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The thing is, any sort of contact with a hard steel beam and your cranium is a sure lose. Unless well strapped down you or your passenger’s bodies can move quite a bit in an event. I don’t like driving my track prepped Elise on the street, full cage. My white helmet has a zillion black streaks and bumps from contact with the cage while I’m in a full six point harness and neck protector. Even with helmets we cover the parts of the cage near our helmets with a very dense almost hard foam material, anticipating a solid head to cage event.

The Momo 27 comes undrilled, Josh at Rocky Mountain drilled it. “Surgery” he said. I’m pretty spoiled from some of the cars and wheels we’ve had. A nice OMP on the Lotus track car is worn in but holds great memories. It’s just the best driving experience. My son pointed out though last night how cheap, “chalky” the material feels on the Momo, but I’ve made sure he’s driven new McLarens and such with proper alcantara. He knows like I do how good it can be from a driver’s perspective. Not for everyone but if you know… Since I want to recover with better material anyway red just fits this car and the Lotus legacy. Detachable wheel easier than shipping the whole car, gotta find the sesmstress though. It can be done.

I may give you time to use it a lot as I aquaint myself with Sevenland. I’d buy that premade red alcantara wheel if I knew of such.

And here we are, installed with lower steering rod splines reset. Not driven yet to confirm how straight it is. Anyone know of a service that could do a proper job to recover this Momo 27 in red alcantara and black stitching? Going for that classic look.The original owner choose the red leather console accents, I’m going with it.

Your ride has a lot in common with the one I have just taken responsibility for. The choice of safety equipment gets dicy in these cars. As I understand it from my experience setting up an Elise for full track, there are two ways to go with safety. * Three point and airbags * Seat secured to floor, full cage padded near head, 6 point harness secured to car and cage not seat, helmet, neck protector There are supposed hybrids like the 4 point Asm Schroth offers but I’m skeptical. One shoulder belt is loosely sewn to elongate as you are thrown forward so your neck is not over stressed= 😵 There are more advanced systems with netting on windows etc etc for racers. Arm retraints are appropriate with an open car. So anything else is a compromise. We are just choosing what to give up, what risk to accept. I don’t like driving my track setup Elise on the street because I’m in a twin shoulder harness with no neck protector and my head is near (padded a little) steel tubes with no helmet. I think many maybe most folks assume it’s curtains if anything happens. Eyes up.

That’s good information and probably the way to go. I appreciate your experience. But I’m still at the “blue stars” stage getting of familiar with a new car. I swear the Elise was more fun to drive after I’d changed pads and rotors and flushed the brakes system with a pressure bleeder myself. After I learned this on the Elise I taught my son, now 28, how to do it on his Nissan Z. Had 102 track days with her but some of the best fun was laying on cardboard under the car with a flashlight in my mouth. And it’s radical and racy to have blue brake fluid. At least to me.

Good information. And that’s why I asked. Confident of a useful response. I’ve methelene blue on hand I use with an aquarium system to identify a solution that’s NOT going into the system. Google says it’s glycol compatible.

It’s time to flush the brakes, the car has sat in storage over two years with original amber fluid. Some of us know about alternating colors of brake fluid to determine the flush is done. With the “brand new” uncolored fluid in there now there’s not much way to tell when the new arrives. The powers that be have contrived to make this unavailable to help protect the oppressed folks I guess. I have plenty from back in my track days but out of date now. Is there a way to get the blue brake fluid stateside? Meet someone at the end of a dirt road with cash?

And there you go. And literally a reflection of Lotus’ past. You can see the thin white plastic liner that actually touches the upper steering column. White tab on left lines up with the dogears going left and right. Could have easily pushed the bushing in too far, using the C clip on the column to push it in. Now on to the steering rack splines…

Just back from a few fun miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway, thanks to the help I’ve found here and Josh at Rocky MountainCaterham. The Momo so much more fun to drive than the beautiful (and available) flashy British wooden wheel. it was too easy to reseat the upper steering bushing. I used some red penetrating oil liberally inside the white plastic liner and on the outside or the dogesrs. I did trimmone slightly to make a more tapered entry. On my car the gray rubber bungs on the bushing orient to left and right. This fixed the squeak as well. So fun getting to know your car, they just plain drive better when we know they are put together right. I was hoping to be lucky but the D shaped wheel is set clockwise 45 degrees with the tires straight, so the next thread looks to be about aligning splines in the steering rack. Suggestions of established threads on this? Hopefully alignment and set up don’t require my attention too soon to get the wheel better. As it is now my left fist obscures the speedometer below 70. Handy.

