Esprit

Workshop was too cold for the paint to cure, so they came upstairs to sit under the heat pump for a couple hours

17 Aug '08 Right well another weekend and more progress Got the CVs, rear uprights and driveshafts painted. Decided to do CVs black too because the paint prep for the POR15 tarnished the metal quite badly and the CVs would have looked arse in clear. They've come out all very shiny and black, as you'd hope. They'll never rust again. Just need to get some more grease tomorrow then the driveshaft assemblies can go back together again! Also got my wishbones all finally coated in POR15 Clearcoat (because it's a sandblasted finish it doesn't need the pre-paint) and they're looking better than I'd hoped. Nice and glossy and new-looking with the gold passivate below looking like some expensive trick pearlescent paint job. The way I've done it they should still look like this in 20 years time. Stoked!

In my experience, there's very few things that MEK won't dissolve Coating up my wishbones and uprights today, will post pics/update in the build thread tomorrow when they're coated and dry enough to handle

Yeah it's evil sh*t on your hands... I've still got silver fingernails now It cleans up all right in general purpose thinners although you have to make sure the brush is thoroughly rinsed after and then dried before it's useable again. But yeah, best to buy cheap brushes and chuck-em

The shock mounts have just had it brushed on... with a cheap brush... using POR15 that's been opened too many times and used in too cold conditions (so it's thick like treacle)... no brush marks in the gloss but a few small ones in the metallic flake in the silver... certainly good enough for suspension components and stuff.. the paint actually levels really well if you use it according to instructions and don't gob it on too thick in one coat.

12 Aug '08 Not much progress this weekend... the POR15 clear kit I needed to do a bunch of the components didn't arrive so I was a bit hamstrung. Spent much of the weekend in bed with a migraine though and working on my daily driver so not as much Lotus time as I'd like. Still, got the upper shock mounts all finished now. The plating place botched up and gold-passivated these too (I was after them bright-zinc plated to better match the OEM hot-dip galv finish) so I figured I'd overcoat them with the left-over POR15 I had from the floor as it'd look slightly better than having them in the gold passivate. They came out quite good considering it was very cold and the paint was really too thick to do without leaving brush marks... once they were tough-dry, I brought them into my room to sit by the heater.... I can barely move in my room now for car-parts! The hazards of flatting and doing up an old car eh? Behold shock mount shininess:

Yeah well 5000 series alloys also anodise extremely well, which is one of the pluses with them. The issue would have happened with most alloys really, the problem was that water could get beneath them and stagnate. Due to the sealed nature there, you got crevice corrosion which loves those conditions.... it was less the moisture and more the trapped nature of stagnant moisture that leads to the crevice corrosion. It's a very interesting and unique method of corrosion really, one that Lotus obviously didn't think through. Ironically, where the mats were adhered to the floors never corroded, so if they'd adhered the whole mat down rather than just a strip around the edges, the problem would have never existed! It's an odd one for sure.

The problem most people have had with POR15 is on polished metal parts and poor adhesion (like your motorcycle example above). POR15 likes seasoned material, and hence my floopans were prepped with both mechanical abrasion and an acid etch (as you recommended, and as specified by PPC themselves). Bear in mind that I mechanically removed all visible signs of remaining corrosion in the pits as well as applying the coating so it should be fine. In the end it comes down to the fact that the 5000 series alloy used in the floorpans isn't particularly prone to intergranular corrosion. The only fault here is that of Lotus who cocked up and failed to recognise their original floor covering and their method of attachment wasn't suitable for what they had planned. The matierial was originally protected by an anodised layer, which wasn't resistant to this particular type of environmental attack.. which was a stupid error on their part. In any case, we'll see in a few years time. For now, the POR15 seems to have adhered to the metal VERY well (ain't no way it's coming off) and it's non-porous so it should keep all moisture and oxygen away from the metal, meaning that existing corrosion should have no reason to go any further so long as the coating adhesion isn't compromised.

