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Rear subframe swap on an LE 500
Steve and Marie dropped off their LE 500 with us at the weekend along with a subframe that he’d sourced complete with all ancillaries. This one is number 108 of 500, paint code 107 and affectionately known as Ellie, that they’ve owned since new and that we last saw a number of years ago.
We had a call over in Worksop on Monday morning to start our week, where it was great to meet Darran, to carry out the head gasket replacement and cambelt service on his 2006 TF 160 (in Sunspot – IAC) that he’s owned since it was 3 years old. We had to resort to our Plan B due to the engine mount bolts not wanting to come undone. All other service items replaced and car now good to enjoy many more miles. Thanks to Darran for the supply of tea!
So we got cracking, with an early start, at the workshop on Tuesday morning to start work on Ellie’s subframe removal.
Whilst in with us, we carried out a minor service, replaced the rear brake lines, fitted two new front shocks, a new Mike Satur anodised three-way pipe connector as the LE ones are prone to snapping without warning.
The SRS was permanently on, this was found to be due to a faulty rotary coupler, so we replaced this with one on stock.
The under-tray was rather rotten so we fitted one of our galvanized ones that we painted up.
The exhaust flange on the CAT was just about rotten through, Stephen had sourced some of the new ones that Mike Satur has now developed, so Jon welded one of these into place.
We’re pleased to report after two long days hard graft she’s now all back up and running. Although, there is a slight caveat to that, when it came to running up to temperature and bleeding the system, the LEs have a different heater matrix, made of a very light alloy. When undoing the bleed screw the threads came out with the actual bleed screw.
As some of you know we’ve come across this before and the only way of sorting is to replace the heater matrix itself. Which, of course, in the case of aircon models involves a full days work stripping out the interior. We have temporarily fixed it, cutting over-sized threads into the hole and sealing with a rubber washer. We will put it on test further, hopefully this has resolved this as we never like to give disappointing news.
This is a lovely looking example and has enjoyed many miles and adventures aboard and to many car meets, it’s great that they’ve invested in her to have many more. We look forward to seeing them both on collection. – https://ift.tt/PDJHYNC
