Why is there a green plus 2 on this page? I hear you ask. Well, even if nobody is reading this and asking, I sure am.

What happened is that at the Bromley Pagent of Motoring (great show) someone on the North Kent Lotus stand offered me this car. Described as fully rebuilt etc and so on..........fairly local as well. I have always liked racing green cars with black interiors so I guess that it was fate. Having green tinted glass all round adds to the effect.

I guess that having a car that I liked, and could drive around in, rather than waiting until I had built one appealed to me. I will still be building another one, but a whole load of stuff is going to have to go!

The car was rebuilt and painted between 1991 and 1993 to a good standard on a Spyder chassis. It has many good points, and as usual, a couple of rascals as well. On my getting it everything on the car worked apart from the rev counter, the parking brake light and it was not charging.

Overall the car is in excellent condition. It has only done about 3000 miles since being rebuilt so is very clean. The worst thing about the car by a long way is the fact that it has had a new nose in the past, and the repair is not good in a couple of respects. Firstly, you can see the join through the paint, and secondly the gap at the front and back of the bonnet are a bit too big. It has a couple of other strange marks under the paint as well. Also it has had new springs all round and is sitting very high at the back. That is not sooooo bad, but it is also sitting low on the drivers side, which I hate and cannot live with. I am going replace the springs with the original ones from my 1968 car.

First thing first, I changed the alternator and now the car is charging fine. Then it was the turn of the rear springs. So I take the first side apart (the high side) and sure enough the free length is identical to the spring from the 68 car. So I paint and fit the 68 spring. Now I take the low side apart. Sure enough the spring is identical to the one that came off the other side. So now I'm confused. So I fit the other spring from the 68 car (after having the wheel bearings replaced....so not so rebuilt eh) and lower the car. It now sits flat and quite a lot lower. So the upshot is that free spring length is no indication of strength! (That is for the back of the car). Actually I take that back about not so rebuilt because it clearly has been. Just not the bearings in that strut.

Also after having the bearings replaced it seems that the inner one is faulty. It sounds really dry. New sealed bearings they were. I put the strut back on the car anyway. Cannot face having them done again right now. Am getting a replacement set gratis from the supplier, but that does not sort out the £30 it cost to get them fitted. As you can see below I used the hose clips trick to keep the doughnut compressed. I have not bothered to do that in the past. I suppose it did make it a bit easier to do. Still a bugger though.

I will post some pictures of the car before and after the spring change soon. top