Bulkhead Noises and Bumps in the Night
Discussion
I drove 300 miles for an A service at 25000 miles to the Lotus dealership just outside of somewhere Maryland since I had a couple of problems I wanted addressed. One problem being the 'crack' coming from behind the drivers seat when riding over any road imperfection. The dealer's service advisor told me that the bulkhead was 'delaminating' and I would need to take it to a trim shop!
Yesterday I called Lotus USA and got in touch with the Lotus direct technicians in CA. They immediately told me what the problem was, and was as I expected, the body mounting hardware in front of the engine even though I had tightened to the factory spec of 35ft/lbs. Apparently the Lotus solution is to use spacers of 1/8 inch between the bulkhead and the frame. Easy to slide in if you cut a slot in the spacers to slide over the bolt without having to remove the bolt. Slightly take the weight of the car under the jacking point in front of the rear wheel and the car will flex just enough to allow the spacers to slide in. My problem now is that I sheared off one of the bolts since the Lotus guys told me the bolts needed to be F.T. The original bolts do not look to be anything other than Ace Hardware quality so, tonight, armed with Grade 8 hardware I will try to complete the job. All I know is that I am extremely disappointed with the dealers diagnosis after paying $600 for basically an oil change especially since I normally do them myself!
Peter, 97 V8
Yesterday I called Lotus USA and got in touch with the Lotus direct technicians in CA. They immediately told me what the problem was, and was as I expected, the body mounting hardware in front of the engine even though I had tightened to the factory spec of 35ft/lbs. Apparently the Lotus solution is to use spacers of 1/8 inch between the bulkhead and the frame. Easy to slide in if you cut a slot in the spacers to slide over the bolt without having to remove the bolt. Slightly take the weight of the car under the jacking point in front of the rear wheel and the car will flex just enough to allow the spacers to slide in. My problem now is that I sheared off one of the bolts since the Lotus guys told me the bolts needed to be F.T. The original bolts do not look to be anything other than Ace Hardware quality so, tonight, armed with Grade 8 hardware I will try to complete the job. All I know is that I am extremely disappointed with the dealers diagnosis after paying $600 for basically an oil change especially since I normally do them myself!
Peter, 97 V8
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