Conan Dombroski's blog

Well, it's done -- the painting of the clam, anyway. Still have a lot to do, though. I had L&S Restoration in Rochester, MN, handle the painting. The quality of work is excellent. However, I'm really unhappy with the final cost: $1285!! His estimate was 10-15 hours of work (@ $45/hr), but with the understanding that it wasn't guarenteed. The final time supposedly came to 25 hours. How the hell can a so-called professional be so unable to judge the time required to perform his job? It would have cost me the same to have the Lotus dealership paint it. At least the final finish is really nice. He did repair a headlight cover at no charge, which will allow me to return the new one for $600. Yes, that's right, a headlight COVER for $600.00!! Ah, exotic car ownership.

About a month ago, Eric came over and gave me a hand with the oil cooler bypass mod (see figure 2). I had big ideas about cutting and welding, but Eric saw how to just align the lower bolt hole with the upper bolt. This simplified it considerably and we just cut some excess bracket off (less weight!), bolted it up, and......voila! Relocated bypass!

About a month before that, Steve (aka sbranda) came over and helped me repair the cracked fiberglass on the crash structure.Steve has become pretty good at repairing fiberglass (ask him how...). We used a putty-type, 2-part epoxy to fill in the cracks. Figure 3 shows how it looks right now, but I plan on smoothing it out and hitting it with some primer and flat black. Once I get that done and the clam on, no one will ever notice. The red wires are just temporary until I get the black zip ties on.

The actual new oil cooler is now on the right-hand side. It was a bitch to get in as the foam insulation made for a VERY tight squeeze. I made sure to fill the cooler with oil first before sealing it up. Held quite a bit. Something like 1.5 - 2 quarts (1.5- 2L).

The final task (other than actually putting the clam on) is to transfer all the crap from the old clam (figure 5) onto the new one. There's lots: radio antenna, headlight assemblies, turn signal assemblies, side marker lights, vibration insulation, wheel arch liners, cable assemblies, etc, etc. There's also the undertray that was damaged, which I have a new replacement for.

Ok, for all those who have been dying to hear what's been happening with the car (that would be Ken), here's the scoop:

As you can see from my initial blog entry, the damage was totally contained to the left-front corner, with the body and the oil cooler bearing the brunt of it all. Originally, the body shop (Rehms Auto) that tore the car down, wrote an estimate for the insurance company (Allstate) for roughly $12,000.00. When Allstate told them the damage wasn't going to be covered, Rehms "graciously" made me a deal of $10,000.00. Wow! Now how could I pass that up? Instead of charging Allstate Rehms' cost + 20%, they were going to charge me Rehms' cost + 10%. Which is honestly not bad. However, it was still above my budget, and while I wasn't looking forward to it, I knew I could do 90% of the work myself.

So, yeah, I'm unhappy. Insurance jerked me around, too. Initially called on a whim thinking it wouldn't hurt to ask but really didn't expect to be covered. Agent said, "Yeah, you're covered." That prompted calling the body shop who took the car to tear down and estimate damage. Then insurance says, "Well, maybe not," for 3 days. Final word came today: Not covered. Ah well. It'll be a hoot repairing it, I'm sure.