New member - Excel SA

[Excel SA]

Thanks everyone - we're marching on, but having to deal with insurance companies is also taking its toll!

Neil.

[bash]

Another set of bandits to deal with then !

Bash

[MetBlue]

Sorry to read of your recent experience.
Family trumps work on cars at such times. Wishing you all well and get back to the Lotus when it feels right.
Tony

[Excel SA]

Thanks for the best wishes everyone.

Right, trying to get back on track and get some Lotus stuff done - insurance was the expected nightmare, but that's now over thankfully.

This update is about work done a few months ago - I had saved the pics from my phone on my computer - unfortunately I hadn't backed up my phone for a good few months so have lost a lot of pictures. Fortunately my laptop backs up daily so it wasn't a complete loss.

The ECU for the Lexus motor I have was designed to be mounted in the engine bay - I don't particularly like that idea, nor do I have too much space to fit it in the engine bay. There is a vacant space above the passenger footwell, behind the interior blower motor/fan that seemed like a better option, but as with all these things, comes with its own difficulties. As the ECU was originally mounted at the front left of the engine, not all the wiring reaches the back left - some wires were easy enough to de-pin and swop around to reach, but some will need to be extended. The other major pain was that I needed to feed all the wires through firewall grommets - which meant de-pinning almost every single wire from its plug, feeding it through the grommet and re-seating it in the plug - a number of the plugs disintegrated due to age and heat, fortunately I was able to source replacements for those. There are a lot of wires, and every plug has its own secret way or letting go of the pins. The wires now run through two separate grommets - one on the left, and another on the right hand side - there is very little space in the engine bay behind the engine to run wires without them getting pinched/damaged.

Along with the ECU, I needed to mount fuse and relay blocks - I had changed this from what was sold with the engine to something more professional looking than relays taped together and all feed wires soldered to the relays.

After making up a template to position all the components, I made an ECU box out of fiberglass cloth and honeycomb core - designed to hold the ECU, the fuse/relay box, the extra fuse box, an OBD port and also leave space for some electronics I have that will be used if necessary to manipulate the speed signal.

The end result - this mounts to the firewall and bunches and bunches of wiring:



And mounted in the car - this is looking from the passenger seat forward, with the dash removed. The yellow circle is where the wires feed through to the engine bay - the grommet in the picture has since been changed for a bigger one that takes all the transmission wiring as well. The OBD connector is on the bottom left side - not visible - nor is any of the ECU wiring.



Neil.

[Pete Boole]

Excellent! One of the problems with firewall grommets is that they are all made for thin panels - it's hard to find anything that will fit/seal properly into 4 or 5mm fibreglass. If anyone knows a source for thick-panel grommets let me know!

Pete

[Excel SA]

Hi Pete - I know a source!

The ones I used are these: https://www.dicktator.co.za/product/firewall-grommet/



They aren't exactly dainty, but fit through the fiberglass fine.

A google search for "firewall grommet 12066591" seems to bring up similar items - hopefully in the UK for you, or let me know and I can get some here and find a way to get them to you.

Neil.

[Zulu 10]

Have you seen these? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004403461590.html

They certainly look to be able to cope with fibreglass panel thickness.

They work out at just under £14 for four, including VAT, delivered. So I've ordered some to try.

[Pete Boole]

Thanks very much guys! I'll search and see what comes up. I don't know what the wire bundle size for the engine harness will be yet, but once I have a better idea I will be able to narrow down the search. In the past I have used small metal panels mounted onto holes in the fibreglass to make it easier to find grommets, but it's a lot of work.

Pete

[Excel SA]

Back to a bit of car work - some bits and pieces have been done - not all of it news or photo worthy!

Back to some fiberglassing (as requested by Andrew...) The Lexus engine is a tight squeeze into the engine bay, to give a bit more clearance for the exhaust manifolds I needed to trim the joint in the engine bay back as far as reasonable in some areas. Once again the engine and transmission had to come out - always a chlalenge that! There was also some damage (as can be seen below) from the front end smash - cracks around the bobbins where it mounts to the chassis in the engine bay (red arrows) , some heat damage from the exhaust which cooked the gelcoat, and the seam had split a bit near the front edge (white arrow), as well as around a few of the rivet holes (yellow circle).



After more sanding and grinding out the cracks I was left with this:



After further grinding and sanding:



Then it was back to building it all up again with the epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth, as well as gluing the joints/filling rivet holes:



This will still be sanded down and touched up to give me a level surface, then I will lay a bit more fiberglass over that entire section (the light grey bit). I have filled the rivet holes up with epoxy adhesive, I think the rivets were used to clamp everything together during manufacture - they weren't exactly put in with much care, and I'll probably not replace them. The other side of the engine bay is similar - I reglued the body joint on that side way back near the beginning, but there are also some stress cracks as well as gelcoat damage - this is mainly from brake fluid I suspect though.

In the picture above there is a 2 inch hole on the left of the picture, this is new for the wiring to go back into the car to the ECU which is mounted on the other side of the hole.

Another experimental part on the go....we'll have to see how this one pans out!



Neil

[MetBlue]

Mirrors casings? ???

[bash]

I had similar gel cracks etc when I pit the v8 in that needed remedial work to look like new after spraying, I then covered the area at most risk with heat reflective tape. That's been on about 6 or 7 years ago now and still looks good.
I'm enjoying the updates, keep em coming.

Bash

[Pete Boole]

Yep - I had to do the same on mine. In fact I ended up filling the rectangular void with expanding epoxy foam in a hope of creating a stronger repair - we'll see. I'm having my exhaust manifold ceramic coated and I'll fix a heat shield over it as well to avoid damage in the future.

I suspect mirror casings as well

Pete

[Excel SA]

I will definitely be looking at some heat shielding in that area to protect the fiberglass - good to know that something as simple as heat tape is effective.

The bottom pic is a fiberglass mirror cover. Mine are torn - not badly, but certainly an eye sore, and i can't see any repairs holding up. I may have jumped the gun a bit in making it - the rubber ones can flex as the mirror is rotated in and out, with rigid covers they are either set in one place or will need to be hinged, but that opens a whole other can of worms. As I don't have a car that's together I'm not sure if there is a position where the mirror structure can be fixed in place and the glass can be moved to give the necessary views. Making a mould to inject/fill with polyurethane would also be tricky and I'm not sure how well the polyurethane would cope. And you still need to make a different mould for the other side!

Another headache is how to joint the pieces together, and to attach them to the frame - they rattle around a lot as there is no friction fit like the rubber.

A few more pics of the result once de-bagged. The old rubber has deformed a bit so it would need some filling and tweaking to get the lines flowing as they should - there are some concave bits that should be at least flat. I have left an edge around the bit where the glass would go to keep everything in shape for now, but it's all quite rigid. With a sand, some filler and a coat of paint these would probably be fine to use if they point the mirror in the right direction!







Neil.

[Pete Boole]

They are really good Neil - and pretty complex! Nice one

Pete

[bash]

There may be a market for those !!

Bash