When I was buying all the suspension refresh bits, for some reason I decided to buy one of these. An Elise Parts clutch slave cylinder support bracket. Apparently the original bracket can be a bit weak and bendy. I figured I’d may as well fit it while I had the air filter out the way. […]
My Elise came with an OMP steering wheel, fitted by a previous owner. The original Lotus wheel came with the car too but I like this OMP one so have kept it. The only thing I didn’t like was the noise it made when turning the wheel. It wasn’t noticeable in normal driving but when […]
The passenger window didn’t fully close at the front edge with the hardtop on and the door already shut. If you closed the window before shutting the door it was fine but it’s a bit of a pain having to remember to do that before washing the car. So I thought I’d see if there […]
I obviously didn’t start the Elise during the few weeks I spent doing the suspension refresh. This was long enough for the battery to discharge so when I finally got it back on it’s wheels it wouldn’t start. I pulled the battery out and topped up the cells with some de-ionised water as they were […]
As part of the dismantling for the Elise’s suspension refresh I removed the wheel arch liners. Removing the fuse box from the liner was, predictably, a bit of a fight as the fixings were rusted stuck, see here for some about that. But it was worth the effort as it meant I discovered some wiring […]
The headlamp covers had been fitted with the usual sticky black butyl type adhesive so removing them wasn’t a big problem fortunately. It just requires a little bit of heat to soften it then once I had an edge lifted with my fingers the covers peeled off quite easily. Most of the adhesive was left […]
While I had the Elise apart for the suspension refresh I was on the lookout for anything else that might need some attention. I had already noticed the dirt that had got behind the headlamp covers and that one side was letting water in so I was going to have to deal with that. What […]
One of the Cobra alarm key fobs was looking pretty ropey. It’s something you have to carry around with you and it’s so cheap and easy to deal with I don’t know why people put up with crappy old ones. Yukky brown thing with a cable tie replacing the long since broken rubber and a […]
Having replaced the rods and rod ends of the rear toe links and the track rod ends on the steering it was certainly worth a quick check of the wheel alignment. Plus I don’t know exactly when it was last done or how it was set so I wanted to find out how things were […]
When I test drove the Elise before buying it, it was immediately obvious there was too much slack in the gear linkage. Having already done my research, I knew this would most likely be due to tired bushes in the linkage at the gearbox end. I also knew there are inexpensive kits available to replace […]