83 Excel from from Finland

[Osku]

I lifted the rubberlip seal on the old bearing and the ammount of greace was pretty small if any. So I suspect the bearing has come from the part suplier more or less dry or with inadequet lubrication.

[Osku]

The seller sayd that all the tensioner and belt came from Paul Mattys sport car. Has anybody else stumbled on this?
I did now order a new one from Lotusbits not knowing if it is any better. Mike claimed they are good and come from italy wich in my book is a bit of contradiction but better than china anyway so lets see.

[tonypoll]

There was a batch of poor tensioner bearing a few years ago. I had to replace mine almost immediately as it was sounding like a demented mouse!
You may have been unlucky and had one of these bad ones.

[Osku]

I am trying to learn to identifye the different engines and the cam covers confuse me. My esprit has the camcovers that I would say are older without the big hexa bolts and my Excel has the newer with the hexabolts. When did this changeofficially, I asumed it should have already changed for the Esprit in 85 but am I wrong?

[Alan_M]

Have a look at the parts catalogue or possibly WSM should tell you the change over point including the engine number they changed from.

[Osku]

Ok wher do I find these documents are the awailable online?
Is there a list of changes to the engine and when they occured.
Can one identifye the different engines purely on externals like cambelt pulleys etc.
The only andwer I got so far thatwas not much is red covers should be HC but e. g. does dis applye to bothe the newer cam cover with the hex bolt or are they red older cowers I occasionally see also factory and HC or just.
What is the difference on:
e. g. 906 907 910 912
I'minterested already so that I can identifye how itshould be and if it is an Frankenstein that is also something I suspect is not uncommon as people mischmash parts so engin numers do not tell me the whole story.
This is more of curiosity as I seem to be collecting these too and might be restoring and buyng engines or engine components.

[Pete Boole]

I have always thought that the later style cam housings/covers were introduced with the SE version of the Excel in1986, but to honest I'm not positive

Pete

[Alan_M]

I have always thought that the later style cam housings/covers were introduced with the SE version of the Excel in1986, but to honest I'm not positive

Pete

Basically, yes, but there are 2 types of flat cam cover. Early SE models have a metal filler cap at front of engine, then during 86 these were changed to having the filler at the rear of the engine. The gaskets are the same, but the early ones use rubber washers beneath the retaining bolts, the later ones use O rings.
The WSM recommends Sliastic RTV 732 for the earlier saddle shape covers and Hylomar for the flat covers.

[Osku]

Now the timing gear on the Esprit is back togather and I have an appointment with my stainles steel welder to get the ratling exhaust sorted tomorrow. Next I will renew the fuel lines. Still have to figureout why the heater fan blows the fuse.
Today I got the fronk latches repaired.
Thehanger mechanism hadboth the konectingrods lose remounted then and it started workin. Yesterday I fixed the electric window switches.

I got the parts for the timing from my own stock wich I had got for the Excel as lotus bits parts have not yet arriwed.

[Osku]

Now it sounds like it should, no ratles from the exhaust and no squeeks from the timing bearing. So now I notised that the doors whistle a bit much to my liking, any ideas what to do to those?

[bash]

This does the trick, same frame as the esprit.
Bash

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=11507

[Osku]

I do not have that on the Excel but the Esprit already have that in the gutter, strange that the excel is the quieter one of the two.
I had the door open to lubricate the electric window assembly and the inner plastic inside the door was pretty perisched and I thoght that might have some influance. The excel had somesort of lids on the holes rather than a plastic film.

[Osku]

I decided to strip the engine on the Excel to get to the reason of the slightly high emmissions. I also gathered that the oilpressure was on the lower side. Well bearings showed signs of wear so that was half but thepistons liners and valves are all ok so the reason for the high unburned is still un clear.
I did not check the valve clearace before disasembly so might be thesome valve clearance was to tight. I did test the compression and it was slightly low on cylinder 3. The engine had 150hp and the setup with the pistons is suposed to make 162 I think.

[Pete Boole]

Hopefully some new bearings will help cure the low oil pressure to some extent and a new set of rings will get the compression back to where it should be. Keep us posted!

Pete

[Osku]

I have ordered the whole schabang, that includes
new bearings
New inliners
new rings
Secondhand good HC pistons
New lifters cups nd clutch.
The old engine block is mesured to be in spec
All the componets been alredy cleaned with dry iceblasting.
I will still check the valve guide play (The valves held pressure so that part is OK)
The oilpump distributor assembly is already renewed when I made the timng setup last time
And obviously all new gaskets.
The conrods where to spec also as was the crank.

Is there something else to concidere?
Is there some improvement or othere to concidere to e.g. beter the oil circulation when started up when cold as that seem to take unnececery long to rice the pressure, and I suspect the high oilpump location to be part of the problem why the bearings wear.