The Lotus Grand Tourers

Lotus Monkey, I think you are right as I have been caught out by this too. The drawings in the manual are incompatible in that the one for the pulley alignment shows the keyway in such a position that the slot for the dizzy rotor arm is 180 degrees out. As they are on each end of the same shaft you ...

No, exactly, I'm not keen on stripping the head down again. It's annoying as I've had many conversations with Mike over this engine and he has never mentioned it. Thanks for all the advice and I have read the past posts so I know exactly where it is meant to go. I did wonder whether the attitude of ...

Some may remember my earlier post about the problem I had with some errant vapour blasting media causing a momentary loss of oil to the exhaust cam. It made the cam belt jump a few teeth and bent the exhaust valves. It is all back together now and I was spinning the oil pump up prior to fitting the ...

Just a quick update on my bent valve drama. I think I have found the cause. I had decided to junk the reground exhaust cam and got a new standard 107 cam, new valves and new valve guides. When I came to install all of it I discovered the old cam was almost seized in the cam carrier. It could only ju...

Thanks for the replies. The belt has definitely slipped on the pulley. The timing mark for the exhaust is now way out and the vernier is on it's original setting. The belt was a Gates Powergrip and I know that there has been some discussion about cheap belts, but I thought that the Gates belts were ...

It's been a few years since I started on the Excel resto (too many other projects). But she finally hit the road a month ago with a shiny new MOT for the first time since 2007. She was glorious until the engine trashed itself again. It started as a sudden change in engine note and slight loss of pow...

Cheapest source I've found : http://www.thelotuscentreonline.co.uk/epages/sdctukef2v6v.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/sdctukef2v6v/Categories/Books_and_Manuals (apart from the forum's bargain deal for the online parts manual of course). Thanks for the link and I have now ordered the repro version from...

On balancing pistons and conrods, a job I prefer do to myself, I use the gudgeon pin as the source for removing piston weight differences, and compensate conrod small end weight differences with piston plus gudgeon pin weight differences to minimize material removal. This is to achieve weight balan...

Ahh .... That makes sense now. Thanks for all the advice. I will certainly look into the end float when I get the bottom end stripped down. I think that I will stay with the flex flywheel. It looks like I caught the the clutch just in time. The driven plate is worn thin but just clear of the rivets....

So the engine is out and I can sort out the mullered piston and liner. plus bearings etc. It also makes sense to replace the clutch while I can get to it. The clutch pedal was very heavy, partly due I understand to the the flex, or sprung flywheel. All the advice appears to be to bin the whole flex ...

Thanks for all the contributions. The head is now off, which was complicated by the fact that I discovered that I also had a 4-2-1 tubular manifold with no bolted flange until the single pipe. The loss of compression on No.3 was discovered to be due to a completely mullered piston and liner. A valve...

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will certainly follow that when it come to rebuilding the engine but I fear that may be a long way off. I have been doing some more investigation. The head is not off yet but the cam carriers tell a lot of the story on their own. The inlet cam appears to be a stock 1...

This is my first post since buying the Excel. Some of you may know the car, a silver SE reg F854 GTV. Its not my first Lotus having had a Series 1 Europa but that was Renault powered. This is my first 9XX engined Lotus so please excuse my inexperience. I knew it was going to be a project, not that I...