This thread has been super useful to me. I’m running a thread with plenty of parallels. My car is back together and I’ve learned a bit. Many thanks Slonie.

Yeah I went big on that vise. Figuring my son will use it after I’m gone. My Dad had a big heavy metal table with a vise attached I wish I’d haved room for. The wooden bench I made that this vise is on is not really heavy enough for serious use.

Simple enough, I rigged a “gear puller” and it came right apart. Will be posting the fancy wheel and upper steering column as available. So now the next challenge, reseating the apparently undamaged upper bushing. Both dogears intact. Surely someone has found the trick to put the genie back in the bottle? I’d appreciate your experience reseating the bushing.

Thanks, those splines would make unscrewing it a lot harder 😊

I’m going to investigate having it recovered in red alcantara with black stitching and yellow stripe on top. And pad it out with tennis racquet grip to better fit my hands large palms smaller fingers) under the new covering. Easy to leave it at their shop now.

And it seems like we’re fairly close to center, not driven yet to test. I’d rather not learn about splines in the steering rack this week if possible. Much less alignment suspension settings….😱 Notice reflection of Lotus sign

This is how far I got disassembling the wooden steering wheel to retrieve that bushing. It looks fine, both dogears intact as new. i got the locknot off from inside the set up dut can’t decide if this housing is rhreaded on or friction fit. Or should I just leave it on there for the next owner of the wheel? I have one on the way and am now seem to think I’m fairly knowledgeable.

And it’s done. The little pond is holding water at a test level, and the steering column is out! Did just what y’all said, a penetrating bath every 30 minutes, opened the key and out she came. After 45 years of extracting teeth I know this feeling of success well, carrying the intact prize around the office to show staff how lucky I’d been!!! Seriously guys, I used to a sliding hammer a lot in the mouth over the years, it’s all about correct line of draw and a committed strike. Next hurdle,retrieve the bushing. Red lock tite is evident….

And here’s the “factory” OEM piece. A nice looking something has somehow become welded to the poor innocent shaft. Josh is sending a bag of bushings for me to trundle through. I’ve given the water feature my all and time will reveal the depth of my folly with that. And to complete the circle, there is something of a reason it’s there, knowing this will help me reat better: ”It's for the steering column lock off of whatever original Thatcher-era British Leyland horror the original upper column is from. (UK road inspection requirement.) As the QR version is custom, it consciously omits the lock as everyone loathes it: pushing the Seven around the garage is impossible with the lock unless the ignition is turned on. And of course one immediately forgets the keys are in the lock barrel -- upon finally remembering, comes back to find a dead battery.) I have already done that, have it on a tender now like the Elise.

Here’s the new upper steering column. Apparently the one I need to remove is made differently? Have something cleverly welded to it to impede doing anything with it? So I have time to bathe the existing bushing in some lubricant. I have 27 and 30 guage needles to place it but with what lubricant?

Josh at Rocky Mountain told me there was supposed to be a replacement bushing in the shipping tube, which has apparently gone awol. He’ll supply another. I only wanted to take on the leaky water feature today anyway 😊

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I spent most of yesterday working hard in the sun revamping a troubling old water feature. Over two days of tedious effort in the sun. Got that pretty well under control and went to the garage to do a simple steering wheel change. I was pretty worn down so when this literally ran into the normal stone wall of somehow removing a brand new bushing that was never meant to be removed I was pretty floored. Not much mental energy left. So the car is in pieces until I can source a couple of spare bushings to hammer on. Great. Removed the steering wheel of a Rover SD1 decades ago. When it finally freed up after three days of effort, it sounded like a gunshot. In my brief experience with these cars, it seems that if you don’t get something in the original build, it’s just not like other cars. Changing it later requires real engineering not just some wrenches.

Exactly what I was thinking. You have one laying around? Seriously I’ll be on that in the morning. Good superstition to have the part ready.

Thanks Slonie. Was hoping for a simple safety screw to remove, but I guess tomorrow I’ll give it a go.. As a Dentist (ret) I had a small hammer slide that only one of my assistants could slide it just right to remove half a crown or something elsewhere, that sudden force got it done.

Three bolts and the bracket’s off. Column slides freely a couple of inches if oriented right. Then it feels like it’s finding a retaining screw, that I’m not finding. Might be one under the column near firewall that’s covered in silicone?