S1 Elise – Replacing Track Rod Ends When giving the Elise it’s first inspection I noticed some play in the steering joints which seemed to be from the track rod ends so I ordered some replacements from Elise Parts. It’s a nice quick simple job to replace them. The offending article. Nut undone but not […]
home mechanic
S1 Elise – First Parts Order Arrived, Getting the Exhaust Back on and New Toe Link Joints
First Parts Order Arrived – Getting the Exhaust Back on and New Toe Link Joints I found a few little issues with the Elise when I first got it up on the lift here and now parts had arrived I could get on with dealing with them. Starting with the exhaust. The exhaust was clearly […]
S1 Elise – Hangar 111 Exhaust and Tailpipe Surround Polish
Hangar 111 Exhaust and Surround Polish As I had the exhaust off to deal with the leaks and I was waiting for parts to fix a few faults I found. I figured it was a good opportunity to give the exhaust a clean up and clean the exhaust exit surround on the rear clam. As […]
S1 Elise – First Time on the Lift for a Mechanical Inspection
First Time on the Lift for a Mechanical Inspection The Elise had been given all the necessary servicing during it’s lifetime so far with some decent upgrades too. But I think it’s fair to say that servicing work carried out, particularly during the last two owners time, was driven purely by MOT and recommended intervals. […]
S1 Elise – Finding and Buying my Series 1 Lotus Elise
Finding and Buying my Series 1 Lotus Elise After finishing the MX5 and enjoying the increase in power for a good while it was time for a change. So after selling it I did the usual scan through the web to see what interesting cars were available out there with particular interest in two cars. […]
Forester STI – Cavity Wax and Full Underside Wax Treatment
With the Dinitrol Super Protect 447 applied, next I could deal with protecting the body shell and subframe cavities. I could also apply a layer of wax to the whole underside. There wouldn’t be much point in me putting in all this time and effort to protect the outer surfaces of the body shell and […]
Forester STI – Dinitrol Protect Super 447 Anti Stonechip Coating
So the underside of the Forester has been cleaned, stripped of bits of trim and some suspension and anything I didn’t remove that I don’t want to spray has been masked. It’s finally time to start spraying the Dinitrol Protect Super 447 Anti Stonechip layer. But before I got started I took some pictures of […]
Forester STI – Pre ‘Undersealing’ Strip Down
After thoroughly cleaning the underside anywhere I could with a pressure washer and allowing everything to dry out. Now it was time to get the car up on the lift and start removing any plastic trims and some suspension parts that would make the job of spraying the protective coatings easier and more effective. This […]
Forester STI – New Front Discs and Pads
I could see it was likely the front pads were going to need replacing before I bought the car and sure enough when I got the car home and gave it an all over inspection I found the previous owners had certainly got their money’s worth! I also measured the disc thickness to compare with […]
Forester STI – Replacing a Rear Wheel Stud
When I took the wheels off for the first time I was a bit disappointing to find a broken wheel stud. There was enough of the stud left to screw the wheel nut on but not really enough to tighten it up properly. After a bit of research I found that this isn’t that uncommon […]