New member - Excel SA

Restoration threads may be posted here. I can move them from any other topic if you wish.

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Pete Boole
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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Pete Boole »

Those seats look great Neil and will probably be much more supportive than the Excel ones which aren't great to be honest. Good find! I'm going to check out some black ones now :D

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Excel SA »

The seat installation has been covered on a separate thread: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=12520

Other progress - the new air intake system is almost complete - some minor bits left to do still - but here it is mounted to the upper radiator duct:

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Another angle - the green arrow is where I added in a fiberglass angle to strengthen and stiffen the front edge of the duct as it was pretty flimsy after the hole was cut:

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The angle was also used to make the fixing points for the intake to be held in place - 3 nutserts were used - here I used a saddle for electrical conduit as a mold, and filled it with a resin and microfiber mix to the top of the nutsert - I did use mold release on the saddles, so they just popped off once the resin had cured.

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And a view from below, installed in the car. Fixing points and high stress areas were reinforced. The whole unit still needs to be cleaned up and painted. Access from the lower radiator duct still has to be sorted out.

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A bit of an issue cropped up when connecting the pipe work to the engine intake - when the bonnet is opened the support bar across the front of the bonnet was touching the silicone hose. I need to install a solid piece of tubing for the MAF sensor, and pushing that closer to moving parts of the engine when opening the bonnet would have been a problem!

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To solve the problem I removed the support bar and introduced a bit of a curve into it - I don't see that there will be any other ill-effects by doing this - there will still be some fettling required to get the bonnet and body work lined up nicely.

Image

Neil.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by bash »

This is probably a dim question from a dim person, but, how are you going to change the air filter at service time.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Excel SA »

I did plan for that :lol:

The filter housing comes out, it will need to come out through the lower radiator duct, which I will need to split into 2 to keep the radiator in place. So a few bolts to undo, nothing too major compared to some modern cars....

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by bash »

I thought you had a plan.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Pete Boole »

Air intake looks great Neil - very professional! I hope you're going to do a sound clip when you get the V8 running :D

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Excel SA »

Thanks Pete, will be a while before there are any V8 sounds....

Here's a pic showing how the air-filter box comes out - once unscrewed it hinges down and into the radiator duct to be removed. There will be a seal between the fixed and removeable section - the gap changes when it is actually installed, compared to when it is out of the car - tightening things up an a fiberglass body means some distortion apparently.

Image

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Re: New member - Excel SA

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A million jobs done - another million to go.... :D

The oil filler neck on the engine was too long - it would have needed a bonnet scoop all of its own, and we know how those are frowned upon!

I cut a section out and took it to the wheel repair guys up the road who can weld aluminium and had it welded back together:

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It needed some work to make it look a bit more standard...another niggly job out of the way.

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Put some of the car together, and found that the 3D envisioning section of my brain doesn't work that well - a bit of contact between the air inlet and the radiator fan (the red circle) - this will need extending and a notch built into it to give some clearance.

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Spent a good chunk of the weekend on getting the center console/dash sorted - it went in and came out a good number of times whilst things were fettled. A few more minor tweaks and then I can look at getting it all covered. I have bought a radio that is a 1/2 DIN size - no CD player so the body of the radio is quite short - which allows it to fit in the space chosen - a bit higher up in the console, without (hopefully...) hitting any of the plumbing at the back. Yes, the USB port is upside down....There must have been some people with very small hands and great dexterity working at Lotus - getting nuts and washers onto some of the bolts is a challenge.

Image

Neil.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Hawaiis0 »

That gear shift is lovely.
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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by MetBlue »

Starting to look very co-ordinated. More so than the standard lotus auto selector.
Nice work. Looking forward to seeing it covered.
Tony
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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by richardw »

Very nice work Neil.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Pete Boole »

Great work Neil - going to look really good once it's all covered. As Tony says - better than the Lotus original!

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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Excel SA »

Thanks all - a bit of an improvement on version 1 as shown below I think....

The surround for the gear lever is not flat, so everything needs to curve so that it all lines up on the surface.

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Re: New member - Excel SA

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It's been a while since the last update - a few jobs have been worked on, much frustration with "loadshedding" which has been quite severe - when it's from 8 to 10 p.m. it interferes with prime workshop time...

The leather on the dashboard had shrunk and the result was a cracked and bent fiberglass base around the passenger side air vent. There is a strip of foam under the leather that helps seal/finish off the leather around the vents - this had ben pulled, twisted and deformed by the shrinking leather - the driver's side I was able to unglue the leather, and reposition everything. The passenger side required some repairs and re-shaping of the fiberglass as can be seen below. The leather strip running just under the base of the windscreen and around the vents will also need to be replaced. To give you some reference on the picture, the black box at the bottom is the rear of the cubbyhole....

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My 3D brain imagery of the intake system failed a bit more - there is a clash for space with the radiator fan - red arrow. I have had to cut some relief into the intake tube, to get it to clear the fan, and I will put a rubber spacer where the red circle is to ensure there is no contact.....The intake unfortunately comes out over the fans at the worst possible point - I will also try to move the radiator forward a few millimeters, but I'm not up to remolding the whole part!

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The front bumper is mostly complete - some final sanding and cleaning up is required, but the bulk of the work is done. The lip at the front of the car, just above the bumper, needs a bit more fettling, it's not a uniform thickness across the car, so a bit more work required to even that out.

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The driver's side rear quarter panels have also had some attention. The previous repair had involved removing almost all of the gel coat and replacing it with 3, 4, 5, 6mm of body filler that hadn't properly set in some places. I have removed all of that and re-set the body back into shape, but the fiberglass was quite flexible - pushing on it made it "tin can" :lol: quite easily. I have now applied a layer of 240gsm cloth over the panels with the usual epoxy resin. Peel ply was also used to give the surface some texture - the section behind the rear wheel is shown below with the peel ply still on:

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I did the section above as well - this shows the fiberglass layer after the peel ply was removed, and in this photo I had applied a light skim layer of body filler over the lower section and then sanded it smooth.

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I have also been practicing my upholstery skills using some cheapish vinyl - it's not so easy to cut, sew, bend and shape leather to fit around trim! I have managed to find some red leather that is a pretty good match to the original in both colour and texture, it came in a hide-sized piece (4.9m² to be exact), so will be used where necessary. The leather in my car had been re-coloured at some point - wiping the paint off with thinners does improve the feel and suppleness of the leather somewhat, almost as if the paint had hardened in the sun and heat - maybe it was applied too thickly??? The picture below shows some of the Lotus leather - half of the headrest has been "cleaned" to remove the paint, and the bit with black stitching is BMW leather from the seats, all laid on top of the hide.

Image

Neil.

Pete Boole
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Re: New member - Excel SA

Post by Pete Boole »

That front bumper looks fantastic compared to when you started! The red leather interior is going to be fab! Can't wait to see it at Lotus In The Peak!! :lol:

Pete

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