Interior Exterior
Q:
Anyway, none of this replaces good driving techniques and alertedness. All the brain dead people at my former client used to pull into a parking area until the front tires hit the curb. WHY!?!?! RETARDS! And when they backed in, they backed in until the rear tires hit to curb. WHY!?!?!?!
Hey, wait a minute there, I represent this remark.
I have 2 cars that have low clearance and 2 with plenty of clearance. The low clearance cars I pull up until I am about 5"-6" shy of the parking curb. The high clearance cars I pull in until the front wheels lightly rest against the parking curb, why not? that gets my tail as far out of traffic as possible.
Note, I am refering to the parking curbs, not refering to blocking pedestrians on a sidewalk.
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>Anyway, none of this replaces good driving techniques and
>alertedness. All the brain dead people at my former client
>used to pull into a parking area until the front tires hit the curb.
Well, after 6 months of carefully driving the thing I guess my number was up. In my case several things went wrong to cause me to contact the concrete barrier.
- The lot had a steep ramp upwards followed by the level space immediatly past the top of the ramp. Due to this the barrier was never in my view and I didn't know it was there.
- After parking I decided to back out and go to a new space so I started to back up - but then saw another elise creeping by right behind me so I stopped and decided to stay in my same spot - so I pulled back into the spot. Almost bumping the other Elise made me distracted.
- An Elise was then pulling in next to me. I then pulled forward an extra bit to give him the max amount of space to turn in next to me and that's when I heard the crunch.
An update:
SVAG thinks the scrape I had may have caused the driver's side plastic cover to not fit properly. Kiyoshi has seen the scrape/hole, maybe he can chime in if he thinks it may have affected the install of the guard. Personally, I don't think a hole with no protursions could cause the plastic guard to not fit over the area properly. *shrug* No biggie. As long as they can reattach it properly I'll be happy. The passenger side also has a gap (doesn't fit tight) but it is not as bad as the driver's side.
Also, this morning I found my radio doesn't work anymore. (it powers up, but when I play a song from the MMC there is no speaker output. Also, when I switch the source to the radio there's no sound and the seek function can't find any stations anymore. Seems I've lost both speaker output as well as antenna?? Most oddly, when I picked up the car yesterday I noticed that the passenger side front panel was unbolted and sticking up. I pointed it out, then threaded the bolt in by hand. We then fetched the allen wrench out from the trunk took kit and tightened it up. I guess the bolt had vibrated loose?? It was on it's last thread ready to fall out. I hadn't had that happen before.
My week for bad luck I guess??
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doma- your parking lot incident could easily have happen to me. As fragile as the clam is it only takes slight contact to damage it. Think they have a body shop handle the painting and install, never the less it's a reflection on SVAG. Suspect they could do a better job in reattaching it.
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Larry, is that the Mt hamilton scope in your avatar? Dang! Someone beat me up the mountain to the scope!
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Just back from SVAG. They were able to re-rivet the guard in under 1/2 an hour. It is now perfectly flush with the car. I've got a few extra holes in the bottom of the clam but oh well - looks much better now.
And strangely, my radio started working again on the way down there. It has lost all my presets but at least it is working again. Loose connection I suppose.
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doma- glad it turn out ok.
Yup, drove up Mt. Hamiliton last week. Might do it again next week with the MG folks. You can find a few more details here:
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Had HRM put these on for me last week. I think it was the first time they installed them. I'm really pleased with the results.
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These protective gaurds appear from you guys to be a dealer installed option, but my dealer (midRivers) can't seem to find them!?! Am I missing something or is this an aftermarket part. I actually want to buy the unpainted parts and have my local auto/paint shop install them.
Thanks
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These protective gaurds appear from you guys to be a dealer installed option, but my dealer (midRivers) can't seem to find them!?! Am I missing something or is this an aftermarket part. I actually want to buy the unpainted parts and have my local auto/paint shop install them.
Thanks
Hockydoc,
These are original Lotus parts and are available from any dealer. You can have the dealer or any competent paint shop do the work, but just make sure they do the silicone seal right, otherwise you get some of the issues shown earlier in this thread.
I was surprised that the paint matched perfectly (worry about metallics, etc.) and they are almost not noticeable. A good mod in terms of less ramp worries...
Chris
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And be sure to paint the inside rather than the outside. My dealer didn't want to attempt the paint themselves - worried about the 3-stage paint and how they would do that inside out. Nonetheless, the body shop that did the job did it perfectly for me.
