More progress is being made - I have cleaned, rust treated and painted the front dirt shields. A few years ago I did the rear ones. One side can be done from underneath with the car on ramps but you have to take the discs off to do the other side. I also did the rear chassis extension ( boot support ). Well worth it - the dirt shields are about £600 for the four if you can get them!!
I used a wire brush and file to clean them up a much as possible and lots a brake cleaner to de-grease them. Then rust treated them - you can see the difference in condition between the nearside ( with cable tie on ) and the off side.
I then finished them off with black Hammerite. I plan to lightly sand and re-paint them in-situ every couple of years. already re-painted the back once. Its a bit of a pain as there is a lot of stuff in the way but it is do-able.
The new parts also arrived today but I have had problems with carriers. The lower arms were sent out overnight express but were not delivered this morning as promised - from the tracking it looks like they are in the Coventry depot. Hopefully they will be there in the morning. The late Xmas present I bought myself ( bearing and seal drift set - always wanted one ) was stolen on route!! A replacement is now being sent out.
I have tried the spring compressor on one of the springs. It has to be assembled from three parts inside the spring. If the parts will all fit through the lower arms then it looks like it will do the job but I will have to cut 5" off the threaded part to make it work - there is a picture of it earlier in this thread - it is a Sealey AK3842 - I will let you know if it works.
Mark
PS. I am assuming the brass screw in the centre of the protech adjuster is to lock it once you have adjusted ??
PS. - after complaining the carrier has updated their information to show that the lower arms were in fact delivered to Lotus Bits this morning. I will have to phone in the morning to find out if they are telling the truth!