Now the the Elise was back together, after a complete suspension refresh, it would need a wheel alignment check. I was pretty careful about setting everything up during reassembly so that hopefully everything would be about right but it still had to be checked and the front and rear toe would certainly need some adjustment. […]
I thought I’d take a few pictures of everything freshly reassembled after the suspension refresh, as a record of it’s condition, before I cover it all with ACF-50 and it ends up with a layer of brake dust and road grime over it. Now I can get the Elise back on it’s wheels! π
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 […]
Just a couple of bits to assemble before parts go back on the car. The rear caliper brackets need to be fitted to the hub carriers before the drive flanges can be pressed into the bearings. This is because access to the allen head bolts is restricted when the drive flange is in place. With […]
If you happen to have arrived here looking for info on how to replace a ball joint with the wishbone still on the car then check out my other post here. Having fitted the Elise Parts wishbone bearing kit I could move on to pressing the new ball joints in but just before getting stuck […]
After a few days wait my mate Steve turned up with a box for me. π I’m really happy with the colour, it ties in nicely with the original red seats in the car and means they will stand out a little under the car. Though nobody else is likely to ever see them I […]
The Nitron Street Series, fitted to my Elise by a previous owner, are very well liked by Lotus owners for road use and they certainly feel pretty good to me. So as I only intend to use the Elise on the road and the dampers had only covered 11k miles I didn’t see any reason […]
Corrosion of the Elise/Exige/VX220/Evora chassis is a thing and it’s something that I think should not be ignored by anyone looking to buy one of these cars. Also anyone who owns one that’s done a fair bit of winter road miles or is just a good few years old now should consider inspecting their chassis […]