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[quote=grantcv]And be sure to paint the inside rather than the outside. QUOTE]
grantcv,
you've confused me on this one Is it that the gaurd is clear and when you scrape the protector you're scratching just the plastic and not the paint?
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[quote=HOCKYDOC]
And be sure to paint the inside rather than the outside. QUOTE]
grantcv,
you've confused me on this one Is it that the gaurd is clear and when you scrape the protector you're scratching just the plastic and not the paint?
Correct - and it looks really good that way - believe it or not.
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These protective gaurds appear from you guys to be a dealer installed option, but my dealer (midRivers) can't seem to find them!?! Am I missing something or is this an aftermarket part. I actually want to buy the unpainted parts and have my local auto/paint shop install them.
Thanks
We have these in stock, some are prepainted, call my parts guy Eric @ 800- 568-8941 they are OEM Lotus parts. Don.
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I was amazed at how well painting the inside has worked. The color match is absolutely perfect (The body shop I used is really really good - Amatos) and it looks good too. Actually, I can't tell that the inside is painted rather than the outside.
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We have these in stock, some are prepainted, call my parts guy Eric @ 800- 568-8941 they are OEM Lotus parts. Don.
I ordered a pre-painted set for my Chrome Orange car, and installed them this weekend. The color match was excellent and the "sparkles" even sparkle (which is a good thing, considering that they were painted in reverse order from the inside). Only two steps were difficult - finding a 6 mm drill bit, and getting the courage to drill the holes in the front clam. Actually, I used a 15/64 ths drill bit (5.95 mm).
The parts are shown in the first photo.
The process is relatively simple. I drove the front of the car up on a pair of RhinoRamps for working room. Then I placed the clam protectors/skid plates on the car. Position them carefully, take a deep breath, and drill the hole. The protectors have a small pilot hole - you drill this out and through the clam while holding the protector in place. The instructions don't give further information, but at this point I placed one of the "plastic rivets" in the hole to keep it in position, and drilled the next hole, while still holding the protector in place. Insert the next plastic rivet and repeated the process until all four holes were drilled and the rivets were in place - shown in the second picture.
Then next step involved removing the protectors and applying clear silicon to the inside surface. You want the bead near the "outside" (top) edge to prevent water/dirt from getting between the protector and the clam, but don't apply it too thick as it may cause the protector to stick out from the body. The third picture shows the silicon applied.
The final steps require that you place the protector back in place on the clam, and insert the plastic rivets (see picture two). Once everything is in place, you push the "pins" into the plastic rivets until they are flush. That was easy on all but one, and for that one I had to grab the bendable pin with a pair of pliers and push from close to the rivet's "head". Then I repeated pushing a little bit with the pliers until it pushed in easily with my finger.
That was it - it was completed, and it didn't take long. They fit very flush to the clam, that is until I applied too much silicon which caused it to stick out a little bit, but still I'm very happy with the outcome. I need to take a finished picture, but by that then I was running out of time, and my wife had other "honey-dos" for me...
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May I ask an "obvious question"? If the guards are clear, and the paint goes on the inside, why paint them at all? At least one post says they just rivet on from the underside, so there need not be any glue to hide. Assuming that you haven't yet scraped the front of your bumper...
Lack of paint is attractive because then it's cheaper, and more "disposable." A plus, I think, in a scrape guard.
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You'd see the silicone, no?
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The question is whether or not the silicone is necessary. Are the contour of the bumper and the rivets sufficient?
Ah, the photo of the instructions specifies the adhesive bead. OK.
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The silicone keeps dirt out from between the clam and the protector. They are a close, but not perfect fit. The silicone fills the slight gaps and makes it look cleaner too. If you don't use it, you see the gaps more and dirt gets in the gaps and will mar the paint or starshield underneath with any vibration/rubbing. Think of sandpaper - not good. Best to just paint as instructed and use the silicone.
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Just a thought...we used to make the splitters on our world challenge cars out of wood (looked like plywood to me) cut it to shape, paint it, fabricate some simple brackets and presto you've got an exige splitter for your elise for under $50 (done correctly it looks exactly like those expensive carbon fiber ones). Or perhaps cut it to the shape of the of the underside of the front clam,(the bottom of this car looks very receptive to this) you could hardly see it. Or maybe a design where you could not see it at all. I never saw one warp,chip or deform and they lasted an entire season (assuming the rest of the car did). You may lose a very little clearance but in effect you would have a wooden skid plate under the entire nose of the car. It's light, cheap, simple and effectve . I think Collin Chapman would approve. Just a thought..