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1979 Yellow Lotus Eclat: My project thread


soldave

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Went out to get some touch-up paint for my Eclat today, or rather attempted to. Store scanned my petrol cap and came out with a Volvo truck yellow colour with a 96% match. Made a sample and was quite a ways off. The other closest was a Seat yellow colour at 92% but that was a little too dark. Said they couldn't to any more to help me but might be able to get some other ideas if they had the whole car to scan some sections of. They weren't too confident though :(

Will have to try another shop in the New Year once everything's opened following the Christmas break.

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2 things.

1. IF the paint is original, much of the top layer will be dead, you may have to cut through the very top layer with a machine polish to reveal the real colour. Then scan the colour after doing this

2 - Not all paint places are created equal, you may have better luck elsewhere.

Don't shoot me down ..... Halfords did a very good match on a touch up paint for me on a Peugeot 309 Goodwood where others had struggled. Yellow is meant to be one of the hardest colours to match up when requiring fresh paint.

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On 23/12/2017 at 11:22, clivef38 said:

Agree Halfords did a good with the paint match for my Elan calypso red and monaco white  for the Elite.

Interesting. Do Halfords usually have paint scanners to get the colour right? Although I know that for the best match they'd need to get under the weathered layer that's on top right now.

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  • Gold FFM

Dave, may be an idea to take in a fuel cap as the underside shouldn't be changed to much with the sun etc. If you take a cap off and check it against the udnerside of where its painted or pop up a headlight the normally unexposed area should be the same. Just a thought.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Now I understand why so few people have the timing belt guard fitted! I was lucky enough to get one from @SimonOmeara a week ago. Got it primered, painted and lacquered and now come to fit it. Tried for over two hours and just can't get the two parts of it connected on the passenger side. The two top bolts are no problem, and I can get one of the lower ones done but just can't get that last one. Think I'm going to have to give it up as a bad job :(

But in doing all this I did notice the power steering/water pump belt is loose (water pump pulley will rotate without the belt moving). Only slight annoyance is the power steering adjustment bolt seems to be in one of the most inaccessible places possible. The joys of Lotus ownership!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Small purchase made this week but didn't turn out how I wanted. I noticed on some pictures of Eclat engine bays that they have a rubber seal around the grille under the windscreen (see below). Did a bit of hunting and bought a strip of it from eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Car-Van-Caravan-Camper-Boat-Rubber-Boot-Seal-27mm-High-x-15mm-Wide-Edge-Trim-3/172636840168) which I thought would do the job. Arrived today so i cut it to size and fit it. Unfortunately, even pushed as far into the grille edge as possible, when I push the bonnet closed I'm not happy with it. The bonnet will push closed and lock into place, but it takes a bit of a push, and then when I pull the release lever it springs back up with some ferocity. Does anyone have any ideas what beading/seal would work properly on there?

In other news, expect quite a few pics of my car in the next week or so as it's going in for a heavy round of TLC. More details later :)

27545531_1534163786700111_1317340839071684906_n.jpg.20556cbf07769d9afe38fbae62a571a3.jpg

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  • Gold FFM

http://phoenixtrim.co.uk/

they do all sorts of profiles. You can print off sample shapes on A4 so you can compare with originals.

my door seals on my first Esprit cost about £25-£30 for both of them 

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Only here once

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On 16/02/2018 at 21:04, Barrykearley said:

http://phoenixtrim.co.uk/

they do all sorts of profiles. You can print off sample shapes on A4 so you can compare with originals.

my door seals on my first Esprit cost about £25-£30 for both of them 

Thanks for that. May have to do some printing this week and see what might fit the car :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

On Esprits with sun roof there is a similar sealing profile.

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The Real Stig Lotus Turbo Esprit, Lotus Elise S1, Lotus Elite, Lancia Delta, Jaguar XF ....Previous cars: Subaru SVX, Porsche 924 Turbo, Lotus Eclat Excel, Lotus Elite, Matra Murena 2,2, Fiat X1/9 5sp

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Holy ****! That looks totally AWESOME! (Nice Audi Q as well - wish I'd never sold mine......:(

Great work - how much longer will you 'need' an MOT? Still think it is a sensible move even without the legal requirement - does anyone know if there are any insurance benefits of keeping the car MOT'd?

Is the price for that bit in Yen or £?

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Thanks for the comments. Should note that those photos are 100% unedited too. Wanted to show the car without any post-processing.

18 hours ago, oilmagnet477 said:

Holy ****! That looks totally AWESOME! (Nice Audi Q as well - wish I'd never sold mine......:(

Great work - how much longer will you 'need' an MOT? Still think it is a sensible move even without the legal requirement - does anyone know if there are any insurance benefits of keeping the car MOT'd?

It was manufactured in '79 and first registered in Feb 1980. So I think a couple of years yet. I'll probably still get it MOT'd as an annual health check. My current MOT said the rear brakes were at the edge of being unbalanced, which doesn't surprise me given the issues I had midway through last year trying to adjust the "auto adjusters" (not as "auto" as I was led to believe!

4 hours ago, mikeeech said:

The detailing looks like an excellent job. Is this the original paint? Looks in really good nick.

Not original paint. The car was originally gold, being one of the Team Lotus cars for the first 5 years of its life and used as a runaround for some of their F1 drivers. It underwent a full rebuild in the early 90s when it was painted this colour.

One of the finishing touches added to the car today, in the form of the front under spoiler. Not the best photos in the world, but quite excited about fitting it so wanted to share a couple of early in-garage photos.

IMG_0094_zps37crhuqw.jpg

IMG_0095_zpswxtjblb7.jpg

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1 hour ago, mikeeech said:

I've just noticed that your car does not have the stick up copper pipes as windscreen washer jets but integrated ones sitting just below the windscreen... Is this an S2 thing too?

Not sure. From what I've seen, the majority of the car is S1 in design, but I haven't seen these particular jets around either.

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Lotus ownership is a lot about being level headed and accepting that you're on a constant roller coaster. One minute your car is beautifully detailed and through its MOT, the next you barely breath on a water pipe in your engine bay and it crumbles to dust.

Top picture is what a good condition pipe should look like. Bottom is mine after taking it off the car. Spot the difference, anyone?

Would rather it break in my garage rather than on the road. On the good side, the cooling panel is looking good!

32061254-9BDE-4C07-875B-B12FC1FB7DD7.thumb.jpeg.52d51c2c6d85255a3684c7f0716b32ff.jpeg

35372C8F-D048-4A9A-A80B-122BA8D88A01.thumb.jpeg.3fbd638fd0fc4779ea0e98073f8be670.jpeg

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1 hour ago, Trunnion 74 said:

that pipe looks well past its sell by date.  Like the cooling panel.  I will be needing one, once I've worked out which one I need.  Do they make them to order?

They do indeed and it took me around 6 weeks or so to get. The holes on mine didn't like up with those on the panel so I drilled new ones. Not a perfect fit but good enough.

It does mean when belts or anything need checking the panel has to come off.

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There was one thing I did notice when I was fitting the cooling panel that I'd like your thoughts on. When I removed the top hose from the thermostat housing I was expecting a lot of coolant to come flooding out. While there was a little, it wasn't much by any means (not enough to fill the rubber hose and pipe to thermostat. Is this normal when the engine is cold or did I have a huge air bubble in the system?

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