Exfoliation corrosion is typically only prevalent in high strength aluminium alloys and the floors in the Lotus don't fall into that category. They're just a standard 5000 series alloy and aren't structural, they're pretty much just there to stop you doing a flintstones impression Crevice corrosion is also a galvanic reaction and usually needs some dissimilar metal or moisture contact to initiate and propagate it.... I don't have any dissimilar metals in galvanic contact with the floor (it's isolated by the glue that's used to bond the floors in) and moisture contact has been banished by the POR15 (stagnant moisture trapped in a low-oxygen environment was what caused the existing crevice corrosion in the first place). Thanks for the tip though, always nice to have someone else cast a critical eye over the work

Lynn Rogers is in line to do my porting work I think. Was going to get Ken at Lotus NZ to do it but he's never built a VHPD-K bottom end before and given there's only 3 of these engines in NZ I'm doubting anyone has. Roger at LCNZ doesn't do any of the mechanical stuff, that's all contracted to Allports these days who have pretty much zero experience with the Rover K-engined cars. Hence why I'm doing it myself... there's a wealth of info out there on the net through some of the UK clubs I'm involved with (like SELOC).. and I'll probably end up buying all my parts through someone like Dave Andrews (DVAPower) or QED on the condition I get some free helpline advice on how it should all go together Engine building ain't brain surgery, it just needs care and attention, something I'm more likely to lavish on it than someone who's trying to turn it around for a profit.

Was thinking about doing it myself (well the assembly / set-up work anyway) Don't think there'll be any machining necessary other than perhaps a little porting on the head and perhaps some reaming of the new colisbro valve guides when they're in. Why? you have someone in mind?

Was already a competitive track car Could keep a GT3 at bay if driven well .... I'm just a perfic... perfek... parfec..... fussy bastard.

06 Aug '08 Today's update: Well it's been a mixed day today... taken the decision to bite the bullet and rebuild the engine. I was hoping to avoid this and I could have just slapped it back in the car, but the prevalent oil-consumption would only get worse and the performance would begin to drop off before too long so given it's out and partially stripped I'm going to jump in boots and all and do it. It's outside my budget for the job and it means the car probably won't be finished until the end of the year at the earliest but it's the right thing to do. A little disheartened to be honest On the plus side, I got the plating back today... all of the sandblasting as seen in a photo a few posts back now looks lovely and plated. Here's a bit of a teaser: Most of the exposed parts will be overcoated with a POR15 epoxy clearcoat for further protection before they're ready to bolt back on the car... should look a million bucks! Hoping to get the car back on its wheels by early September to allow me to wheel the car around and give me space to work on the engine in there. *sigh*

04 Aug '08 Second coat on now... coverage is much better, colour is actually quite a good match and much more uniform on second coat... pitting pretty much filled in. The gloss level will dull slightly once the paint dries, but other than that should stay looking as good as it does in the pics. The job, as they say, is an orange coloured root vegetable

04 Aug '08 First coat on Certainly not a perfect finish, but pretty good. second coat should fill most of the pitting and be a little more uniform... as I said, I can do a topcoat at a later stage if I desire... at least for now this'll prevent any corrosion from getting worse... and it don't half look better than before

