The 1962 Lotus Elite has been on the ramps and being worked on by our workshop manager John. The team have previously found the coolant was making its way out of the cylinder head studs, so decided to try a new process – ceramic coating. The team used the solutions to seal and coat the coolant passages within the engine to ensure that the coolant remains in those passages and not finding its way to where it shouldn’t be.
Once the Elite was back on the ramp, John began look into a few oil leaks under the car. Once back up on the ramp, he could work on removing the rear diff from the Elite.
Once the ceramic coating was done, John then began work on the rear end of the classic sportscar. The rear axle and diff unit was dropped out the car for John to completely strip down on the bench. Somewhere along the way, the previous owner engineered and made their own overdrive unit for the car. John has had to go through the massive technical folder on the car to understand how it works so that John can rebuild the whole unit to go back in the car.
‘Brake pipes were fitted to the rear axle. Then into the oil leaks coolant was drained and top hose remove to gain access to cam cover. Cam cover was removed and cleaned ready for new gasket. The oil was drained and sump removed along with the oil pump and baffle plate it was cleaned ready for new gaskets’
‘The interior light wasn’t working so the lamp was removed and bulb and lamp checked. These were found to be okay. So the feed was checked and 12volts was found to be at the lamp. The earth was then checked and was found to have high resistance. Both door switches were removed to check condition. The passenger side was working okay so was cleaned and refitted. Whilst the drivers side was found to have a poor connection and a weak spring, the switch was dismantled and spring adjusted and contacts cleaned. They were both then refited and retried. Both switches and lamp working perfectly.’
