BoxheadTim said:Oh, most importantly I have to figure out how to get the paint of the brake calipers that some genius tried to paint yellow while they were still on the car (see above). Not only that, they also kinda sorta glued the bleed screws in because those got some extra paint.
I have to ask, are re-manufactured AP brake calipers available for a reasonable cost when balanced against the effort to clean up the overspray and deal with frozen bleed screws?
Karacticus said:BoxheadTim said:Oh, most importantly I have to figure out how to get the paint of the brake calipers that some genius tried to paint yellow while they were still on the car (see above). Not only that, they also kinda sorta glued the bleed screws in because those got some extra paint.
I have to ask, are re-manufactured AP brake calipers available for a reasonable cost when balanced against the effort to clean up the overspray and deal with frozen bleed screws?
I've been furiously googling for one as I thought I had seen a company offer rebuilt calipers on an exchange basis in the past. I either can't find them anymore or they're in the UK which would make shipping prohibitively expensive. I did find a place in NC that rebuilds them, though - I'll probably shoot them an email and see what they have to say.
I really need to become slightly active on Lotustalk and keep an eye out for a set of better condition calipers in the classifieds there.
I think another option would be to have the outside of the calipers media blasted (something like walnut shells or glass beads) to get the crappy paint off. Or worst case, start slinging aircraft stripper or similar. Unfortunately the calipers have a slightly rough surface so I'm not sure it's possible to get all this crud off with reasonable effort.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Some of the wheel repair/refinishers around here do at least the cosmetic portion of refurbing calipers and then powder coating them.
I bet that with some light heat from a propane / mapp gas torch (on low), those bleeders would come right out. Assuming that the exit port in the bleeder itself isn't plugged up.
Get the bleeders loose with HotNotch's technique, then glass beads while they are still fully assembled with the ports fully sealed. They will be easy to rebuild. Paint them your choice last before reinstall.
For crying out loud, I can't catch a break with this car. I'm about ready to start fixing the broken splitter and some of the other issues, and when I had to go grab the registration as it was due for renewal, I opened the door and got hit in the face by the dreaded mouse smell. Looks like I now get to pull the interior apart, clean it thoroughly and hope I don't get hanta virus'd in the process. Oh, and hope I can clean it up and get rid of the smell.
Worse, I have no idea how the rodent that was the cause of the smell got into the car in the first place. No obvious holes, however tiny, because I know I occasionally get rodents in my shop. And it's recent - I was in the car a week or so ago and there was no whiff of rodent.
At least you caught it quickly.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Buy a barrel of peppermint oil and start hosing the interior perimeter and exterior perimeter of your garage/shop. Set all kinds of the old school victor traps. Rinse and repeat. I hate dealing with issues caused by rodents.
In reply to clutchsmoke :
I'll try the peppermint oil as well. There are already traps around the place as I had traces of rodents in the shop last year. Probably need to have another word with out pest control folks to see if they have any other suggestions.
The crazy thing is that I have three cars in the shop, and so far looks like the Elise is the only one affected. Time to limp out (dealing with a foot issue as well) and see if I can start cleaning it up.
BoxheadTim said:Oh, and hope I can clean it up and get rid of the smell.
Never dealt with these problems, but I would throw a generous amount of baking soda in the interior and then vacuum it up after a couple of days.
I have found rodent damage underneath the interior covers in an Exige. Same deal, less than a week, and 6 other cars to choose from in the same barn. They found a wire harness associated with the imobilizer located in the right side between body and chassis. They enter from below by climbing the tires. I remember having to re-glue something in the right door jamb area after cleanout. not structure, trim that wasn't removeable for service.
Some good news - the stink of rodent pee was a lot less today, Either way, I grabbed an N95 mask and gloves and pulled the seats out. PSA - getting the passenger seat out blows goats, due to its non-adjustability. Also, no photos yet but I suspect that the driver's seat mount was missing a couple of washers. Yay.
Anyway, after getting the seats out, the interior presented itself in need of a clean, rodent pee or no rodent pee:
I had already pulled out the carpet in the footwells as the one on the driver's side is a bit worse for wear, and I think the carpet under the seat is a "custom" addition - I think someone dropped that in there, I'm not sure it belongs in the car. Anyway, I took them out.
After some vaccuuming and a liberal application of either carpet cleaner or Griot's Garage Interior Cleaner followed by some Einszett Cockpit spray, the interior looked almost habitable again:
Plan for tomorrow night is to clean the seats while they're out of the car and everything is airing out.
I'm also going to replace the rear speakers while I've got everything out - the speakers that came in the car aren't the greatest and also have no grills, which isn't great given their location. As they're a bit of a pain to access with the seats in, now is the time to send another order to Crutchfield.
Speaking of things to order, does anybody have any recommendation for heavy duty stick-on velcro? You can see in some of the photos that there are remnants of velcro stuck to the floor - that's where amongst other things, the carpets and more importantly, the passenger side footrest mount. And they're all held down by glued on velcro strips.
Home Depot carries industrial strength Velcro. I've come across some amazingly tenacious stuff in the past but unfortunately the store I found it in no longer exists.
That carpet under the seats probably prevents a fair bit of gravel noise - not from underneath, but from the gravel that invariably finds its way into the footwells and rattles around. I'll bet that's more of a problem with something like a Lotus Seven, but it sure is a problem with those cars.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
That's a good point - maybe one of the POs put the carpet under the seat for that reason. It's definitely not OEM carpet, there is a distinct difference between what I know is OEM carpet and the "thinnest, cheapest carpet tile we found a LowesDepot" quality of the carpet under the seats.
