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mieczkow

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About mieczkow

  • Birthday 21/08/1947

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  • Name
    Tom Mieczkowski
  • Car
    Lotus Esprit

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  1. Bibs, Posted an order yesterday. Definitely fingers crossed! Need to ship to U.S. hope that's not a difficulty. Tom Mieczkowski '89 Turbo
  2. I would try the cam-grip type socket first - with the engine out of the car that should do the trick. If you do need to resort to drilling as Travis noted it is CRITICAL to start your drill in the center. I also would recommend left-handed or reverse twist drills so you are rotating the same direction as you would when removing the bolt. There are also specialty extractors available which have a small reverse-drill carbide tip which are easier to control than a full-size drill bit - Craftsman makes a set. I have not had to remove a cam tower bolt with that particular tool but I have had great success removing sheared bolts. I usually use a sharp-point punch to make a centered dimply in the bolt or fastener, then reverse drill using that dimple to stabilize the drill location.
  3. We are now using the German-made Flennor bearing - Flennoor FS03299 I would recommend that bearing in lieu of buying something of unknown quality.
  4. We had a second tensioner bearing fail. We installed it in a customers car after the first bearing failed immediately (high pitched squeal). We replaced the squealing bearing with a second new bearing we had in the shop. Problem solved. However the customer called back and after about 1000 miles the squeal returned. By this time he had returned to his home, about 700 miles from our shop. We had ordered a new German-made Flennor bearing and sent it to him. He was able to find a local shop to replace the tensioner and that solved the problem. Both of the failed bearings came from the same batch (we had purchased both at the same time). They were unmarked as to manufacturer or origin. We had bought them from our usual supplier. They had blue plastic seals on the races. We suspect they were cheap copies, possibly Chinese in origin. This is a serious issue and I urge all of you to do whatever you can to make certain the bearings you are purchasing are good - not that there is any simple test to determine that! I will stick with Flennor German-made bearings in the future,
  5. Well, as I mentioned, we had two bearings fail - one immediately on install - squealed horribly and we went through the whole protocol of removing all the accessory belts, etc. Replaced it with a new (but identically sourced/same batch) tensioner/ That tensioner started to squeal after about 1000 miles of driving. We switched to German-made Flennor bearing and so far no problems. I strongly suspect that the failed bearings (which had no manufacturing identification on them) came from some third-world source and were either improperly lubed, improperly sealed, or improperly machined.
  6. The noise we experienced was higher pitched and much louder than what I am hearing on the clip posted here. Of the five people present four were experienced Lotus or auto mechanics. There was a split of opinions on whether it was bearing noise or belt noise but it was unanimous that it was not whine - way too loud and "squeally". Much more akin to a failing roller bearing running dry..We did several tension adjustments and they had no effect on the noise. The only thing that worked was the new belt/tensioner install. Since we were under some time pressure to get the car on the road we decided to swap them both simultaneiously. So we can't yet say definitively which it was.
  7. Interesting. We just went through a possibly similar experience in our shop. We installed an engine we had rebuilt in an '89 Esprit and upon start-up everything appeared just fine. After we logged about 40 or so miles on the car it developed an incredibly loud high-pitched squeal. We immediately suspected belt noise and one by one took off all the accessory belts. With just the cam belt (a Gates "blue" belt from JAE) it squealed just the same. We finally took both the tensioner and blue belt off the car and replaced the tensioner and installed a stock Gates "black belt" on the car. Problem solved. That day the customer drove the car back to Louisiana and had no problems at all. He took the blue belt with him, but we still have the tensioner in the shop. It feels fine if you rotate it by hand - feels exactly like you would expect a new one to feel. I have not subjected it to and high rpm testing to see if if squeals when it gets wound up to a couple of thousand rpm but I plan to do that when I get some time. The car now has over 700 miles on it and no re-occurrence of any problem.