03 Aug '08 More progress.... some background first: Now, With the Series 1 and early Series 2 Elises (and S1 Exiges) Lotus had a bit of a nightmare with the floorpans, they made rather an elemntary cock-up and designed in a rather silly fault. The Elise chassis is anodised aluminium sections glued together and as such doesn't corrode really at all. This is useful as because it's glued, you can't just cut off and weld in repair sections like you can with a conventional welded steel unibody car. Now, the car originally came with rubber mats bonded to the footwells... which was all well and good. But invariably, moisture got underneath and used to "sweat". Ordinarily that's not a problem, but given that the mats are rubber and don't breathe, you get a low-oxygen environment , and the stagnant moisture causes crevice corrosion to attack the anodising and then the base metal beneath. This was first discovered by owners in about 2002-2003 when some noticed the mats beginning to go lumpy as the piles of aluminium oxide (white powder). Upon pulling them up it looked like the floor of a cocaine factory. When the powder was scrubbed away, the aluminium was left heavily pitted, discoloured, pinholed and even cirrided completely through. Now Lotus realised the fcuk up and issued a recall whereby the rubber mats were removed, the floors cleaned up and breathable synthetic mattiing installed. If the corrosion wasn't serious, then the floors were cleaned then coated with ACF50 (a protectant for aluminium). In more serious cases, the floors were cleaned and a new aluminium sheet was bonded in over the top of the old one hence double-skinning the floor. The floorpan is not structural, it's purely a cosmetic issue and obviously the sort of thing you want to stop before it gets too bad. NOW. My car had the floor corrosion/recall done in 2004. My corrosion wasn't too bad by way of pitting with the worst pits being only about 20-30% of the way through the metal. The anodising was knackered though and had blackened badly, hence looking very ugly (see pics). Instead of doing the "B" fix (new panel bonded in) they did the small "A" fix. It really should have had the new floor bonded in but I'm rather glad they didn't as to my mind, while it's COSMETICALLY the best thing to do, it recreates the same issue the rubber mats caused in the first place (a sandwich where moisture can get to). My floorpans as they were can be seen below.... ugly: Anyway, I decided that I would clean mine up and would give them some kind of coating (Like Danoul from SELOC has ). I decided on POR15 as I've used this on floorpans of other cars that had corroded and the resultant finish was tough as nails and a complete seal over the metal. This is a special anti-corrosive epoxy paint that dries by sucking moisture out of the air and from the base metal below (it can only be painted on bare metal). It then forms an impermeable seal where Oxygen and moisture cannot get to (it's not porous like conventional paints). Especially given that now POR15 is available in Silver, I thought I'd give it a shot. If I'm not happy with the colour when done, I'll simply be able to over-coat it with a colour-matched conventional paint whilst keeping the POR15 coat in place to protect the metal. Anyway... the floorpans were meticulously cleaned and prepped this weekend in order to receive the paint. They're already looking a lot better, and the pitting isn't as bad as I'd feared: They're now ready for the POR15 which I'll apply later tonight or tomorrow. POR15 works as a filler/primer too so the pitting should be easily filled by the paint. Any pitting evident after coating will be filled on top of the basecoat so that there's no chance of moisture being trapped below the filler. More pics once there's some paint on!

What can I say?! It satisfies my closet OCD

No just British roads, and being based in Scotland makes for longer, harder winters than most of the UK. I don't know of any other European country that uses salt - mainly because mainland temperatures get way below the effective freezing point of water+salt ( -5 degrees tops ). That and they're not that stupid. I've owned 3 year old escorts in the UK with more rust than my 1973 kiwi new version has now. Fair enough.... although as you know, once it's been on salt, it just sits on the suspension etc and then pretty much every time it gets wet, the salt/water eats further into the metal. Nasty, nasty stuff. Anyway, it's all a distant memory now, everything's all sandblasted and shiny (see update from this evening in the thread) so no more rustiness for me to contend with

27 Jul '08 Well more progress this weekend! Got the second CV joint/driveshaft all split down, cleaned out and scrubbed up. Looks pretty much the same as the first, not perfect, but more than good enough, and a SHED load better than before. I've also finished polishing up my front extruded alloy suspension uprights and they look uber bling now. I've just buffed them up by hand with a rag and Autosol, so they're not perfect, but they're not designed to look bling, I just wanted them polished so they'll resist corrosion a little better in future. I'm going to look into anodising them too, will take them in to Anodising Industries during the week and have a chat to them... so we'll see. But anyway beholdeth bling: Compare those to the DIRY one in the pic taken from a few weeks ago and you'll see it's a small improvement Also snapped some photos of all my sandblasting stuff. All of the wishbones, steering arms, balljoint mounts, engine mounts, forged steel rear uprights and miscellaneous bits and bobs have spent this weekend in the hot water cupboard. Because they're now bare steel, I've been trying to keep them from getting moisty and rusting until I can get them into the platers tomorrow Compare them to the earlier photos above of the suspension wishbones on the floor and you'll see it's a million times better. Can't wait to see them all plated up and looking shiny gold and/or powdercoated Beholdeth more bling! So yeah, productive weekend

