Exhausted.

We thought that a trip down to Dorset, around 250 miles in total, would exercise the car nicely.

Luggage loaded easily, as the boot has reasonable space and there is quite a lot of room behind the seats for squashy bags.

The route down was via a section of the M3 and then through Salisbury. The car is very noisy at motorway speeds so single carriageway roads are much more relaxing, even though there were several hold-ups in which the car threatened to overheat. The car seemed to get noisier, particularly on the overrun and I made a note to investigate when we arrived back home.

We were both extremely tired when we arrived after about 2.5 hours and with hindsight may have been breathing a tad too much CO.

We stayed for 3 days at in lovely cottage about 2 miles inland from Durdle Door.




The weather was good, and we drove into Weymouth and to visit friends who have a cottage nearby.

I decided to drive back via the M27 and (slower, 60ish mph) along a short section of M3, stopping for lunch at Hinton Ampner, a NT property between Winchester and Petersfield. A lovely place, grand house and fantastic gardens.

Then things started to go badly wrong. The car started to misfire under light load, and the noise increased. Finally, about 20 miles from home, on the A31 near Alton, the Y connector between the exhaust manifold and straight pipe failed, dropping the front of the straight pipe section on the road. I was able to coast into a layby which was fortunately very close, looked at the options and called the RAC. Helpful chap turned up after about 45 minutes and tried to lift the pipe up using plastic cable ties.... I pointed out that these would melt so he added a bit of wire onto the gearbox mount. He then suggested that we drove to Farnham and try an exhaust centre. We drove a few miles, slowly, with the RAC van following. The car was incredibly noisy, lots of misfiring and backfiring and of course fumes all around. So I pulled into the car park of the Bull pub near Bentley and asked the RAC to send a tow truck.

So we sat in the pub garden and drank tea until the tow truck arrived about an hour later. The driver was a real star and took great care of the car which I drove onto the tilted flatbed. We were then driven back to Camberley.

So, this morning, Paul from Swiss Cottage (see the first blog post!) collected the car with his usual efficiency, and took the car to Lakeside. Max confirmed that that a weld on the (new) Y-section had failed, so a new one will be ordered and fitted, hopefully in the next couple of days.

With a bit of hindsight, it's obvious that the section had been starting to crack, hence the noise and fumes on the way down. The misfiring just before the exhaust failed was due to lower back pressure messing up mixture, timing, etc.

Summertime

Some great drives in the last few weeks, including a visit to to the Festival of Speed at Goodwood.

One of the best new road cars there.

In other news, I've managed to resolve a few more rattles and areas of vibration, through the use of cable ties and sticky-backed foam!

The car now has a new propshaft, and that has also reduced the level of vibration. Kudos to Max, who managed to remove the old one and replace the new, defying the workshop manual by doing this without removing the diff or engine/gearbox. And also swapping the coupling at the diff end when he found that the flanges on the old propshaft and diff were non-standard (it seems a few left the factory like that).

Rear brakes adjusted (so the handbrake works again!), the bendix on the starter motor cleaned, exhaust mount reattached and engine oil, gearbox and diff topped up.

Finally for now, a view of the massive cars car at our local BMW dealer..... where it rained, proving that the Elan isn't entirely waterproof. More on that later.

In praise of B roads

A few drives recently, down to Goodwood, over to Horsham and, this week, to Lakeside have highlighted how enjoyable it is to drive on B roads. Little traffic, mostly decent surfaces, decent width - and at this time of year, driving through the countryside in the sunshine with the engine purring away, they're quite lovely.

More sterling work by Max at Lakeside. The door handles I sourced were a very slightly different shape but fit OK. However the drivers door catch mechanism had been previously "bodged" which meant the locking mechanism didn't work. Temporary de-bodging has taken place but we need to find a replacement o/s door catch. Max also found some window frame liners which have magically stopped the glass rattle.

The radiator as been repaired again, hopefully for the last time.

Work on the drivers door has highlighted the fragility of some of the original glass fibre; a couple of small cracks have appeared. Nothing too awful but the door and it's components will need more work, perhaps over the winter.

Lots of driving, other progress.

Some great drives recently, down to Goodwood for breakfast club, a trip to Horsham (time on a 737 flight simulator, a birthday present) and yesterday to an excellent gathering of Loti organised by the Historic Lotus Club and held at Oakley hall - a great location on a lovely summer day.

Took the car over to Lakeside today to have the radiator repaired (again!) and to fit the new door handles that I managed to find on eBay. Hopefully that will enable me to lock the driver's door....

I also managed to find a nearside door catch on eBay.

Rode back on my single speed bike. Tiring!

Max called to say that he's managed to find the door frame liners that hold the window glass in place - stopping the glass rattling.

I'm getting about 30mpg so far. Oil consumption is pretty high. We 're using 5/40 fully synthetic at the moment, that will be reviewed.

Last week I also had a play on Silverstone in an Audi R8 (another birthday present, thanks Alexa!). Very fast but the electronics take away the feel.

47th Birthday

Today, 24th April 2014.

I still can't believe how tiny it is........

Out for a drive with Alexa over to Bell and Colville, our local Lotus dealer. And you thought the Elise was small?

Just driving it... :-)

And not much news, which is, I guess, good news.

Still a leak from the radiator but not a big problem. A couple more rattles and squeaks fixed, two more to sort.

Two sets of new keys work fine (where locks work!).

Headlight position switch springs were a bit too strong for the poor old vacuum pots so have been tweaked. New vacuum pots now on the "replace sometime" list.

A bit of oil use, to be expected.

Interior and door mirror both fell off, have been refixed.

Bag of tools and spares permanently in the boot now.

It's great!

Dry weather......

..... so enjoying driving. First shopping trip (for wine) caused a stir at the local shops. Parked between a Range Rover and BMW X5. Sitting in the Elan looking at huge tyres alongside me. :-)

Found a source (on eBay) of replacement keys - I only had one set and they are really badly worn. The new keys arrived today and work fine, in fact better than the originals. Only £6.99 for 3 keys including postage.

The radiator needed over 300ml of water. I'll keep checking and topping up until it's repaired.

Otherwise my ongoing attempts to trace and fix rattles and squeaks have been fairly successful.

The radio aerial (small item on the inside of the back window) doesn't pick up much of a signal, but I can play music from my phone through the radio via bluetooth or an aux. cable. Volume has to be LOUD to overcome engine and transmission noise.