Back to square 1 today.
Stepped down out of the house and discomfort.
Didn’t want to go out in the exige today anyway.
Feel your pain chap. When I re-bust my ankle 18 months ago, i couldn’t drive for 4 months, it was in fact 8 months till i could manage to depress the clutch without discomfort.
Sure by the time the weather is good, youll be good to go out.
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My best man is a knee surgeon. He says don’t drive , don’t do anything really as secondary injury is rife in ACL. Plus insurance might not cover 
In the short term it doesn’t look like I’ll be driving my exige or any other car for that matter.
A concern of mine is flat spotting the tyres. These A052 are not cheap at all so I put peace of mind into some @fasteddy stands.
The items look well made and are nicely powder coated.
I was a little apprehensive putting a side on at a time with a Jack that’s smooth as silk going up but drops with the gracefulness of a stone dropping in a pond.
Never the less, all 4 are on now.
I think I might just about get enough clearance to get the front ARB done, and clean up the arches / nitrons and take the front clam off to remove the redundant air con rad.
I’ll also take off the headlights and have those re uv lacquered.
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Fingers crosed for a rapid recovery. Best wishes, pal.
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I want to get the front clam off to remove the aircon rad thats in there. The pipes split an age ago and the aircon pump has been disabled for 3 years. Not missed it one bit TBH.
Porgress is slower that I had hoped as it takes me an age to get down and up.
I might need to do some arch liner repairs again!
I have the access panels off , arch liner off and also the front ARB off ( un-needed for the clam off )
How secure are those stands. It looks like it can could fall forward any second…
It sucks your injury is taking it’s toll. Hopefully it wont be too long.
Solid!
I have the same concerns. I have tried to push the car back and forwards but it’s solid.
I have found myself with another hour tonight so a few more bits off. Found the hidden 5mm allen bolt , the bolts above the indicator and had some fun with the headlights. Someone has been here before me and either lost bits , or broken bits.
Or did they come from factory like that? hmm…
One labelled sorted list of bolts/nuts/plastic shite
A pair of the finest Hethel super expensive plastic that needs a re coating
No wheel arch naked view.
Spotted that the back of one headlight has a cracked bit of plastic. Not a dealbreaker as it seemed solid
Spotted that the large plastic cowling above the rad below the grilles has a crack on it. Ill try and plastic weld that from the reverse so to hide it.
Fair bit of rust on some of the bolts too. Ill clean up the residue when reassembling the car.
Plan is to send the light covers away for a polish and re-uv coating.
I want to take out hte pro alloy aircon rad as the aircon hasnt worked for years and also have a look at the heater/cooler box as it seems to do what it wants which is typically the opposite of what I want.
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Ordered these to replace all the crusty ones :
These are being sent for refurb as I have noticed that they are loosing their UV and blacking around the edges
Purchase 5l of this to clean all the grime off
Looking forward ( if thats a thing!) to getting the clam off and seeing what state everything else is in!
Can’t beat a clam off clean/tidy up.
Although it’s injury driven, I am a bit jealous that you’re going to be working long, light and warm evenings probably with a cold beer vs the clam tinkering conditions that I’m used to…
Tonight has been quite productive.
Firstly started to remove the loom from the lights. Lens have gone off for a refurb
I have all sorts of bits missing where there should be bits. See the big ugly rusty hole there? Should have been a bolt in there. There wasnt. Why?
I tried to thread the wire through the grommit. It doesnt work that way. Grommit comes with the wire…
Towing eye off and clam came off!
Pleae with the space I have in my double garage. Worth it just for this job!
Pretty sure that pipe isnt supposed to be there like that
Pipe back on. Does anything from factory hold it on? I can see it wiggling its way off again at some point? Mk1 Tie wrap?
No tie wrap ( yet ) but jobs a good un
My attention then turned to the parts that had been under the sea for the last 150 years and the shite stuck in crevices for the past 148 years.
Not too bad Nitrons. Refitted approx 2 years back after a refurb
Scabby AF. I have given it a minor wire brush and its come up better but TBH needs taking apart and coating/blasting/setting on fire.
I only took the clam off to remove the pro alloy aircon rad. Its in this enclosure and you know what? I dont know if I have the energy now I am here to remove the radiator / aircon / chargecooler rad. Thats a lot of liquids to drain and refil. So I turned to cleaning…
Nitrons took a bit of effort but a mile better
You can actually see the chassis is silver not a stained brown. Opposite side in progress
But wait! What is this? Its like something off time team! with the amount of debris and I dont know what caught behind the mudflap.
Sorted that out!
JCB coming next week to clear this lot up!
Thats it for now. I lost feeling in my left knee ( bad ) and am having a word with myself about removing the aircon rad.
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Good work, it’s really not too much extra effort now to get the AC gubbins out. Hard part is when you’re trying to avoid breaking stuff… but that’s less of a concern if it’s all off in the bin.
There’s a wiring harness that clips to the radiator shroud for the lights, can just pop out those clips and leave it dangling off to one side, undo coolant hose where it enters the chassis near the ARB and use that as your drain point (bucket!). Undo rad hoses, then remove and/or cut the AC pipes and the shroud comes off with the rads inside after removing about 6(?) bolts.
With the shroud out of the way, not only can you remove the AC rad - but you’ll also have better access to drag out the AC dryer and a couple of other gubbins within the HVAC “pit”.
My AC pipes basically dissolved when I touched them - so I binned the whole darned thing, lol!
I did think about taking out all the extra parts that are left.
I shall have another gander and motivational chat with myself later I think!
Another free night due to injury. Best make the most of this …
See those aircon pipes? They were in fairly decent nick TBH. The ones that go from the drier into the blower were loose mind. I guess thats where all my really expensive gas went.
There are two ways of getting the pipes out.
- The Lotus way
- The hammer, flathead screwdriver and saw way. I chose method 2 as I wasnt feeling very Lotus-ey tonight.
Be gone pipes!
Now the drier thing had gone from the bulkhead I noted even more shite that had collected. There must be literally tonnes of gravel , soil and odds and sods collected over the years in my car. Ok, might be closer to grams but its annoying all the same. See?
Not there any more! I hobbled off into the house to get my trusty PC cleaner blower thing and blew the debris all over my garage and what appears now to be mostly in my lungs. At least its not in the car crevices any more. See?
Finally a pair of tie wraps to try and keep the pipe on. Its as snug as I can get now.
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Should I be looking to do anything else whilst in here?
Do you know if the heater resistor thing has been done?
It’s a pain, but slightly less of a pain now that you’ve taken AC out - but the resistor pack for the heater blower sits in the base of the HVAC cavity originally, which means they take on water and rot. Lotus (and @seriouslylotus ) sell the upgraded resistor pack which relocates it to the top of the HVAC blower unit, keeping it out of harms way.
Symptoms are that your blowers may stop working on one, two or all three settings… but due to your hose being popped off you may well not know how functional they are.
The heaters or rather fans do appear to blow across the 4 speeds.
I’ll investigate!