by Don Zeunert
Strange things happen when you turn the big five-oh. Not horny anymore? Can't keep it up? Can't keep cool anymore? Are things a little out of sync? All these things happened to my Lotus when it rolled 50K miles.
What am I talking about? Well I took a trip to Indianapolis for the USGP. I had lost one horn button several months earlier, but then I noticed the second one was dead. Then, I rolled up the window to talk on the phone (don't worry I wasn't driving) and it didn't stay up. It just fell and would not roll back up. It was very hot so I turned the air on full blast and... nothing. Turns out the fan selector switch speed 4 is dead, but speed 1-3 still work. You'll have to wait for the out of sync part on the return trip.
So I arrived at my hotel in Indy and checked in. My oldest son was going to drive from U of I Champaign to meet me. So I was thinking... w/o being able to close the window, maybe I should leave my car at Young Kim's house and ask if I could park in the garage. I didn't ask and Young assured me no rain in forecast for next three days. He threw an excellent party as always. We met numerous members of the Club House for Indianapolis Lotus Lovers (CHILL) who were all very friendly. I think there were more cars in Young's driveway, lawn and parkway than at most auto shows. He managed to invite Lotus owners from as far away as Georgia.
The CHILL club had arranged for free parking passes to infield parking if you drove a Lotus. They also had a police escort from the Zoo to the Brickyard. I arrived late, but just before they pulled out of the zoo lot. But I was stopped by the police and it turned out your name had to be on a reservation list. That might have been a good tip for next year. But we ended up attending The last United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At the time we didn't know this, they said still negotiating. It has now been announced there will not be one after eight consecutive annual events. We are going to have to figure out another reason to visit Kim and the CHILL Lotus club.
So we arrived about 10 AM, hours before the main event. The infield parking was nowhere near our seats. So we sat where you could for general admission prices. We had a great view of the tightest turn on the track and got to see lots of spins and accidents during the preliminary races. We eventually moved to our paid seats just before the start of the race. We were cheering for Lewis Hamilton, a very young driver to finish in the top 3. And he managed to win the whole race.
So with Young's weatherman forecast in hand we decided to make the trip back without attempting to raise and prop up the window. This would have required tools and disassembling the door, not that I'm not practiced at that. I just rebuilt both window motors a couple of months earlier. Traffic was great for the first 10 minutes on the highway then we crawled at under 10 MPH for 25 minutes. Then it opened up to 70 MPH without passing construction or an accident. About 20 minutes later we hit a terrible thunderstorm and luckily the aerodynamics of the car didn't cause much water to get in. But I turned on the windshield wipers and the passenger side arm was a bit limp, it just wiggled a couple of inches up and wasn't in sync with the other arm.
I think this is already a bit long, so I'm only going to cover one of the repairs I made. This repair is common to Lotus Elan and Esprit. I called Lotus and asked about getting some horn switches. They said the wheel is only serviceable a as complete unit. So I asked how much is that? They said "its not available". I did some research and found out it's the same wheel as 2002 Esprit. So I called back and asked how much for that part. "We can get those for $820 plus 3 hours labor at over $100/hour to install".
I'm thinking there has to be a cheaper way. Everyone says this is a GM steering wheel, so I figure let's find a car that matches and call the dealer. It turns out the 1988-1993 Pontiac Trans Am wheel looks identical. So I call Pontiac and ask about horn switches. They say they're discontinued.., try a junk yard. I persist and show up in person. I look at their book and it's the leather wrap (NPS) style that looks like the Lotus wheel. Gregg at Haggerty Pontiac (630)279-2000, was nice enough to special order the part. He said I didn't have to take it if it didn't match. You will not have the guess and check issue I did. They also offered to replace it in 1 1/2 hours at a lower labor rate.
Dealing with an air bag, there was a fear of pre-ejection, but I did some reading and decided to proceed. The GM Part Number is 17985842 for $27.00 including tax. This is an exact match on the button switches and their attachment mechanism. It is also a match for the ground wire. Unfortunately the positive connection is different on Lotus than Pontiac. So I spliced the old connector on the new switches. You could also just pop out the tiny spring loaded push buttons and swap out. Your old ones are probably already popped out so you'll see what I mean. But I figured if the buttons were brittle, the housings probably were as well.
The plastic horn switch was cracked due to what I suspect is age, as I rarely use the horn. Both sides were split into multiple pieces and were brittle. I expect it will be a few years before the Esprit V8 has this issue, unless you pound on the horn. So with $27 and free labor versus well over a grand, I'm horny again. But I get ahead of myself. How did I avoid the labor? I did it myself. You don't need to read on unless you are curious about replacing a wheel or a horn button.
The clear plastic parts on the ends of the red and black wires are the horn buttons. In the middle of the picture the two red wires terminate in a snap connector. The Pontiac horn harness has the
two buttons but a totally different connector.
The Safety Precautions for Supplementary Inflatable Restraint (S.I.R.) models from Lotus Service Notes - Electrical Section pages 40-41 warns you. The Diagnostic Energy Reserve Module (DERM) can maintain sufficient voltage to cause an air bag deployment for up to 10 minutes after the ignition is turned off and the battery disconnected.
It goes on to tell you how to pull the fuses. If you look at the diagram you would think they are as easy to access as the regular fuses on the passenger side. After searching and contorting for about 5 minutes, I located the fuses behind a large white square object that resembled a speaker. By the way, you need to be smaller than me to comfortably see this. I decided it would be easier to reprogram the radio and let the ECU reprogram the engine management than to pull the fuses. I decided, perhaps not wisely, to disconnect the battery and wait 15 minutes.
I performed this procedure twice without incident and the airbag startup verification sequence worked after both occasions. For your information the verification is as follows. Turn on the ignition and observe the SIR tell tale; it should flash seven to nine times and then go out. When the engine is cranked the lamp should come on steady, and then flash another seven to nine times
after the engine has started. If you don't get this, you need to see the SIR Manual which I don't have as part of the set I bought on CDs.
So all you need are some star security bits, which are available at automotive parts stores for around SI 0. There are four bolts on the back of the wheel. Afterwards, I carefully rested the airbag on my lap without disconnecting it. I then used another security bit to remove the ground wire, at which point I disconnected the snap connector. I then just pulled the two horn buttons out of the rubberized wheel. I took the whole harness to the workbench. I then spliced the snap connector onto the new harness, reinstalled and closed up the wheel. Process took about 45 minutes. I reconnected the battery. Why did I do it twice? The first time was to examine and verify the defective parts. The second time was to install the part I had special ordered.
