This is safety-critical work. Everything has to be torqued correctly, the rubber bushes at ride height, and the car needs a proper alignment at the end. See Wishbone ball joints and bushes and Wheel alignment.
What owners replaced
The question that started the main thread was: bushes, ball joints, drop links, track rod ends and tie bars. Do all of them need replacing? The answers were mixed.
- Replace as a set. One owner (2011) says since you have already gone to the effort of removing the wishbones, you may as well change the ball joints and bushes. Another says the cost of replacement is outweighed by the labour, so don't try to get away without replacing what may be a disposable wear item.
- Replace only what is worn. An owner at 85,000 miles (an 8 year old car that had led a hard life) found all the ball joints removed were in perfect condition, one bush had delaminated and the rest were fine, and he reused his bolts.
- Standard or polyurethane bushes? Owners differ. See Wishbone ball joints and bushes.
- Hubs. The hubs can't be blasted or powder coated. They are reused after cleaning up, or replaced with new. See Wheel hub replacement.
- Rear toe links. One owner replaced them with OEM or uprated ones. See Rear toe links.
- Brakes. One owner says you don't need to do anything to the brakes and can come back to them afterwards. He would add braided hoses and a good set of pads, and wouldn't paint the calipers because they look horrid very quickly. A suggestion of new p-clips for the brake cables was also made.
- Dampers. Since a refresh is expensive anyway, another owner suggested upgrading the dampers at the same time. See Fitting adjustable shocks.
Order of work
- Remove the wishbones (see Front wishbone removal). Note the number and position of the castor and camber shims.
- If coating them, remove the bushes and ball joints, blast the wishbones (fine sand or glass bead) and coat. See Wishbone corrosion protection. The uprights can be coated too, but the hubs must come out of them first. The three hub bolts are usually very tight.
- Press in new ball joints and bushes (see Wishbone ball joints and bushes).
- Refit, torque the bolts at ride height, and put the castor and camber shims back where they were. See Hub carrier bolts for the hub carrier side.
- Have the alignment checked.
Practical tips
- Rear locking tabs (the tabs that stop the bolts turning) bend off with a small screwdriver, according to one owner.
- Upper front wishbone rear bolt: turn the steering to full lock to get it past the steering arm.
- Camber shims: one owner who finished a front refresh says they can be very tight to refit. He ground a point on an old pivot bolt, pushed it through the shims to line them up, then put the new bolt in.
- Where to buy shims and brackets: in 2013 one owner paid about £3 each for ABS sensor brackets and about £3.50 each for camber shims from Lotus, then bought a stainless shim set from Elise Parts instead.
- Supplier packs. One owner pointed to a supplier's "suspension refresh pack" as a way to compare prices.
- Galvanising yourself. One owner galvanised all his parts and coated them with a stone-chip paint, but would avoid it: "hard work".
What it cost (dated)
These are owners' own totals, from 2009 and 2011. Parts prices have changed and are only a rough guide to how the costs split.
| Item | 2009 (one owner, about £500 total) | 2011 (another owner, about £3,090 total) |
|---|---|---|
| Ball joints x 8 | £155 | £160 |
| Bushes | £140 (polyurethane) | £200 |
| Track rod ends x 2 | £28 | not itemised |
| Bolt set | £23 | £45 |
| Drop links x 2 | £31 | not itemised |
| Hub carrier bolts | £10 | not itemised |
| Sand blasting wishbones | £60 | £100 for blasting and coating |
| Paint (POR15, not powder coat) | £18 | included above |
| Camber shims | £30 | £65 for shims, ABS brackets and rear locking tabs |
| Castor shims | about £5 for a pack of 40 (he thought 38 mm x 10 mm washers) | included above |
| Toe links | not bought | £250 |
| Hubs | not bought | £350 |
| Dampers | not bought | £1,200 (Nitron NTR) |
| Carbon fibre kit | no | £700 |
| Front top shock spacers | no | £20 |
- A third owner spent over £700 on parts alone (an uprated tie rod kit, eight ball joints, track rod ends and a bush kit from the Elise-parts suppliers), with nothing coated or damper-related, and four solid days of labour. His advice: budget for more than you think.
- The 2009 owner (about £500 total) added that the car feels amazing once it is finished and is well worth the hard work.
Help wanted
All the prices here are from 2005 to 2013. If you have done a refresh recently, we would like to know what it cost, which parts you replaced, and how long it took. A torque table for the whole refresh would also help.