Inner Space

With the front ductwork on hold until I can figure out what to do next, I have turned my attention to the interior. When I first got the car, the interior looked reasonable. The lighting in the barn where I first saw the car wasn't all that good, but it seemed it would be presentable after a good scrub. So that is what I thought I would do over the next week or so. So I stared pulling out door panels, A-pillar trim, center armrest, and whatever else I could get to while not able to get the doors open all the way. Which means the seats, dash, and binnacle are still inside the car. What I was able to take out will keep me busy enough until I can move stuff around.

While removing the door panels, I found more parts of the alarm system that just had to go - these were the power lock actuators. I never got a key fob with the car, so it is just as well that I get rid of all of this stuff. I think that is the last of it with the exception of a wire leading up into the instrument cluster. I'm not sure what it would be for, but it will be gone soon enough.

Here you can see all of the interior parts I was able to take out - door panels, console, rear panel, steering column surround, fuse box cover, center armrest, A-pillar trim, glovebox door, headliner, and cant rails. When you lay them all out on a table where you can set parts that don't normally go together, you can see just how distressed this interior is. So now, instead of a good scrubbing, I'm faced with redying everything. That's not a bad thing, as I did this with the interior of my black Esprit as stopgap until I could afford a retrim. It turned out good enought that 7 years later I still have not had the leather replaced.

One of the trouble areas of this vintage Esprit is the headliner and cant rails. Lotus took the foam-backed material and wrapped it around the pinch rail for the weatherstrip for the sunroof, as you can see in these photos. This leads to a problem if you happen to park with the car facing downhill during a rain shower. Water collects in the gutter around the sunroof and wicks into the fabric or it leaks in through the slots for the tabs on the sunroof. This leads to stains in the fabric. I'm not sure just what to do about it other than trying to seal the tab slots and weatherstrip to the body to prevent water from reaching the fabric. If anybody has solved this problem, I am all ears...



One piece of good news is the sunroof itself. When I got the car, the sunroof was well and truly stuck. In fact, the original sunroof was damaged by someone trying to pry it out of the car. I was able to find an unpainted repalacement, but it too got stuck when I tried it out. Since the car has been sitting on jack stands and not on the wheels, the sunroof now works like it should. It appears that several years without the weight of the engine or the rear frame support installed had warped the body enough to capture the sunroof. Now that pressure has been relieved, the body seems to have returned to its normal stance. Now I have to decide if I want to use the painted but damaged original top or have the undamaged, unpainted replacement top. I will have to paint the bumpers and front valance anyway, so it is a bit of a tossup at this point.

Next up I will start removing the old dye from the interior. This involves lots of wet sanding of leather. The trick is to stop sanding before you start making suede.