Sorry you've having to do this, but man those interior photos really point out just how special an Elise is. I don't know of very many cars with that much exposed aluminum. It looks so good.
An ozone generator will work wonders for getting smells (mouse and others) out of a car. This is the one I bought on Amazon 4 years ago, it's still going strong:
https://www.amazon.com/Enerzen-Commercial-Industrial-Deodorizer-Sterilizer/dp/B00JAP7388.
In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :
I actually have an ozone generator after buying a BRZ that had been smoked in. Agreed, it's probably worth running it for a few hours just on case.
dculberson said:Sorry you've having to do this, but man those interior photos really point out just how special an Elise is. I don't know of very many cars with that much exposed aluminum. It looks so good.
Well, it's a bit more nekkid than usual without some of the carpets. But yes, it's neat with the exposed structure, although I'm grateful that this one has some carpeting and sounds deadening.
The S1 Elise I owned in the UK had lots more bare aluminum including the firewall, and that one I could only drive with earplugs for longer distances, at least with the hardtop mounted.
Re the velcro - turns out that Lotus lists the OEM velcro for the footrest for roughly the same price that I can get heavy duty velcro from Home Depot. As I had to order a bunch of parts already, I just added the velcro to my order as that's a no brainer to me.
I also ordered a replacement driver's side footwell carpet and the OEM underseat carpet, plus a bunch of other parts that I actually needed. I guess it's the usual stuff with small manufacturers, some of these parts are surprisingly cheap and others, well, not so much.
The only other interior item I need to figure out is the handgrip bowl. The one on the passenger side came lose a while ago and I can't quite figure out what they used to adhere it to the door. My first thought was butyl tape, but it's not sticky anymore. The parts diagram is no help as it doesn't show a separate glue pad and just mumbles "bonded" for the hand grip bowls. Photos later today.
The underseat carpets are OEM. Make sure all the electrics work before you re-install the seats. If you need to go under the plastic on the right side it is easier with the seat out.
The carpets should be part of the "Touring package", so could be OEM
As long as it is disassembled, make sure you run the interior fan. The dash has lots of holes, and your rodents could have been in there as well.
We had a mouse in the garage this winter, thankfully it lived on the windscreen of the Streetka, and didn't get inside.
As part of my Lotus parts order, I actually ordered the OEM carpet that goes under the seats. So either I'll end up with a better quality carpet or find out that someone cut the OEM carpet in half so they don't have to lift the center console to remove the carpet.
Good idea regarding the interior fan, I'll definitely run than. I have to replace the HVAC control surround anyway so I have to test the fan afterwards.
A lightweight parcel full of lightweight parts has arrived. At first glance, the under seat carpet looks the same like the one I pulled out of the car, so it does look like Lotus used some really light weight materials.
It also looks like I got the part number for the trunk seal wrong, so I guess I get to re-order that one.
Not much progress since the last post. Partially because of the heat and partially because of other reasons, I haven't been able to spend time working on vehicles. Of course that now puts me the WV Hillfest into severe doubt, as none of the cars is ready and neither is the driver.
Anyway, I'm trying to make progress in baby steps and while I'm putting together the next Lotus parts order, I've been wondering if any of the other Elise owners on this forum recognizes where these connectors at the back of the driver's seat connect to?
They weren't connected to anything, and there isn't any other obvious connectors hiding under the centre "console" to connect them to. My guess is that they're for the typical seat belt lock switch, and I'd normally expect some place to hook them up to.
Anybody recognize these? Is there something in a 2005 Elise that these should connect to?
Progress remains slow, but nevertheless we have progress. First, much fun was had trying to fiddle the rubber grommet for the heater cables back into its recommended location:
That was one of those fun jobs where the alternative is to pull the dash as the grommet is supposed to in from the top, and that ended up focusing the mind a little. Of course the hole in the aluminium dash structure had sharp edges, so it's not like I could ignore this. Not to mention that my OCD for problems like this wouldn't let me anyway.
Replacing the heater control surround/mount with a nice piece of carbon fiber did spruce up the interior, especially compare to the broken and yellowed OEM part. Not to mention that it's unreasonably nice to have heater controls that I don't end up accidentally pulling out of the dash every time I try to use them.
Unfortunately I also figured out why I had issues with connecting the phone to the radio - looks like at least the front the USB connector on the radio was broken out of the box and what I thought was a bad cable is actually a bad USB connector. Of course I figured that out well after any semblance of a warranty is expired. Oh well, if this car turns into a keeper I guess it's time for radio #3, but for the time being the bluetooth audio still works.
The interior is coming along slowly.
After replacing the driver's side footwell carpet it's now clear that the passenger side one that I thought was OK looks ratty in comparison. Oh well. I'm also not too impressed with the modified VW interior rear view mirror that I bought as an alternative to the yuuuuuuuuuge OEM mirror. While it's nice and small, it seems to lack any sort of dimming mechanism and the mirror is the right height to reflect the headlights of any and all trucks and Jeeps in a five mile radius.
So it looks like I'm going to be ordering an 07 interior mirror as that's slightly smaller than the one I have, and also order the sunvisors that are missing from the car. At the very minimum I need those to correctly position the mirror, plus they might come in handy at some point.
Still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to glue the interior door handle "bowl" back into the car while also avoiding more thoughts along the lines of "well, it's out already, probably should replace it with a carbon fiber one".
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