That the one.
Andy ping me your address and i will send you some, they are 5mmx20mm 
They get stuck, and sometimes can be quite stubborn, this one came off ok once the bolts came out but a trick is to use some fishing wire.
The old debadging trick 
Will give a try whenever I next have an excuse to take it off…
Well it is in full swing now and looking rather naked, the rear clam was a pain to get off with many rusy fastners and bolts. There are 2 in particular that required special treatment and will need new bobins fitted into the fibre glass and bonded in.
Getting the body off just reveals how rusty, gruby and tired a 10 year old Lotus can be. But i have rebuilt far worse.
Its not all bad though thanks to Max888 my new pro alloy cold air intake turned up.
Excellent, plenty of grot to have a go at in there!
I’ve never had the rear clam off either of my Lotus but considering it this winter for when gearbox comes off. Not required to remove the box’ obviously but would be nice to have access to some of those bits and do some routine maintenance.
Only problem is storing the bloody things! I’m paranoid about tripping over them when they’re sat on the garage floor 
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Small update, made these for the front suspension shock top mounts out of a nice piece of alloy shaft, it will be months to i need them but had time to kill while at my dad’s 
What ramp is that? I need one in my life!
The Ramp is Strongman Tamar around £1200 and the best purchuse ive made. It will lift the car 1.2M which is ideal working height.
Also got this lift at my Dads up the road which is a life saver too.
In a earlier post i said i had trouble getting the real clam off due to 2 seized bolts. They just started turning the bobbins that a bonded into the fibreglass.
Using a burr to remove the old bobbin leaves a hole
Using a 8mm stainless washer and 6mm nut welded together for a new bobbin.
Bonding the new bobbins in with fibreglass mat and filler
While the clam was getting the bobbins replaced I rubbed down the boot prop bracket and fitted stainless bolts and washers
Finally i got the exhaust off, again im sure its never been off since new, cut, grind and fight on with all of the bolts, not one came off as it should 
Little bit of progress today, managed to drain the radiator and brake fluid, pretty straightforward. Also got one side of the rear suspension stripped i am getting a growing parts list by the day 
Good progress
Pretty straightforward to remove the subframe, getting this cleaned up and looking new again will really transform the build.
The chassis to subframe mounting points are in pretty good condition too, this is always a worrying area as the chassis can corrode quite badly.
All of the engine bay brackets, engine mounts, and sùpports are now at the shot blasters.
The gearbox will now be checked for any potential issues and the casing cleaned.
While the gearbox is out i will replace the clutch, I believe its on the original clutch and only a fraction worn but id be silly to put it back in. The original is stamped up TRD AE10 but very difficult to find the same clutch type.
If anyone can shed any light on the correct clutch i would be most grateful.
Looks good Lee, I seem to recall that Lotus changed something with the Toyota subframe union so corrosion was less likely, I know it could be a bit of a scary deal on the older cars and the VX’s though. Seen a VX where the wheelbase of the car had actually stretched due to the corrosion pushing the subframe away from the chassis 
That Clutch looks like the OEM TRD one. Seems in good nick if it’s the original one
Not sure to re use it or not ? Not very worn
I’d change it, purely because it would be sods law for it to start slipping a few months down the line. Considering the effort of dropping the gearbox once your clam is all back into place etc - it’s probably worth it for ‘cheap’ insurance.
I’ll be swapping mine out over winter, and it’s barely got 20k miles on it… almost certainly will be throwing away a perfectly good clutch. Could always turn it into a clock I guess 
Something I have been wanting to do for a while now, a custom flat-bottomed steering wheel. This allows me to keep the airbag and making entering and exiting so much easier. I ran the car once i had done the modification for a few weeks before i got it trimmed to see how it worked and i loved it. Basically a whole new part of the lower wheel is alloy welded on and then re-trimmed quite a bit of work but worth it.
