I did something really dumb - Lotus Esprit no real 308 content | FerrariChat

I did something really dumb - Lotus Esprit no real 308 content

Discussion in '308/328' started by ATSAaron, Mar 23, 2021.

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  1. ATSAaron

    ATSAaron Formula 3
    Silver Subscribed

    Jun 1, 2004
    1,120
    Shady Shores, TX
    Full Name:
    Aaron Bunch
    I should post this in a different forum, but I feel like you guys know me better than anyone else on this forum.

    Well today (March 4th) was an adventure. I should probably start a YouTube channel, but I suck at editing videos. So I’ll just tell the story here.

    I bought another Lotus Esprit. They are getting worse and worse as I keep buying them. This one is in really bad shape. But it looks like a homeless puppy to me.....so I’ve got to try and save it.

    So Scott McClendon and I go to get it today. The property owner warns me that it’s muddy out there. I completely disregard that because Scott’s Tundra has four wheel drive and is clearly invincible.
    We get to the property and walk back to the car (I will attach as many pictures as I have). It’s rough. You can almost smell the pictures. But theses cars are rising in value so maybe if I take my time and do the work at home as fun time I can make it financially feasible. I hope that I can get my son Austin involved in the restoration. If I could make a VR game out of sanding off bad paint.....

    Anyway this story isn’t really about the car. It’s about today’s adventure. We walked the trail to the car and back and decided it wasn’t too bad except for a couple spots that we thought we could avoid.

    Fifty seven seconds later we are stuck. We decide to unhook the trailer so we can get unstuck. That requires a jack, some boards, etc but we get the trailer unhitched so we can blast out of the rut. Except we don’t blast anything. The truck just digs deeper and deeper. We stop when I realize we are up to the axles in mud. The running boards are basically on the ground. It’s bad. I feel trapped and hopeless.

    But we hatch a desperate plan. The trailer has a winch and there is a dead mesquite tree off to the side fifty feet behind us and we have lots of car tie down straps. Scott manages to get a strap around the base of this incredibly thorny tree and only loses a little blood.

    We hook the trailer back up to the truck and hook the winch up to the tree strap. Scott gets back in the Tundra and puts it in reverse. I stand to the side and operate the winch. We slowly, like inches at a time move backwards. We make it about thirty feet backwards. Hopefully the mud is squished down enough to give us a running start to jump out of the ruts. Scott puts it in drive and I push like hell. No idea if that helped or not but when I felt the front wheels clear that rut I was incredibly relieved.

    Not only did we not get the car but we had to abandon the trailer there. There is just too much mud for us to hook on and get it turned around.

    We managed to get the flat useless rear tires and wheels off the car so I can buy some new tires. We will go back when the ground is a little drier. Even with the disappointments of the day the fact that Scott and I kept level heads and McGuyvered our way out of a deep and slippery situation has me feeling great.
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  2. ATSAaron

    ATSAaron Formula 3
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    Jun 1, 2004
    1,120
    Shady Shores, TX
    Full Name:
    Aaron Bunch
    Today (MArch 10) went much better than last week. The property was a little drier, but the real difference was
    Scott's dad and uncle let us borrow their Kubota tractor. And they came along too!

    Dave (the uncle) shuttled me, the new tires, a jack and tools out to the car. Then Dee (Scott’s dad), Dave and Scott used the tractor to rescue my trailer that we had to abandon last week. While they were getting the trailer I proceeded to install the new rear tires and a pair of spares on the front (one is original to the car, one is off my 1990 Esprit). I took my wide's hedge trimmers
    to cut back the trees on the driver’s side. The front wheels were STUCK on, but eventually I managed to get them off.

    Three of the wheels would not roll. Scott and I applied PB Blaster to the pads and rotors and that was enough to break them free. Then we were off. There was no where to easily hook on the front of the car so we tied a strap to the rear frame. I sat on the hood and steered the car as Dee towed it out.
    So not as much drama as last week, in fact I can’t think of anything that could have gone better.

    The 88 Lotus is home now. We took it to my house instead of the ATS shop. I got out the pressure washer and started removing the barnacles, mold and dirt. I hand washed it after that, but there is still a lot of dirt on the paint and a microfiber mitt is not aggressive enough to remove it. I grabbed my cheap buffer, an old pad and some 3M heavy duty compound and went to work on the rear 1/4 panel. It’s not great but vastly improved. I need to figure out a way to remove the final remaining sections of clear coat and maybe I can buff up the base coat to look decent? By then it was dark.
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  3. ATSAaron

    ATSAaron Formula 3
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    Jun 1, 2004
    1,120
    Shady Shores, TX
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    Aaron Bunch
    I started trying to piece together YouTube videos of this adventure. I think I have four or five videos up so far. Here is a link to the first one and you can just click on the channel name to see the others. (I think the first one has no audio at all).

     
  4. Alex308qv

    Alex308qv Formula Junior

    Jul 1, 2016
    378
    PA
    Full Name:
    Alex
    Good luck. A few quick thoughts: You need a strong backbone to take on a project like this... does the Lotus still have it? Those sections of green carpeting are really growing on me. Was it used for the underwater shots in The Spy Who Loved Me? You shouldn't ride on the hood like that, you might scratch something. Do all the Lucas electronics work? Dang, if it were an '87, you could have used a cheap plate glass window for a windshield.
     
