hello and a quick question

[matt the cat]

hello all

a newbie here!

Ive been into performance cars for a while now but this is the first lotus ive had. its a 111s in artic silver, 2004 with 3kmiles.

I'm planning a big detailing session and just looking over the car and have come across an area difficult to polish. I need to remove the black plastic vents on the bonnet ( front )

they are pretty flexible and look like probably easy to remove - anyone know how to do this safely, perhaps done it before?

Many thanks for any help

Matt

[nellie116]

Hi Matt,

I'm sure the front vents on the 111s are the same as the standard s2 which i have. If so, just undo the 3 allen bolts (better to do it with a allen screwdriver than a key. Keys can fall out of your grip and clank down the paintwork) Then lift the vent out from the outer edge first. The inside edge has a small peg at the front which sits in a rubber gromet and can snap off if your rough with it. Replacing is the same in reverse but make sure that the plastic "clip" sits under the bodywork. You will see what i mean when you take it off.
Hope this helps and happy polishing.

Nellie

[matt the cat]

thanks mate

are we talking about the same items - its the black plastic louvered vents just below the bolted service panles.

cheers

matt

[nwtony]

I'm pretty sure they come off with the service panels. Just use an allen key attachment to take off the panels and the black plastic slats below them come off at the same time.

[Miles_stylus]

yes they come off with the service pannels and the comments about the peg on the inner section and U shapped clip on the out sections are correct (and helpfull - wish I'd know about this at the time!).

I would second the comment about the key with one addition - I would make sure that the edge of the allen key head is of a sharp edged design rather than the rounded sort (which allow slightly off vertial angles to work) as the rounded ones can start to mess up the head which seems slightly soft.

Miles

[TonyHetherington]

nellie116 said:

I'm sure the front vents on the 111s are the same as the standard s2 which i have. If so, just undo the 3 allen bolts (better to do it with a allen screwdriver than a key. Keys can fall out of your grip and clank down the paintwork) Then lift the vent out from the outer edge first. The inside edge has a small peg at the front which sits in a rubber gromet and can snap off if your rough with it. Replacing is the same in reverse but make sure that the plastic "clip" sits under the bodywork. You will see what i mean when you take it off.
Hope this helps and happy polishing.

Spot on - identical for my '04 111S.

If you're doing some detailling, (it's addictive I tell you) take a look at this thread

(edit: sorry wrong thread link. Now changed to correct one!)
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=256646

and follow some of the links in there too. Oh, and take a look at Janitor's profile; a cleaning god. Look around for some of his posts, all very useful.

Good luck, and be sure to report back how it goes

Edited by TonyHetherington on Wednesday 21st June 13:54