(10th Feb) L.O.T.U.S

Lots

Of

Trouble

Usually

Shag-and-hassle

My NS indicator housing is cracked, see here:

On Sunday afternoon I started taking off the NSF wheel arch liner and well er......fell at the first hurdle :-\
Well in fact....i got completely sidetracked (as you tend to do when stuck in an artificially lit garage, with "man-music" playing, supply of tea (Mrs R) and much-to-do. Actually I forgot how much i liked Bon Jovi and er....Def Leppard (ahem).

Like a magpie i got distracted by something shiny (actually the opposite, something less shiny that expected) - the state of the wiring and perished mounts in the bonnet and chassis-well. So off came the radiator water-shield.........

(all the panel fixings had perished)

...so it was off with the water shield and a good clean (yes yes i know it's a race car but it doesn't mean any work-and-wire-area shouldn't be clean)

And I started noting various items which needed replacing due to age, i remembered that Elgan (Hot-Lap) still needed some additional plumb-line measurements for the roll cage harness bar.

My-oh-my I never realised what a mess the cockpit was. "It's going to get completely f*cked when it goes in for the cage to be fitted so what's the point in cleaning it now?" I think.

Tourettes kicked-in........so i find myself taking off the gear level surround (unsurprisingly no small job)and.....well, this is what I found.....enough foilage for some small nesting animals to hibernate for the winter.

None in the least a fire risk i thought, and a huge weight penalty.....

....so out came all the crap, and combined with a can of "gunk" I attacked the cabin....

As you can see, it was filthy.

The idea was not to get the thing pristine but at least clean out enough of the crap so that there's a clean operating area for all the stuff to go in the car; from the cage, to a in-car camera system (Chase-Cam) etc etc.....

Several hours later.....I find myself back at the wheel arch liner.

(Note: the Mrs came in with the umpteenth cup of coffee at this point and mentioned the time. I also got a SMS from CTO of BRR Steve. It's 18:30! Better get a move-on.

Now...anyone who has ever tried getting something done on a car by a certain time will know that it;s a recipe for a sense-of-humour failure.

"remove liner, fit light, replace liner. 30 minute job" I thought.

60 minutes later and I am still hacking away at screw number 1!

Equally, the wheel arch liner is hardly easy to take off (FFS) and in typical Lotus fashion, why make something simple (maybe with 4 or 5 panel fixings) when you can make it impossible? I know, let's mount a fuse box and a relay box on TOP of the wheel arch liner AND make the mounting screws
a) Inaccessible
and
b) prone to corrosion so that whenever you try and take them out the rawlnuts are just corroded to feck and will (again) knacker the liner.

The outboard screw on the front-facing side (commonly known as "M5 x 20, front-of-wheelarch liner-to-front clam" ) was already rounded off and I just can't get the bugger out :(
I managed to get a set of lock-grip pliers on it but that only worked as far as getting the screw turned about 2 turns, and now it appears to be stuck - it turns about a quarter-of-a-turn before it loses grip of the pliers and then "crack" ! as i think it's jammed in the rawlnut on the other side. I *think* what's happening is the screw is solid in the rawlnut, and it's turning the c-plate on the wheelarch - the sound is a little concerning in that it sounds as if some glass fibe or plastic is being slowly cracked - so i'm worried about using any more force in case i knacker the hole in the clam, wheelarch or both.
I was planning tomorrow to undo ALL the other bolts and try and drop the wheel arch out backwards, so only this bolt is connected and try and get at it from the other side. Based on the parts manual, it's saying what's behind there is
Part #12: Rawlnut, M5, clamshells, front & rear(A075W6074F) part #10: Washer, shakeproof M5 (A075W4045Z)PART #11: Washer flat, M5, A075W4011Z
AKA i think i'll need to drill the f*cker out. Great!

So, after 3 hours of completely getting nowhere (my oh my it feels just like i'm at work!) I wrap up for the night. I remember that smug Steve Williams telling me it's "a five minute job" when they've got the front clam off to do the cage installation. 3 hours versus paying someone 20 quid to do it.....the bottle of Merlot sitting on the table is far more appealing at this point in time.

"Boring boring boring" I am shouting to myself as I type this.

WHAT ABOUT THE RACING YOU SILLY TOOL?

GOOD NEWS:

The cage is nearly done. Calling Elgan @ Hot Lap tomorrow to find when I can get the car booked in to get it fitted (hopefully next week)

In the meantime and in between 14 hour days at the office, I need to find time to:

- Source some cap head bolts for the diffuser (hex shaped don't work)

- Get the tyres swapped onto the new rota wheels

- Measure up the car and order a trailer

And it's torrential rain outside.

Damn...the grid seems a long long long way away........