Well, the Elise is a different story. After doing everything it needed (not much as it had 9000 miles on the clock) and buying a new car, I had a bout of guilt that there was £26k sitting in the garage not getting a lot of use but costing money. That’s before we sold up and moved to Herefordshire. Anyway… I sold it and got my money back. I’m not sure if I regret that decision or not - it was one of the best Elises on the market, no doubt, but somehow did not feel like my old one, which I bought new back in 1998.
Fast forward and here I am in a nice rural house with a huge workshop complete with mezzanine storage area and inspection pit that’s dry and clean, retired with time on my hands. What should I do? Oh I know, buy another classic car. You can see how this has gone and I am sure it is a familiar story to many.
So. The seller is on here so I’ll say “hi” to him, and what a pleasure it was to see his other cars. Regarding the Strombergs, I don’t mind that it has them as the power gain with Webbers is supposedly negligible and I understand the fuel efficiency is better. Also, on my Plus 2 I had Dellortos and they were a big of a pig to keep in tune and had open float chambers, so the garage always stank of petrol. There’s not much between these and Webbers as I understand it.
Interesting to hear it was stood in a greenhouse, or “dry stored for 30 years” as the seller put it. That explains why the black carpets are brown. Electrics do not faze me, the loom looks untouched and I will have it flashing! However, that is an awful long way down the road. I will review your thread (elanintheforest) as it undoubtedly has many lessons for me, thank you. And I am looking forward to meeting up.
Yes, I took the LR chassis, because the original is “holed below the waterline”; that is, the front driver’s turret is rusted out (but not showing signs of sagging yet). It may be recoverable, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I wonder if there are any issues with the DVLA when changing the chassis? Or is it technically a “subframe”? I’ve read some horror stories on here…
Regarding the colour… well, again, it’s way down the line, but I am not sure I really like the dark green. I’ll have to have a think. On inspection, I could not see any crazing or cracking in the fibreglass so I’m hoping the body won’t need too much repair work. Even that monumental scratch on the nose doesn’t appear to have gone through to the gel coat. So I may get away with a bit of a light buff for the time being; that will give me a better idea of what it might look like once done proper in BRG. I had intended to kick off by making it drivable, but the brakes are off it and the engine appears to need some work (it turns over by hand but there’s a rattle, which I assume is the timing chain clicking against something). Also, one of the shock absorbers is dead and my old friend the rear passenger side wheel bearing is loose (oh joy), or the output shaft is loose in the bearing, which is what happened on my Plus 2 (oh joy). So all this is saying to me “just take the body off already”, because as you know it is much easier restoring the suspension without having to duck under the wheelarches all the time.
Now off to tidy the workshop. It is currently full of stuff we moved in with but have not found homes for. And I will need that space!