  5. mike996

    mike996 F1 Veteran

    Jun 14, 2008
    6,685
    Full Name:
    Mike 996
    #5 mike996, Mar 23, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
    Well...the tractor looks pretty nice and seems to run good! :rolleyes:

    I'm impressed!! :)

    A suggestion - use Marvel Mystery Oil instead of the WD 40 for your fuel system flush. It will remove gunk that the WD won't. I used MMO routinely on gunked up marine fuel systems and it does a superb job. One thing to be aware of is that it can totally clog the fuel filter with all the cr@p it removes.

    It also works well to free up seized engines though it sounds like luckily, that's not an issue.
     
  6. miked

    miked Formula Junior

    Feb 7, 2001
    821
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Well done, with that much effort I expect a good restoration is in the car's future. IMO just about any Lotus is worth saving. How long had the car been sitting there?

    I have been down the same road, after the first time I added a winch to my trailer. If that doesn't work I have an old Oliver tractor and if that doesn't work I also have an Oliver OC46 track loader. That one has never failed me although I haven't used it for cars except the one time I sank my old Audi 5000CS quattro in about 2' of snow/ice downhill off the side of my driveway, the OC46 pulled it out sideways without even breathing hard.
     
  7. kcabpilot

    kcabpilot Formula 3

    Apr 17, 2014
    1,527
    California SF bay area
    Full Name:
    Paul
    If you can pull it off my hat's off to you sir. It was pretty close to being a garden planter but if you have one thing going for you it's that, as far as production automobiles are concerned, the Lotus Esprit is about as close to home-built kit-car as you can get to where you might be able to solve some issues with a miter saw and some plywood. But all joking aside I did something similar one time with an Alfa GTV6. It didn't work out. To do this, you're gonna have to give up that. Question is, do you really want to give up that?
     
  8. Meister

    Meister F1 Veteran
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    Apr 27, 2001
    5,516
    Duluth, MN
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    The Meister
    its a barn find without a barn... what the heck was the story of how it ended up there?
     
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  9. Brian Harper

    Brian Harper F1 Rookie
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    Feb 17, 2006
    4,078
    San Jose area
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    Brian Harper
    I used to do radio broadcast stuff. The company I worked for bought a station back in about 1995 and to get to the transmitter up in the mountains we had to go up this guy's driveway a bit and then off up a dirt road. Off to the side of his driveway was a car under a blue tarp. I knew by the shape it must be an Esprit. The tarp sagged as if it was missing the windshield. Once every couple of weeks I'd drive by and think I should see if he'd sell the car cheap but never stopped. After a year or two the tarp started to get ratty and I could see clearly it was indeed an Turbo Esprit and was missing the windshield. After another couple of years the tarp was basically gone and the windshield was also still gone. I thought I should stop and see if he'd give it to me so I could rescue it. After another couple of years the blue paint was looking a little chalky and the windshield was still gone. I thought I should stop by and see how much he'd give me to haul it away.

    Every couple of weeks for about 12 years I watched this Esprit slowly return into the earth from whence it came. I didn't rescue it. No regrets.
     
  10. JC Andruet

    JC Andruet Karting

    Jan 16, 2013
    192
    Do all the Lucas electrics work ?? :p:p:p:p

    I was grew up in Birmingham (the birthplace of Lucas) and at school my best friend's father was MD of Girling UK (a subsidiary of Lucas).

    https://www.lucasindustrial.co.uk/insights/2018/9/6/the-history-of-lucas-industries

    Girling's products were excellent (on the whole) where as Lucas producrts were pretty hopeless generally.

    Those who knew the foibles of Lucas christened the company "The Prince of Darkness" ...

    https://www.hermit.cc/tmc/humor/lucas.htm
     
  11. Shark01

    Shark01 F1 Veteran

    Jun 25, 2005
    5,687
    Can the values really support restorations on cars in this condition? This reminds me of all the cars you see at auctions where they say the owner spent $100k in restoration and it hammers for $35k.

    FWIW, the guys on wrench every day are doing a similar Esprit, although their car looks to be in better shape.

    Good luck on your journey
     
  12. Meister

    Meister F1 Veteran
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    Apr 27, 2001
    5,516
    Duluth, MN
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    The Meister
    A lot depends on what Aaron can do on his own. Yes writing checks for this car will get it upside-down pretty quick. As a Esprit owner I would have loved to have found this car. It's pretty much all there. I know it looks bad to most but I think its a pretty viable project. Esprits are pretty simply made and made mostly of aluminum plastic and fiberglass which obviously dont decay or rust like metal and can be easier to refurbish. Biggest problem is electronics and parts availability due to the low production numbers. A lot of the ignition system is borrowed from GM. I dont think a true nut and bolt OEM as it left the factory restoration is the way to go here but a tasteful mix of mods and updates and some custom work...it will be a cool car when done.
     
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  13. kiwiokie

    kiwiokie Formula 3

    Aug 19, 2013
    1,455
    Tulsa, OK
    Full Name:
    John McDermott
    The lack of front windshield would have been a deal killer for me. Water and critter intrusion.


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