Heh, got those tools as a 21st present and have abused them regularly for the interim 7 years, ain't broken one yet Mind you, I've got only the basic tools as I moved around a lot up until a few years ago and tools can be a bitch to move around... I work as an engineer so I've got a fully stocked toolroom at my disposal should I need something beefier. Cheap tools FTW My motto is the less money you spend on 'em, the more money you have to spend on unreliable, horribly impractical British 4-wheeled moneypits

True that! The rust you've seen is about 2 winters' use (2003 and 2004) where the original owner did some big assed roadtrips down to Europe to have winter plays over the alps passes and around circuits like Spa, Zandvoort and the Nordschleife. As I said, many of the Exige specialist parts were straight from the "motorsport elise" parts bin and as such were bare steel, no rust proofing at all (I guess they thought why would you bother rust-proofing a race car?). But yes, British/European roads can do this, will turn a new car into a rustbucket in but a few years. Even living next to the beach in NZ would be much less harsh on a car. Hence my ethos with this rebuild is to get it right, give it some kind of care/protection and it should stay looking as good as new for the next 20 years or more It's only really a dry-weather toy for me, only sees the rain when I'm away touring/trackdaying and get caught in it so it should lead a pampered existence from here on in

Haha good old Toyota K I'm not sure the chassis could handle all that raw power As for the Ute comment, I probably should... turn up to a minitrucker meeting like that, would raise a few eyebrows.... would have to fit airbags or hydros first though

Heh nothing wrong with the Rover motor... makes all the right noises (if you consider a paint can full of nails being shaken to be the right noises!) I was planning to do a Honda K20a swap at some point, but the value of Exige S1s has gone through the roof in the past year as they're becoming collectible, so I'll keep it matching numbers. Will probably take an S1 Elise and build a Motorsport Replica in 2010 with little concession to originality.

At this stage it's just a clean-up. I've got some work planned for the future, but this winter's task is just to get it up and running as it should be and all cleaned up. It's such a quick car that it'll be a few years before I can even begin to really drive it to its potential so not really worrying about mods too much at the moment. Money situation should be a bit better by year's end (still paying the bugger off as had to borrow a little to import it earlier than I wanted to beat the import restrictions) so then I'll have some decent coin to start throwing at it to do the upgrades. Currently the suspension is just being refurbished. The shocks and springs are fine and in good condition so these will just be stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. The suspension's being rebuilt with all new bushes, balljoints etc as this will give me a good solid base to modify from later (knowing that things aren't slack and moving about when you're trying to tune them is a big help!). One mod I'll be doing this year though is fitting of a lightweight battery to try and carve off some kerb weight. I did this on my old Elise S1 and it was a worthwhile mod, saving a cheap and easy 6kg. Will post details of this in September when I get around to doing it. Plan for next year is to replace the Lotus Sport Koni/Eibach suspension with some new 3-way Ohlins shocks and Eibach springs and perhaps a front-end respray and fitment of some 3M Armourfend to the front clamshell to protect it from the beating the low-nose of these things take on our coarse-chip Kiwi roads. Also plan to get some TMR Racing Podium Forged alloys from Japan to allow me to run different tyres on road and track, although we'll cross that bridge when we come to it

Today I got the other (Offside) CVs split and cleaned up as per the nearside CVs in the pic. These are ready for clearcoating and reassembly now (after some finishing work I'll do prior to clearcoating). The engine's having its head removed and inspected this week, as tempting as it was to just reassemble it without removing the head and sticking it back in the car, I'd rather just have a looksee so I can inspect bores, pistons and the top end. The engine's a bit thirsty for oil at high RPM (a common VHPD trait) so we'll see if we can't get to the bottom of it. Big news this week is that the blasting's been done on all the suspension and I picked it up yesterday. No pics of yet as I'm keeping it locked up in the hot water cupboard, warm and dry until I tackle them tomorrow to remove the masking plugs I've put in all the bores. Will snap a photo then. They'll be off to the electroplaters on Monday. Tomorrow I hope to finish off polishing the front alloy uprights as well.... FINALLY some progress... might get this thing finished after all. Hoping my package of rebuild parts will be here from the UK early next week, that'll enable me to start putting things back together ASAP as hopefully it won't be long before I can start tackling cleaning up the chassis one corner at a time and re-hanging the suspension.