Lotus Elite SU fuel pump rebuild - part 1

[@wendellfugate4225]

Thank you for this tutorial. These are really lovely British sports cars and worth the time to fettle until back on the road with them. Plan on buying one very much like this when I can manage it. As a substitute teacher for the Hawaiian DOE and an underutilized professional ESL lecturer with nil in the old bank account just now it may very well take some time. Ouch. Best wishes to all fellow Lotus fans like us.

[@ModernHeroes]

Love the stop motion unboxing 👌- absolute work of art

[@GrandThriftAuto]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

[@fhwolthuis]

Yes that was great!

[@mattw8332]

I love the 'shooting brake' styling of these. This is my favourite model of Lotus.

[@GrandThriftAuto]

Mine too! I’m a big shooting brake fan (I also really like my Honda Aerodeck - see kzbin.info/www/bejne/rV7KpYeGd8uYoM0). And of course the AMC Gremlin in your avatar 😊

[@kenny9447]

Hi Martin, been through these pumps many times. As much as I wanted to keep the original and purchased rebuild kits, I just took it out and put in a low pressure pulse type pump from Amazon. I'm a happy camper now! Great video!

[@GrandThriftAuto]

That sounds like a good idea, I may well do the same. They're supposed to be ethanol-proof, but...

[@rogerhudson2814]

I like Chapman stories. Sir Stirling Moss had a nasty accident at Spa when the front right well tore off, at a subsequent dinner there was a racecar shaped cake , Stirling cut off the right front wheel and told the waiter " that's for Mr Chapman".

[@GrandThriftAuto]

Love it! That’s a great story, and not one I’d heard. Very characteristic of both of them, heroes in different ways.

[@danpatterson8009]

In the early 80's I attended a lecture by Paul MacCready, designer of the featherweight human-powered Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross. His design philosophy was simple: if a part broke, it needed to be stronger. If it didn't, it might be heavier than it needed to be.

[@user-vu7ii7lr8s]

The washer jets are lightweight and certainly look like repurposed brake line but I think sourced from/shared with Ford Escort... Thanks for sharing experiences with your cars.

[@GrandThriftAuto]

Well I never knew that! Thanks.

[@patrickhostler5939]

I love the music in this film… can I ask what it is called?

[@GrandThriftAuto]

It's called Bread and Circuses, by my alter ego Vinyl Silk - on Soundcloud here soundcloud.com/vinylsilk/bread-and-circuses or on Bandcamp here: vinylsilk.bandcamp.com/album/the-difficult-second-album (I write my own music partly for fun and partly because I'm too mean to pay for audio rights and too impatient to search the free music libraries. The quality is mixed but hey.)

[@hairychin]

'The Algorithm' popped your Aerodeck vid up & I recognised the scenery! Did you happen to buy the Lotus from a guy in Murton?

[@GrandThriftAuto]

I bought it from Wiltshire but I’m based around Mumbles/Gower and drive through Murton regularly 😊

[@hairychin]

@@GrandThriftAuto Just co-incidentally then there WAS a lotus Elite around Murton many years ago, my mate owned it, non-driving at the time & I don't think he got round to fixing the fuel pump. He only showed me the car once about 20 years ago, seeing your vids driving close to where my mate used to live, I just wondered if it was the same car - it doesn't seem so though :)

[@GrandThriftAuto]

@@hairychin Small world! Considering these were always quite rare. I don’t think it’s the same car though, I’m not aware of this one having any local history.