Changing Focus

Now that winter is settled in and I have some time off, real progress can be made. I've gone about as far as I can go with the frame and drive train, so now I am turning my focus to the rest of the car. It is now up in the air, and I have started to dismantle the front cooling system. This includes the oil cooler, the radiator and the A/C condenser, along with the fan assembly. You can see that here, still attached to the car.

There is a whole mess of hoses and wires that run to this complex. Hoses for the oil cooler, radiator, and the condenser. Wires for the three fans.

This shows the stack halfway out. On the far right side, you can see the hoses for the condenser. These are a bear to remove, as they are relatively stiff hoses and the collets have been exposed to the elements at the leading edge of the car. Fortunately, the red hose has a connection at the drier inside the boot that was easy to loosen. The black hose was another matter. It runs all the way back to the compressor without a break. It took some heat from a butane torch to get it to move. No damage to the fittings though.

This stack of stuff will be replaced with the new parts I got from the Lotus Aftersales extravaganza last year. I will need to make some changes to the lower air dam and possibly to the tray that supports the radiators to get everything to line up correctly. The front lip of the tray needs to fit with the rear lip of the air dam in order for the airflow to go through the radiators instead of around them. I will definitely need to make changes to accomodate the split oil coolers and ductwork that replaces the original oil cooler. This has to go to make room for the chargecooler radiator. I think I can still use the original fans.



I have to say I really like working on this car. Even though it is 22 years old now, since it spent the first 20 years in California, all of the nuts, bolts, screws, clamps, and hose ends all come apart very easily. The oil cooler lines just spun right off, the screws for the lower cover came right out - even the hoses from the air conditioner broke loose with no problem at all. Very different than my '83 which spent its formative years in the Chicago area. This is good news, since most of the stuff that will come off of this car can be used on the '83, so I'll have lots of good spares should I need them.

Next up is how the two cooling stacks and ductwork compares...