to go, Weather looks fine for tomorrow (light cloud and gentle breeze 18deg).
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Sorry to hear that Neil, I didn't notice anything unusual when you started up and left, however wasn't paying particular attention. Hopefully the code will lead to a fix that's simple and cheap. I hope the esprit master cylinder replacements going Ok it would be great to see that out.
Having consulted my busy schedule I may just be able to squeeze it in, hopefully the Elise will be in one piece, just changed the lwr engine stay (bit of a fuck up from ordering bits on ebay at 3 in the morning-compounded by my decision to do things the hard/stupid way actually turned out ok as I'd rather be in the garage welding than watching TV anyway) all fitted now only to then notice the disintegrating OE gear cable bush, hunted high and low in the garage for another bit of material to make one to match the other one I had made before but had nothing so I'll now have to wait another week or so for the post. Probably my over enthusiastic gear changes.
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Gone but not forgotten (what was it again?)
Ah well I suppose you'll be making an Uno Turbo fan very happy. Always good to help out fellow car guys.
Be good to see the Landy as long as you don't trundle over me in it, hate to think what it could do to the Elise.
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I can say they both definitely work but which one and when seemed a mystery. The lights got a bit disco at one point, me Kenny and Neil were playing which light next (we all lost).😁
I don't remember anything being mentioned for the next one but I was chatting with Paul at the cars for a bit.
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That was a great spot for a meet, cheers to kevin. Good to see you all and shame to miss others.
Paul you're probably aware but we noticed that there was something very strange going on with your rear lights last night as you left the car park.
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I'll be up for that.
Sorry you can't make it Dean, was looking forward to seeing your new ride.
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Hi all, I'll probably have to miss this one. Gutting, do nothing for 3 months and then 2 things at the same time (its been discussed a while and is a bit open ended so may not happen in which case I could be out but with limited numbers its probably better to leave it to the hard core).
It would be cool to catch up, has anyone had ideas about were we could meet up if the pubs stay shut? we could easily accommodate a small fleet of Lotuses here, and plenty of outside space for social distancing (even have a hedge to pee behind) but I am right on the edge of Hampshire and may be a bit far for some.
Paul, I think its still called dogging now its just a lot more popular😁 (as it probably counts as outdoor exercise) I once pulled into a remote car park near stockbridge to turn around and was surprised how many people were out walking their dogs at midnight!!!
I've been out having fun in the Elise having unsorned it but then the weather turned nasty (sorry about that) so I thought I would have some garage based lotus fun instead. I had thought the steering needed looking at for a while but noticing a clonk made up my mind. So out came the rack and sure enough both track rods were floppy and the rack very loose. Its all adjusted back within tolerance and back in the car. The car feels so much better, I am however feeling a bit beaten up from spending time wedged upside down under the dash (when I was younger I did this sort of thing all the time with no real problem but now I've got a bruise the size of a cricket ball and probably a cracked rib its pathetic.)
Check out my special technical equipment for accurately setting the rack friction/pull force. Not only did I use what you can see in the photo but I also utilised the entire planet.
Hopefully see you all soon
Tony
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Dean congratulations on the new acquisition, Very nice. looks great in the photos look forward to seeing in the flesh. Curious to know what engine / spec, etc (in true nerd style)
I'm getting a bit excited about driving mine for the 1st time in 7mnths or so, just taxed it (got a bit stuck when one of the new indicator units I bought had a crack in it and had to be sent back so decided to wait till end of the month (and easing of rules) rather than use hand signals, I only know the one and that's offensive)
Take care all, Tony
P.S. if you see a broken down white eliseS1 at the side of the road, That'll be me.
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feel a bit of a theme here. I've gone for the cheap option.
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That looks ideal, always good to have some redundancy.
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Help,
What's wrong with me, I think a pistachio wedge is COOL!!!! and loving the bunting.
Paul, that's going to be an interesting conversation with the insurance company:- "has the car been modified sir" . As for the box on the roof it sounds like a swivel mount and .50 Cal are required.
Finally got the elise paint repairs all finished (in-between sessions of chain sawing the garden to death). Not impressed with the colour match on the front, the cracks are all gone and its nice and shiny but it looks like I've hit a cream bun. Mind you with it being 50 shades of white already and I cant see it while driving, who cares. Its usually covered in dead bugs anyway but I can always redo it when I can get a better match or just wait until I hit something else.😢
Live long and prosper 🖖
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I luv off roaders, its very "zombie apocalypse". It might come in handy soon if society collapses, or just to get the weekly shop.
What's that box on the top?
Dean, when this is all over I'll take you for a spin in the Elise if you like.
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Hi Pete, is that house for sale I'm a cash buyer and it looks a perfect size for me, but in this economic climate I'm afraid even that might be beyond my budget😂 (you can live in a car but can't drive a house!!!) As for achieving fuck all, I try hard but never manage to fully achieve that goal but I'm willing to try harder.
Kevin, just wondering what was worst, having pneumonia or spending a week in Basingstoke?
Archie is definitely a bit of a poser. He gets loads of attention especially from the ladies, they all say how handsome he is, I just pretend they're talking about me.
Paul, the project is looking pretty cool to me, but photo's can be deceptive😉, and as for my taste????
Anyway, the Elise arch is repaired, painted and just drying a bit before polishing. Probably not my best work but the only way you'd probably notice is if I've run you over. Had a bit of a mare matching paints but bodged something closeish I'll have to wait until I get it out into the daylight to really tell.
Take care all, Tony
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Hants virtual meeting!
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Bugger thought it was tomorrow, Just finished for the eve and turned on the tablet. Hope it was a good evening.