Putting the front clam back on the car after the splitter had been finessed also didn’t quite go as planned.
I spent ages getting it sitting perfectly against the clam while everything was off the car, only to have it pulled out of place once it was under tension on the car.
I didn’t realise there would be so much tension from the crash structure, and actually getting the clam and lip back on the car has caused a few small cracks where having the ends of the splitter fixed didn’t allow for the flexibility required.
What I should have done (if I knew) is take out the bolts out of the ends of the splitter to allow for flexibility, this would have stopped any cracking. This is how it sits with some of the tension out of it, which is how I’ll fit the clam when it is all finished and painted to avoid any further cracking or damage after I can’t repair things.
I have used my dremel to grind out the cracks and have stuck some JB Weld in them to make them nice and strong. You can also see in this photo how the gap has opened up between clam and splitter similarly to the other side when the bolt is taken out loosening some tension.
The passenger side I am happy with the clam/splitter clearance but it is under more tension which isn’t ideal, but once torqued up with some penny washers it should be fine.
My tip is to get the splitter fairly close off the car, then finesse when it is on the car to avoid wasted time.
Probably you placed the front clam a little bit to high on the car.
To reach the right positioning of the part the driving lamps should placed asymmetrically in the radiator opening.
The clam is on as low down as it can go really as it is right against the A pillar fixing positions. I probably sanded off too much surface from the splitter so it is my fault. The splitter will be finished up at the weekend so I’m happy with where everything else is sitting regarding fixed by points.
Small update on lunch break. I made the decision not to run an aerial, so I filled in the small indent where the little aerial fin sits to have a nice flush roof. I know I could have run without the aerial in it, but then that just leaves a black blob on the top. I photoshopped it off another laser blue S1 and it looked great! If I change my mind I could re-drill it as I’ve made a note of the measurement from the back of the roof, but I’m a CD guy and not a radio listener.
One of the few things I’m moving away from OEM, but I’m building it to my preference.
I don’t mind the aerial on the S1 Elise as it is further back and tucked away a little and kind of looks like an RC car aerial. However the Exige one seems a bit of an afterthought and just stuck on the top and doesn’t do it for me. Each to their own though.
Crack isn’t horrendous but I paid for new so happy about the exchange. I can still test fit the LH side and measure how much weather seal I’ll need for the arches as well as the extra pieces, which I’m going to make myself out of templates and black plastic.
The liners are bare and I originally thought about swapping over things like the headlight grommets and fuse box rawl plugs from my Elise liners, but they’re a little tatty and I think will help selling them keeping it all together. So new ones will be ordered to keep everything nice and shiny and new!
The passenger side is very close too but requires a small amount more filler then sanding back flush. Least I’m back to where I was before fitting the bloody thing!
I’ll go over the whole splitter separately with a finer sand paper with it off the car so it is ready to be primed straight away when dropped off at the body shop, similar to the rear spoiler and roof pieces etc.
I finished fitting the splitter by drilling the holes underneath to fix it to the crash-structure. Easy enough to drill and didn’t bother measuring, just guessed and drilled straight up though the splitter into the spire nuts (or U clips/chimney nuts or whatever they’re called). I’ve fit all bolts except the middle one which had the nut missing and I couldn’t get at the crash structure to put a new nut on with the splitter also on. Obviously will be finished with penny washers on final fitment after paint.
Due to the tension it was under I could just drill straight through the crash structure, aluminium panel and the splitter in one go to ensure the holes were all in line.
With a new nut and bolt it has pulled the splitter against the bottom of the crash structure much squarer, which has released a lot of tension from the splitter and has helped with the corner fitment between the clam and splitter. The fitment is now much closer to how the splitter and clam were finessed when off the car which is nice, so worth doing it.
With my car being up on axel stands for a while I thought it would be a good idea to sand the rear discs a bit to keep them from getting seized. I fired the car up and put it into 1st to get the wheels turning so I could sand off some of the rust and in doing so, I heard a horrible rattle sound. Upon inspection it appeared to be coming from my driver side driveshaft.
I blipped the throttle and the noise stopped as the wheels spun up. I switch the car off and grabbed the driveshaft and gave it a tug. There seems to be a fair amount of movement inside the gaiter, only in one direction though up and down. The other end of the driveshaft into the wheel hub seems nice and strong with little movement if any, same as the passenger side (shorter shaft).
I need to get the driveshaft out to give it a proper look over, the driveshaft also looks slightly bent but will check this when I get it out.
The first task is to get the hub nut off. Anyone who has had to do this knows how stubborn and a pain these are, they’re ridiculously tight! The first attempts I couldn’t get the wheel to stop turning, so I made up a jig to lock the hub without damaging the studs. I put the disc on backwards to help spread the load a bit.
I then bought some better Bluepoint extensions, snapped that 3" extension too. All these attempts had the pivot point supported underneath using an axel stand.
I then decided to ditch the extension and have the breaker bar straight into the socket. It did mean the extension bar rubbed against the clam, but not a problem with it being unpainted etc. But then my breaker bar broke…
Not only that but it snapped the extension pole I was using. I’ve lost patience with this nut and I can’t borrow any tools to get the sod off, these nuts just get ridiculously tight.
Put some heat on it? Usually this will expand the nut far quicker than the shaft and it will lose its grip. If you give it a blast of MAP gas and not for too long, then it shouldn’t melt the grease in the bearing either.
Success! Drilling is the way to go, I was a bit impatient and snapped the first small drill bit in the nut. I was a bit miffed at that because I wanted to use the knock in gap as a bit of a buffer when grinding down the nut not to damage the thread.
This was the reason I wanted to drill and grind near the knock in to avoid the damage I caused to the thread. I didn’t see where the nut stopped and thread began, so have ground a groove into it. Not the end of the world as I think I’m going to replace the whole driveshaft.
I felt the gap couldn’t be built up with just filler as it was too big, so I bought some rodent wire mesh and bonded it to the underside of the clam to give the JB Weld something to bond to. It isn’t the neatest as I did it with the roof on and had limited room, but it bonded strong enough and is in a position that’ll never be seen with the clam screwed to the roof.
So that the gap between the roof and clam was less of a “V” shape, I sanded the inner edge of the filler down. I then rounded the edge slightly to match the roof and top of the clam radius.
Next for this area is to measure out the positions for the fixing bolts to the roof and drill the holes. Bit nervous about this bit as I haven’t fitted jacknuts before, but should be straightforward.
The jacknuts need to be quite secure as the bolts will be under tension by pulling the top of the clam inwards.
With the passenger side wing mirror very much stuck on the door, I am pretty sure I’m going to have to cut it off unfortunately. I can’t really get into the door to cut off the boot heads, and I don’t want to cause any damage to the doors by ripping the bolts out.
After looking at the fixings it looked as though rather than captive nuts, the base had threads bonded into them. I think this is a better way of fixing them and safer if the bonding does break, so decided that I’ll use the bases from the sourced ones on the Exige.
One disassembled fine but I couldn’t pull the pieces apart on the other. As the spare ones didn’t have the rubber gaiter type piece on the adjustment part I decided to cut off the adjustment part so I could prise the two pieces apart from inside so not to damage the edge.
I then saw that the passenger side green base had rubber sleeves over the threads, and after pulling these off saw that the base was actually just a captive fixing like my original bases. Not the end of the world but I’d have preferred that the threads were bonded into the base like the other one. I’ll just make sure I don’t over-tighten them when I put them into the car.
if it came from TTexige there all like it, as mine and at least two other were all the same is exactly the same place, so i would imagine its a mould issue.
