Deep Purple 111S - Lotus in the Peak countdown!

[Daveb99]

All being well, my Deep Purple 111S, which I’ve been working on for a few months, will be at Lotus in the Peak next weekend.  I wasn’t planning to attend this year, but it has given me a reason to crack on with the next batch of jobs on the car….

I knew when buying the car that there was a little play in the steering rack.   It’s been on my to do list for a while and LitP has given me a good reason to remove and refurb it with phosphor bronze cups.

But I didn’t expect to discover, with the dampers and ARB removed, that the wishbones were anything but free in terms of up and down movement.   To say they are binding is a serious understatement !  

Together with the rack play, this is undoubtedly affecting the turn in and responsiveness of the steering, as well as the damping efficiency.

It has had poly bushes fitted at some stage and it turns out the stainless steel bush inserts are binding on the bore of the bushes.   They were never lubricated it seems.

The bushes, although fine condition wise, are also wider than the steel inserts when fitted, which means they are being clamped by the castor shims!  So with more than a little help from my great friend and neighbour Alan, we are fettling the bushes for optimum fit.

This affects both the upper and lower wishbones so it’s basically having a full front suspension strip down and rebuild, followed by geo/alignment too of course.

It’s already had new ball joints all round - I’ll be doing a full and complete refresh including wishbone blast & refinish at some stage in the future - this is a mini-refresh just to get the car driving as it should so I can enjoy it to the full in the meantime 👍🏻

Below is the full list of jobs I’m working through between now and next Sunday 🤪

Thanks to Rob England and Dominic Hughes for your advice also - Elise legends 🙂

Remove dampers & brackets 
Refit damper brackets in correct position
Remove wishbones, rectify issues, refit
Rack out, refurb, refit with riser plates
New adjustable ARB (Hangar 111)
Chassis clean
Blow over brake disc centres
New ARB bushes
New drop links
New track rod ends
New braided hoses
Remove and refit headlamp covers
Geo/alignment

[Luke Seagrave]

Looking good. Can't wait to see it in the flesh at LitP.

Luke

[Daveb99]

Cheers Luke - be good to see you also and catch up, has been ages.   

It isn’t looking great right now, it’s in a million bits!

[Elisemadray]

Jezz Dave, you do set yourself a challenge   it is looking superb though.

fingers crossed we need to see that great little car next Sunday

[Luke Seagrave]

2 hours ago, Daveb99 said:

Cheers Luke - be good to see you also and catch up, has been ages.   

It isn’t looking great right now, it’s in a million bits!

It sounds like that you like a good challenge 🤣🤣

[DeanB]

Poly bushes - ugh!

Good luck with the challenge Dave. If you fail are you going to ride shotgun in the old yellow one?

[Daveb99]

2 hours ago, DeanB said:

Poly bushes - ugh!

Good luck with the challenge Dave. If you fail are you going to ride shotgun in the old yellow one?

Despite Alan’s amazing engineering skills we weren’t happy with them - so I have a set of Eliseparts OEM type bushes turning up tomorrow…..

Mark (who now owns my yellow S1) is actually Alan’s son in law, so the plan is to meet him there - Alan is my passenger..

[DeanB]

I have the eliseparts bushes. I rate them, and Gav said he had no trouble fitting them.

[Daveb99]

1 hour ago, DeanB said:

I have the eliseparts bushes. I rate them, and Gav said he had no trouble fitting them.

That’s good to hear Dean, I’ll be fitting them tomorrow.

[Daveb99]

So with just 6 more days to go before LitP I am getting there!

With brand new bushes going in, I thought it would be worth prepping and painting the wishbones.  

Given that the ball joints are almost new, and the boots usually get damaged when removing them, rendering them useless, I decided to prep the wishbones using a wire wheel and then give them two coats of satin hammerite.    Better than throwing 4 new ball joints away if I were to get them blasted and coated - and more than adequate for my needs, I suspect the finish will last a pretty long time.  I’ve also refinished other bits like the front damper brackets, and steering arms.

I removed the steering rack yesterday too, and today I’ve been refurbing it with a huge amount of help from my neighbour and great friend Alan.   He has decades of experience of both hands on machining, and also used to teach engineering at Universities, and at the ripe old age of 78 he has a full machine shop in his garage!    Alan will be coming with me to Lotus in the Peak next weekend, it’s the least I can do after all the help he’s given me on this and especially my old yellow S1 a few years ago.

We’ve really gone to town on it.  When I took it out I thought it was knackered if I’m honest, but we stripped it down, fitted new phosphor bronze cups to remove the play (the old nylon cups were actually both cracked!), added grub screws to replace the locking pins/dowels, machined 6 flats onto the control arms to make toe changes a doddle, added new grease inside the rack, and set the preload to the required 50-70N.  It’s basically like a new one now!  I’ll be fitting it tomorrow…..

The chassis has had a proper clean and has come up very well.  It’s now ready for the wishbones to be fitted, and I’ve ordered all new bolts for the wishbones, dampers and pretty much everything else, so it’s going to be pretty fresh when it’s done!

