My Project!!

[ELAN+2]

I thought I'd share some pics of my current project,
Its a 1970 Lotus Elan +2S, I bought it for my father 5 years ago as a project for us to restore together, sadly he died after we started it. I have had the old girl stored in my back garden for the past 4years and decided to exhume it and get on with the restoration at the beginning of October 2006.


SWMBO didnt fall for the comment"honest honey, it only needs a lick of paint!!


a bunch of mates were enlisted in lifting off the body (bloody fools did it for tea!!!) thanks guys, you know who you are!!

the chassis needed stripping, cleaning and painting, as you can see, half of the suspension had already been started by dad, I threw the car back together to get it home, so off it all came again!!



And progress to date, all the suspension is back on, I need to replace one rear hub drive flange and both rear bearings, I have re built the brake calipers and fitted new rear shock inserts.



Next job is some repairs to the body shell and to make a gearbox mount to take the 5 speed box that I'm going to fit, its a scorpio MT75.
once the gearbox and engine are sorted, the body can go back on and the rest of the shell can be tackled!!

Mark

[abarthchris]

looks good, nice to see one of these being restored properly! im bet your dad would be impressed!

[humpbackmaniac]

Nice tea drinking technique!

[Altrezia]

wicked thread!

[simonb9]

Good luck with this !! I think they're a great looking car !! Hope to see it looking all nice and shinny in the not so distant future !!

[ELAN+2]

Wasn't me drinking the tea!! I hope to have it on the road for the summer (2007!!). Most people think I'm being optimistic to say the least, but I wanted a tight deadline to strive for. I'm having a few issues fitting the Scorpio gearbox and this has slowed me down by a couple of weeks already

thanks for your support guys and if interested I'll keep posting progress pics!!

Mark

[_tc]

I have a chap doing some work on my MG at the moment. he is an excellent engineer and built an Elan for his now ex wife which took him 3 years as the only original parts left on it are the boot hinges and front stub axles. He made a copy of everything he could out of titanium. he has shaved 190kg off the car and its still road legal, two seats, heater etc. I will hope to get some pics on the weekend.
Good luck with your elan. looking good already.

[ninjaboy]

Lovely car, will be nice when its done will be a good memory of your dad too

[ELAN+2]

ninjaboy said:

Lovely car, will be nice when its done will be a good memory of your dad too

thanks for the support guys, had to give up on the chassis for a bit as I'm waiting on parts, also having to get a one off gearbox flange made, the transit one fouls the chassis!!
Have spent every evening removing paint and filler from the engine bay and bonding the front end back on (it was a tad pissed before!!)





total time spent scraping paint off so far is around ten hours!!!

[ELAN+2]

bulkhead stripped, inside and out, trolley made for the shell and engine bay in primer!!, not a bad weekends work.



I've got the week off work, so hopefully the engine bay will be painted and the front end repaired and primed at least!!

[BoRED S2upid]

Looks like its progressing nicely. What colour is it going to be? I love these old cars.

[cossiemetro]

looking good m8

[tvrn]

Looks you doing a great job.

[ELAN+2]

thanks for the positive comments guys, heres an up date!! I've now repaired the gel coat on the front nose cone, repaired the splits in both front wings, repaired the inner wings, painted the engine bay(it'll need another coat or two later) and hi build primered the front end.The original accident damage wasn't repaired properly. I've had to deal with filler and stress cracks as far back as the B posts!! Its amazing what can lurk under filler and paint.

Gel coat being ground off

fibre glass tissue and resin applied to replace gelcoat

skimmed with filler and flatted back (dry sanding only untill the top coat goes on, so very dusty!!)

these are two of the tears in the offside front wheel arch. Stretcher plates screwed to the back, the cracked area was then ground out to the underseal, an inch or so each side of the crack and an inch beyond the end of it

then two layers of glass chopperd strand matt were resined into place

then the repair is ground down slightly and a skim of filler applied to the whole wing area and sanded back

then the whole front end was painted with high build two pack (I used a brush and roller wich was a mistake in hind sight, but with all of the dust in the garage it didnt get contaminated!! Just plenty of dry flatting to do by hand , but I wont tackle this untill the whole shell is at this stage


and today we reunited the chassis with the body!! (theres only so much you can do in a single garage!!

Edited by ELAN+2 on Saturday 4th November 23:53

[ELAN+2]

As for final colour, I'm still undecided, I quite like bright yellow (Triumph Inca Yellow or Ford Daytona Yellow) but SWMBO hates yellow motors, I had a yellow one of these in the past and she couldn't see the car for the colour!!. I'm leaning towards a flat red like Ford Colorado, the current colour or Radiant Red from 80's xr3i and Capris etc.Although a deep blue with a silver roof would look god on minilights!!.

I'm a few months away from having to make that choice yet!

regards

Mark

[EDrJay]

Looking good, keep up the good work and like i have said in the past if you need a hand, who ya gonna call

[space_cowboy]

I say paint it blue

[steve bowen]

good work !

[CabbyDave]

British Racing Green
Popular with the neighbours then!.....

Edited by CabbyDave on Saturday 18th November 22:36

[ELAN+2]

CabbyDave said:

British Racing Green
Popular with the neighbours then!.....

Edited by CabbyDave on Saturday 18th November 22:36

I've extended my garage (temporary job) by 8 feet, neighbours suggestion!!



Gonna cost me a mint in fuel, half the street wants to go for a spin in the car when its done!!