Lotus Eclat ‘77 . The Banana 🍌 .(Upto date & new pics)

They could be .

The bolsters on mine look smaller & the stitching on the bolsters is different to the ones pictured , but definitely very close .

What year is that ?

👍

That was just a random one from Google images so I'm not sure on year but it's definitely a later XJS, the early ones didn't have the stitching on the bolster.

Talk to anyone about an early Lotus & it won’t be long before reliability is mentioned .
Well , i didn’t have to wait long for it to give me trouble !!

On the way home , around 50 miles , it was fine .
Over the next week I used it 3 or 4 times .
I started to notice the rev counter needle would drop & return randomly .
I thought this was possibly a fault with the ignition switch . The starter circuit had been bypassed , so this was already on my list of things to check .
The dropping rev counter steadily got worse over a few more drives & then the engine started cutting momentarily .
It finally cut completely about 1 mile from home .
I tried starting it a couple of times & it didn’t want to know .
I gave it 5 minutes & tried again , it started & got me home , thankfully .

A few days later & a genuine Lucas ignition switch arrived .
Replaced & removed the separate starter switch .

This had been wired to a permanent live & placed in a position that my knee pressed it every time i got in or out of the car .



Switch fitted & now the engine turns over from the key , but unfortunately it won’t start .
Double checked the wiring , all ok , but no signal from the dizzy to the coil .

So off with the airbox & onto the dizzy .




Removed the dizzy & found it had been fitted with an Accuspark module , a nice surprise .

The wire from the dizzy to the coil had 4 joins in it & at least one wasn’t a good connection .
Replaced that wire , refitted the dizzy & it ran again .

While taking the airbox off I noticed something wrong with the trumpets .





For some reason someone had hacksaw’d the ends off .
Why would someone do that ??
Luckily my brother had a spare set of trumpets from his engine swop project , so i had them off him .
Think that should help it a little .



So all back together & running good again .

👍

Thanks .

Hopefully i can do it justice .

Still a couple more bits to add before I’m upto date & then carry on with small fixes/improvements over winter .

👍

Have to admit, that looks so much better,
Nice work for relatively little outlay,
Nigel

My Uncle had a brand new mustard yellow one in '76. It ended badly (and upside down) after an incident with a verge and a field.

He was gutted as he had only had it a few days!

Loving your one. And those seats really suit it.

I think they have .
It certainly gets a lot of attention .
Still a little behind on updates , so more to come .

👍