My Lotus

Hi Garreth

Your dream car still in progress? I noticed that baby of yours on the nett when i phoned the guy told me it was sold . I`m looking for a locost runner to play with while building a new one.

All the best and keep us posted

Cheers

Johan Miller

You going to like this, I’ve been busy :)

Varsity has eased up a little and I have taken the oppourtunity!!

On Friday I took the leap and bought my 1.6 20v Silvertop Toyota Motor. I got the Toyota Cressida gear box and a bell housing to mate the two. The pics below are of it unloaded at home on Friday night.

Here is the gear box

and bell housing

I went to fetch the powder coated shock mounts and the coils as seen below. Problem is the powder coating on the threads is way too thick. I have brushed some powder coating off to get the coil mount on, but will still have to see what my other options are. 

Now I got sick and tired of having the suspension and parts just lying in the garage so I did assembly on the front. 

here is a close up…

Then today I found a neat little handbrake without a high lever which is great as I plan on recessing the handbrake. Want to do this so that it doesn’t obstruct the armrest and make life uncomfortable. 

and finally since the gearbox was filthy I gave it a clean…

As you can see on the bottom right I am bending the mounting bracket for the gearbox so will have it in soon hopefully. 

I am on my way to getting the pedal box and seats. Need to fabricate the engine mounts as well as turn up the coil overs for the rear shocks. 

Getting there slowly

Cheers for now

Sorry for the long absence been caught up with studies and doing some building now and then. 

I have completed the Panhard rod, cut to length and both sides welded up. 

The brackets to mount the rear shocks and the panhard rod have also been welded onto the rear diff. 

as seen in the previous picture I posted not so long ago I did some sub assembly and found that the inside wheels are tracking just within the rear wheels which I am happy with. 

I have decided to use the original front shocks that I got with the chassis. This is purely to save some costs and maybe it’ll look a tad different from the norm. If it does break when I test it, (and by test I mean jump on the chassis) then ill go the normal route.

Here they are stripped. I have sent the parts in for powder coating and hoping to get them back this week. 

I have bought mini shocks and am going to modify them for the rear suspension. 

Here I have started cleaning the lower mounting sleeves.

The brake calipers have been a good story. Got them for R800.00 and paid the sum total of R72.00 for complete overhaul. For those who want the story drop me a message. 

Brake calipers before were worse than this one, 

Here are the calipers as I received them, stripped sand blasted and corrosion coated. 

Brake calipers fully assembled with new brake shoes.

And here they are fitted onto the uprights. 

Next up the engine, gearbox and drive shaft…

Till then 

Been really hectic with varsity but have managed to do the following…

I have cleaned up the rear diff, re-sealed the gasket housing on the diff, cleaned up the bolts and now just have to put the oil in.  (below)

I then pulled the brake drums off and redid the braking system on both sides. pulled the pistons which were rusted, sanded them down with water paper, sanded the rust out the inside of the slave cylinders. Cleaned the rust off all the inner components and replaced all rubber seals.  

Before….

The process….

 All done…

Diff final assembly…

I then put it into the chassis to check what was happening with ride heights and positioning of the seat belt mounts. 

 Holiday starts on Friday so looking to a good solid 5-6 days of building.

Next update hopefully after that.

Cheers

Anonymous asked: Is this a real life size car or a model car?

Haha no no this is a real life sized car. Scroll further down and you can see me next to the chassis about a month or two ago.