Before!

12 year old Elise running gear! The shocks, braided brake lines and rear toe links were replaced two years ago, but everything else on this Blog has been completed spring 2009.

To This :

ARB Refurb

Cracked Nylon Bush on one side could explain the 'knocking' on track.

Original powdercoat had worn away so reduced clamping force where the bush meets the ARB.

Original Nylon Bushes as they came off.

Rust! Drop links had to be removed with a grinder as the nut and thread had perished.

New Nylon bushes £25 (in Lotus parts sale, rrp £80). Cleaned up original inserts.

Rust removed, treated, then painted with POR-15. Used the section in the centre of the ARB where the original powdercoat was untouched to measure how tight the bushes should be. 5 coats of paint did the trick.

Bushes coated in Moly grease, and fitted with new clamp bolts. New ARB drop-links from elise-shop.com £60.

Fixings

Tyne Tees Fasteners delivered all 56 HT bolts (£25) including cap head bolts in 12.9HT as this is the only grade available. Ended up buying these cap bolts again from Lotus, plus R-Clips to replace old split pins (£19) as they should be in 8.8 and 10.9 (see above, only the rear brake caliper M8 cap head bolts should be 12.9).
38mm x 1.5mm M10 Caster washers are from Ebay (£3.99 for 20).

Wishbones, bushes, and ball joints

Labels so I remember how it goes back together.

OE rubber bushes pressed out using 6" vice. Bought a cheap 30mm socket to press into, but used an old 13/16ths to break the top hat and press the bush out. £5 for 30mm Halfords socket. Damages the sockets so wouldn't use a decent set for this.

Ball Joints Removed. £48 ish delivered for press tool. Thought this was very much over priced, but the alternative was an hours labour at a garage and the possibility of paying this again at some point. Plus the tool can be used to remove ball joints without removing wishbones in future. Very solid and well made and will be used to press new ball joints back in.

Everything was then professionally acid dipped, and yellow zinc passivated as per when they were manufactured. £45. Excellent finish considering the condition they were in, some light pitting in the steel after 12 years of rust. (Hastings metal finishers, Hebburn, Tyne and Wear).

Decided to get the wishbones powdercoated in gloss silver (£40) rather than paint them due to time, running out of paint, but mainly the temperature in the garage being much lower than POR recommend. The steering arms and balljoint plynths were painted with POR-15 indoors and have come up great. The finish of the powdercoating is nowhere near as good or as thick as I'd hoped, and they need a LOT of overspray removing but the protection and coverage is fine.

Fitted Autobush Poly bushes - £130. Much more tricky to fit than anticipated. The bushes are inserted into the wishbones easily by hand. The hatched area inside the bush is then filled with the special grease (supplied), then the stainless crush tube is pressed into the bush. I initially left the crush tube level with the bush top-hat, but found that I couldn't fit the wishbones to the car, they simply wouldn't go in. Pressing the crush tube about half a millimeter farther into the bush with a small socket seemed to be the correct 'centre' point, and made fitting the wishbones to the car easy.

Ball Joints.

8 Ball Joints ordered, same boxes, same supplier, same part numbers from QH, 3 different types in the set of 8.

BallJoint_1 is perfect. A solid fit, and 38mm from ledge to plynth. BallJoint_2 has the wrong 'body' size and shape and could be placed into the wishbone by hand (without using the press). BallJoint_3 has the wrong sized taper. The plynth wobbled around, and you can see that the distance from ledge to plynth is 42mm. Should be 38mm. All sorted and 8 identical joints pressed in using the EP tool.

Front Uprights

Front uprights removed from the car in a sorry state. Showing early signs of corrosion on the rear face, a siezed bearing and an out of spec M12 Hub Bolt.

Degreased with 'POR-15 Marine Clean', and lightly buffed with a wire brush drill attachment. New bearings fitted along with M16 hub bolt kit A111C0137S from Lotus. Hub Kit £29, bearings £70, labour £30. POR-15 starter kit £20.

Coated with 'POR-15 Metal Ready' and given 2 coats of silver 'POR-15 Rust Prevention' paint. Not too worried about the paint thickness on camber, as I already had -2 degrees at front (too much) already and this was with some shims still in place.