Cleaning up those Elise S1 grills
You may have noticed that the grills on the front and rear of your Elise are looking a little dull. They seem to be prone to rusting and are not really noticeable until you look closely and especially after re-spraying. Have a look at the before and after photo's further down. The good thing about going through this procedure is that you also get to clean behind the rear grills including the fog light and the reversing light. It's also much much cheaper than getting new grills from your Lotus dealer, they can cost a fortune. The downsides are that the Rawl bolts that hold the rear grills in place are also prone to jamming up, these can be a real pain to get out.
What you'll probably need -
- Positive head screw driver for the rear and front grill
- 4 replacement Rawl plugs or something better that won't jam in the future (Avg price £2.99)
- Small to medium sized can of Black panel spray (Avg price £4.99)
- Some washing up liquid and warm water.
- Pair of small pliers
- Hard wire brush and gloves
- String to hang the drying grills
- A sunny afternoon
The screw driver you'll need to use should fit the front grill plastic expanding screws and also the Rawl plug screws on the rear. The replacement Rawl plugs I purchased were longer than the original ones, but they still work fine. You can get Rawl plugs from Focus/Do-it-all or similar DIY shops. The spray paint can be any colour you want really, but if you're going for black, you can change to a different style. Gloss will give you a like new finish, but if you would like to avoid the, "I've re-sprayed" look, you can always go for Matt Black, or alternatively, Satin which is half way between the both and what I've settled on here. It really doesn't make much difference what you go for unless you look closely. Spray paint can be purchased from most motor shops such as Halfords.
The hard wire brush is to rub down the grills to remove dirt and rust. You may have a better way of removing the rust as the wire brush only goes so far, but it seems adequate. The gloves are not really needed but make it much easier and quicker so you don't have to worry about wire brushing chunks of skin off your hands.
Pliers will be
used to pull the Rawl plugs out if the won't unscrew. You'll need to hang
the grills up with some string from say a washing line. If you want to
finish this off well, you'll need an afternoon for drying time and
recoats.
How to go about it..
- We'll start with the front, the front grill is held in by two plastic expanding screws at the top, and is held in place at the bottom by pins from the grill. Simply and carefully unscrew the top screws out, being careful not to mangle the heads of the screws. When they are out, pull out the plastic expanding retainer. If you do mangle the screw heads, you can get a packet from Halfords, which are much cheaper than the Lotus dealer. If you mangle the screw head while it's still in the holder, get a fine small flat bladed screw driver and dig between the screw head and the plastic holder (not the body work) and leaver it out while unscrewing from the top.
- Once the retainers are out, pull the top of the grill forwards slightly and you should then be able to lift the grill upwards and out, watching you don't mark the body work of the car, and also that you don't pull out the rubber lugs that the bottom pins of the grill sit in. If they do come out they should go back in.
- Now your grill is out, store the screws safely and find a place to brush the grill down. Put on your thick gloves and blast away with the wire brush. Don't put to much pressure on the grill, let the brush do the work. The grills are quite flexible and easy to bend out of shape.
- You may now find that the grill looks much better already as most of the paint seems to stay on the grill and you've brushed most of the rust away. You can at this point decide not to re-spray, but it's likely the rust will return much sooner where the metal is bare.
- Fill a bowl of warm water and a little washing up liquid and give the grill a bit of a wash off, and then rinse in cold water. Leave it to dry and don't start the spraying until you are sure it's bone dry.
- Cut a length of string, poke it though one of the holes on one of the tabs that the screws go in, and hang the grill from somewhere where you can openly spray, outdoors. Check the direction of the wind!
- Spray a coat of paint over the grill both back and front. Try to spray on an angle to hit the inside edges of the mesh, you'll notice that the ridges are angled rather than flat. Keep the coating light and from a distance as recommended on the spray can. Spraying too close will produce drips and thick soft patches which may not dry properly. Leave to dry, usual recommendation is at least 15 minutes. While drying you may want to start to remove the rear grills.
The rear grills..
- The grills come off in a similar way to the front grill, i.e., unscrew the top screws, pull top out and up, but they are held in with Rawl plugs. (See the packet diagram above). How they work : the Rawl plug is made of a rubber tube, at the top end is a small copper thread, the screw is inserted and as it's tightened, it pulls the rubber back making it expand and stopping the plug from falling out. In the packet diagram above, the left picture of the Rawl plug in use is the nearest to what happens in the Elise body work. Unfortunately, the thread tends to come away from the rubber inside so as you try to unscrew, the thread will turn in the rubber jacket and not undo. Other times the rubber can be a bit mangled and that also stops it coming out. Being able to get inside the body work to the back of the Rawl plug doesn't help much either as it'll just turn in a pair of pliers. So, if you are having trouble undoing the screw, grab the head of the screw with some pliers, you may at this point want to protect your body work as well as your sanity! What you need to do is carefully pull down, left and right and ease the plug out, it'll take some doing, and while you're doing it, you need to keep an eye on the surrounding body work to make sure it doesn't crack. If you by chance have the exhaust out or the wheel arch liners off, you might be able to get to the back of the Rawl plug and pull bits of the Rawl plug rubber off. This can help in getting it out through the hole. Others methods are to saw the head of the screw off and let the Rawl plug fall out inside the clam shell/bodywork, or drill the head off. Pick which method you feel best with. Just take your time and watch for damage.
- Once these are out, pull the top of the grill forward and up, again watching the body doesn't get scraped.
- Now brush, wash and spray coats like the front grill.
- Don't forget, while the rear grills are off, get some car body shampoo and wash inside the grill area and the light lenses.
- Once you have finished your coats of spray and the paint has dried and hardened, you can fit them back with some new Rawl plugs. Simply push the new rubber jacket up inside, it's like a T shape, but upside-down, hold the outer edge of the jacket, put the grill in, lower pins in first and the push the top in, so the rubber jacket is between the body work and the grill tab, and then insert the screw and tighten a little.
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| Rear grill before | Rear grill after |
As you can see, it's a vast improvement. It's surprising how bad they can get. The picture to the left is the right rear grill after around 30,000 miles/2.5 years, the right picture is the left rear grill after being sprayed with Satin Black panel spray. Satin black is a little more shiny than matt black in the sun light, but not glossy.
Around 4 to 5 normal coats of spray should be plenty for good results, your can may recommend different. Some also recommend not spraying on bare metal.
You can go further to prolong the life of the new spray. You could treat the grill to remove more rust with some of the products available, then apply an under coat before the final black spray. Some people even use Hammerite which has good rust proofing qualities, and can be up to double the cost of a normal can of spray paint.
Craig D, 28th April 2002
These instructions are only a guide and you use them at your own risk. Please take care when working on your car!