In order to be “on track for LitP I’m going to have to keep up the pace……..the plan is to have it all reassembled by Wednesday, and then do the geo/alignment on Thursday.   I’ll be going for something like a 105/115 ride height, with ballast added and half a tank, and camber & toe settings that are half way between the 340R road and track settings in the SELOC Techwiki page here:

https://wiki.seloc.org/a/Geo_Setups

That’s what I had on my previous yellow S1 a few years back and it was awesome.  Gives better turn in than Elise S1 stock settings.

More to follow in a couple of days…….I know the suspense is killing you all as to whether the car will be ready for LitP………..not !

Edited June 25, 2023 by Daveb99

[DeanB]

Love it Dave. I'm starting to think that painting wishbones with Hammerite is as good as anything because you can easily rub down and touch up any areas where rust might start getting through again.

Hope to see you and it on Sunday!

[Daveb99]

Quick update……

Lotus in the Peak ‘23 is GO ✔️

After completing a comprehensive refurb of the steering rack, and a front suspension refresh, it’s like new again!

Steering - the rack is back in with new gaitors (the swear box is bursting) and the riser plates from EP, these help to reduce bump steer as the rack is mounted a few mm higher.    It feels fantastic, zero play, very smooth.  

Front suspension - I’ve rebuilt all the front suspension with new OEM type bushes, drop links, track rod ends, adjustable ARB and bushes, all new bolts etc.  Ball joints were recently replaced so it’s going to be very crisp to drive (Nitron NTR40’s, 350/400 springs).

Front undertray was also cleaned and refitted with stainless bolts and new spire clips.   This undertray is a bugger to refit with the front clam still on!

Geo / alignment - long evening last night doing this.  With half a tank of fuel in the car, I firstly added 75kg of ballast in the driver’s seat made up of items I had lying around in the shed / garden…..and a LOT of padding on the drivers seat underneath it all…

Geo settings -  I used the info on SELOC, opted for camber and toe settings that are half way between the ‘340R Road’ and ‘340R track’ as per the guide on SELOC here, with the exception of the toe out, where I’ve gone for the 340R Track setting (7-8 minutes) to give better turn in.   That’s what I had on my old yellow S1 a few years ago and it was fantastic.

https://wiki.seloc.org/a/Geo_Setups

Ride height - I’ve set the ride height to 105F, 115R which is a fairly straightforward job.   Use a small syringe and extend it between chassis and floor, at the front and mid jacking points (simply measure the length of the syringe with verniers after you remove it).

Adjusting the rear affects the front and vice versa so you have to go round it a couple of times.    Also it’s best to stand on the sill and bounce a bit to settle the car down, and roll it back and forth, after each adjustment and before you measure again.

Camber - I used fishing line, wrapped around the end of a pole resting on the clam, and hung it down the centre line of each wheel, and a plumb bob, and measured the difference at the top and bottom of the wheel rim with verniers to do the camber all round.   You use a formula to convert from millimetres to degrees (I used the one in the SELOC guide, in a simple Excel spreadsheet). Very simple, and nice and accurate.  I found that adding a 1mm camber shim alters the camber by around 0.3 - 0.4 degrees.

Toe (tracking) -  I used a Track Ace kit to do the front toe.    I haven’t done the rear toe yet as you really need string lines down the side of the car for that, I’ll be doing it after I’ve refreshed the rear suspension.   It’s a decent bit of kit once you understand how it works and take time setting it up.    I’ve had repeatable results with it so I believe it’s pretty accurate.    

I found that half a turn on each track rod adjusts the total toe by about 30 minutes (half a degree).    The flats machined onto my track rods by my great friend and neighbour Alan during the rack refurb have proved to be extremely useful here…..

Couple of pics of the Track Ace set up here, with my before and after results.  I basically had almost 2 degrees of toe in, as I had just reassembled the steering / suspension, and finished up with about 7-8 minutes of toe out.   I’ll see how it feels and adjust it further if needed.

More info here:

http://www.trackace.co.uk

You are basically measuring the angular difference between both front wheels.   It comes with full idiot-proof instructions.   I can recommend it if you want to make adjustments at home.

Next projects include the rear suspension, front clam removal, braided hoses.  But they can wait !

Hope all this is useful / interesting.   Looking forward to a good run out at LitP on Sunday.   if you’re attending come and say hello 👍🏻

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Daveb99

[dobbo]

Awesome, Dave.  As always, everything on your car is spotless - I'd consider eating my evening meal off your wheelarch liners !

Enjoy LitP.  We're not going to make it this year due to my recent issues... I wish I had the time to get stuck in to mine like you have.  I haven't even tried starting it since coming home from Donny on a flatbed 😞

[Daveb99]

2 hours ago, dobbo said:

Awesome, Dave.  As always, everything on your car is spotless - I'd consider eating my evening meal off your wheelarch liners !

Enjoy LitP.  We're not going to make it this year due to my recent issues... I wish I had the time to get stuck in to mine like you have.  I haven't even tried starting it since coming home from Donny on a flatbed 😞

Ah cheers mate - you can eat dinner off the arch liners after LitP - added texture from the sheep ****
 

Would have been good to catch up - hope you get it sorted soon 👍🏻

[DeanB]

Looks great Dave. I like the idea of 350 front and 400 rear springs. Mine are 400 front 475 rear which I think is too stiff for road use that includes bumpy B roads and wet weather.  If we get chance tomorrow you can give me your opinion on your set up.