Little update on the progress, unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures. Popped up to the bodyshop today to find a few loose items had been primered like the roof, oversill pieces, engine cover frame etc, but nothing had base coat on them. This was mainly because the bodyshop didn’t know what colours to paint where, so I went round and labeled everything with the colour and order of things to be painted in ready for reassembly.
What is a bit exciting is that I think reassembly can begin next Saturday, which will finally allow me to reveal the colour I chose!
I decided that after painting the nuts and bolts on the diffuser, I might as well paint the other diffuser fixings as well.
A couple of coats of Hammerite and they should be nicely hidden against the black of the diffuser, with the yellow towing eye the only flash of colour under there.
Come on James the suspense is killing me… what colour is it?
Likewise, I’ve followed this from the start and check back every day… I need to know the colour!!! 
I’m sorry guys please bear with me, I really want to share it too but only a few things have been painted at the minute unfortunately. Come Monday evening I’ll hopefully have some images to share with you all 
While waiting for the bodyshop to paint up all the bits and bobs for reassembly, I decided to look over the headlights and bonnet hinge.
The bulbs looked pretty good so I’m keeping them as they are, but the headlight units themselves were a bit grubby and rusty in places after 24 years.
I removed the rubbers from the headlight units and gave them a rinse. The adjustment brackets had seen better days so I decided to clean them up too.
Like the headlights the bonnet hinge worked fine but a few bits of rust had formed.
A bit of Hammerite on both brackets and hinge should clean everything up.
I dismantled everything and gave it a single coat of Hammerite.
Everything cleaned up well and ate up some time waiting for the more exciting news about what colour I went for.
Please remove the blue overspray from the headlight glass
Good point, I’ll try my best
Also a big thanks to Dom from The Lotus Factory for sorting out some new headlight fixings for me. I decided to put everything together to help with placement for bonding them onto the clam.
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I took a small blade to carefully scrape off the paint overspray. Unfortunately there is still some paint in the silicone bonding on the very edge, but the glass is now free of paint and I’m confident the brackets and bonding won’t be seen once on the car.
Good work James. I’ll keep holding on for the colour reveal 
I have a dreadful desire for a green Exige and keep thinking about a colour change but the costs are keeping my imagination in check!
I’ll share the colour tomorrow I promise, the sills and roof have been painted so I’ll share them if the clams haven’t by tomorrow.
I spent a bit of time tonight sorting the boot latch. I hooked it up to my original pull chord with an additional bit of right angled tubing. I felt this would take out some of the tension from the cable as it has to hook around the back of the latch for RHD cars.
After 24 years of rain the pull chord had become quite stiff, so a bit of WD40 freed up the movement and it is ready to go onto the car.
*Just realised I’ll have to dismantle the cable when putting it back on the car, but at least I have everything sorted for it.
Hi guys, I’m afraid I missed going to the bodyshop yesterday due to work commitments, so the paint reveal will have to wait until Saturday.
But at least that day I’ll start the long journey of putting the bloody thing back together!
James, did you source the boot popper?
i have the relase catch but no boot popper. Looking for a part number or info on where to source one.
Thanks
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Do you mean this piece?
I bought my latch assembly complete so it came with it, I just bought a new rubber cap for the top of it.
I believe the part number is B111U0561F and it is called something like the “Lift assembly, tailgate opening” or something. I think Simon at Scott Russell was able to get one for around £50 + vat, so drop him a message on Facebook or whatever unless you can find one elsewhere using the part number. Could try Deroure too if it is listed in the part number search.
Hope that helps pal 
Does the tailgate cable reach OK, I’ve a feeling the Elise and Exige ones are different?
They’re fairly cheap to by new, or I have my original RHD Exige one somewhere if it’s any use
I’ll have to check when I put the car together and find out!
I think it should reach ok as I think my Elise clam left it with a bit of slack (photo shows the cable across the boot) but it would have made more sense to use a latch that had the cable running into the RHD side of it!
I think the cable should be long enough.
Cheers
Sorry it is later than I said, but here is the end result from today:
Decided on Laser Blue! The earlier B85 code and I must admit it looks amazing, even covered in dust!
This is after a full day putting it back together, which will follow now but I wanted to show you the car as complete as possible for the colour reveal.
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