  8. I am quite certain that the tanks Boyd's makes are modeled on SE tanks - so I am sure they will fit your car, We also have some reconditioned OEM tanks which we are willing to sell - they would be a little less costly than the Boyd tanks, I have removed and installed tanks - it is not an easy job even with the engine out of the car, It can be done with the engine in the car, but the cam towers have to come off (along with a lot of other stuff) to get the left tank out of the car and that is not a simple job.If you can find some experienced folks who would donate their labor and a shop where you can actually do the work this would be your best bet, With a team of experienced guys it should not take longer than a day or a day and a half to complete.
  9. Let me know how things work out. If you can't afford new tanks you can always re-coat the existing ones - we use POR 15 tank sealant when we reclaim OEM tanks.. It will cost you less tan $100 per tank but it is a very labor-intensive process and of course you have to remove and re-install the tanks as well.
  10. You can buy aluminum tanks for your Esprit here in the U.S. from a custom fabrication shop in Ocala Florida. The company is called Boyd Welding and they have a website http://www.boydwelding.com/. We have dealt with them and have installed their tanks in our own personal Esprits as well as in several Esprits we have restored in our shop. Their pricing is reasonable and quality excellent. I don't have any financial interest in this company, so I am just passing along information for the benefit of Lotus owners especially here in the U.S.. Check their website and don't hesitate to cal them. They have supplied Esprit tanks to many others and they list them on their website as well as photos. These guys are pros and have been in the fuel tank business many years. I have been at their shop and they are a first class operation.
  11. The Tech 1 was very nice to use since the troubleshooting protocol is written specifically for that tool. I do think that you could do the same with Espritmon though. The really useful aspect for either tool is the ability to determine whether it's 26a or 26b and to be able to test activate the relays.
  12. Follow up: Found the problem - bad ECU-to-RPM relay connection. Thanks for the help!
  13. I am dealing with a difficult-to-diagnose CEL – specifically code 26B, I am in possession of a Tech 1 as well as both Freescan and Espritmon. I have a question I hope someone can answer regarding using Tech 1 and/or Espritmon and the quad drivers. Both Tech 1 and Espritmon have the capacity to fire the relays by software command. I have been able to trigger some of the relays pertinent to code 26B (the AC control relay, RPM relay, Engine Overheat relay, Solenoid change-over relay). I have also been able to trigger the secondary injectors and verify they are firing using both Tech 1 and Espritmon. I can confirm that the AC control relay is firing and the solenoid change-over relay is as well. I have just had my finger on them and I can feel them fire when commanded to do so by the software. The RPM relay is supposed to be active only at RPM above 1500. So, when the car is idling (it currently idles at around 1150) should I expect the RPM relay to fire when commanded by Tech 1 (or Espritmon) even if the idle is below 1500? Or does the car have to be turning more than 1500 rpm for the software to trigger the relay? Also, is a similar condition imposed on the engine overheat relay circuit? Will it fire upon software command any time it is activated by Tech 1 or does the car have to be at a certain temperature for the relay to respond? Any help and further advice, especially on the functions of the RPM relay circuit and the engine overheat circuit would be greatly appreciated! I have really run into a stone wall on trying to figure out what is triggering the CEL. The car appears to run fine – at least in the shop – I have not yet taken it out on the road but it starts immediately, idles strong, and responds well to the throttle. All the other parameters by all three software applications are normal. This is Artie Baldwin’s former Esprit which is an 1989 turbo which he converted to an SE by adding the chargecooler and the secondary injectors. __________________ Tom Mieczkowski 1989 Turbo Esprit
  14. The shroud is made of ABS plastic, and repairing it with fiberglass resin can be very tricky. Cracks should be repaired with an ABS solvent/filler mixture (a smelly ketone solvent and some ABS powder). You can use cloth or mat to make repairs using the ABS material just as you would with fiberglass, but the ABS solvent truly bonds with the plastic while fiberglass will often fail to bond, Some have used the old shroud as a plug and fabricated a true fiberglass shroud. Also it is popular to make a shroud from aluminum, which will work very well.
  15. Found the problem. When the wiring harness was put back in the car after the renovation the ground wire to J1C3 on the ECU should not have been re-connected. This pin is only used in non-AC cars. This caused the ECU to continuously ground the request relay as soon as the ECU received power. Consequently the AC ran continuously when the ignition was in an on position. One the pin was disconnected from the ECU and the original wiring restored the AC worked properly. Thanks for the commentary to my inquiry.
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