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 […]
Car interiors seem to never get cleaned properly I guess it’s partly down to the fact they’re always a pain to clean and there’s usually loads of places you can’t reach without removing stuff. Well the Elise interior has been superficially well looked after by previous owners but it still needed a deep clean. Some […]
After a few days and a good few miles covered on our trip to the Lotus factory and around Norfolk the Elise looked OK from a distance as the weather had been good for the whole trip. But it was pretty grubby plus I wanted to get some wax on it so time for another […]
Jem and I wanted to go for a long weekend away now the weather was nice and the Elise really deserved a road trip as the suspension refresh was all finished. We weren’t quite sure where to go, the Scottish Highlands are usually top of the list as it’s so quiet there and the roads […]
While I had both front and rear undertrays and the diffuser off I thought I’d give them a quick clean. The rear undertray was pretty filthy! The Union Flag decals, fitted by a previous owner, were looking pretty untidy now too so I got rid. I have something different to go in their place. Mid […]
With the front finished it’s time to start assembling rear suspension components back onto the Elise. Pretty much the same as the front with a few small differences. Starting with these chassis brackets for the lower wishbones. A bit of corrosion block grease applied too. Right hand lower wishbone on. Upper one on. Damper mount. […]
Now the wishbones are on and the bolts all torqued up… …I moved on to assembling the rest of the front end. As usual with these things ‘refitting is the reverse of removal’. The ball joint plinths need fitting to the ball joints first. I used a bit of copper grease here to help prevent […]
Having read a little about Elise wheel alignment it sounds like the best thing to do is to get as much caster angle into the front hubs as possible. More caster angle means increased weight and ‘feel’ in the steering and should increase grip at the front when cornering. The available caster adjustment on an […]
While I had the rest of the suspension apart I figured I may as well replace the 20 year old rubber anti roll bar bushes with something a little better. So as I was already ordering a list of parts from EliseParts.com I went for some of their Nylatron ARB bushes. The bushes and grease […]
After a lot of dismantling, cleaning, painting and a bit of assembly of parts it’s finally time to start fitting parts back onto the Elise. There’s quite a few parts though which includes a fair number of nuts, bolts and washers. So first I took the time, with the help of my glamorous assistant, to […]