Remove the rear clamshell

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A few of us are removing rear clam currently

add remove some of this (add remove what?)

if outside buy halfords (buy) small car cover £25

soft/hard top will need to be off

drive or lift (definitely lift) car up onto a 6" concrete blocks

disconnect battery black wire (nearest bulkhead)

Procedure

1. Remove roll over bar shroud (Longtail S2) Inside the cabin, behind each seat there is an 8mm allen bolt vertically holding the shroud on. Undo these. Don’t drop them or you’ll end up having to take the seats out to retrieve them....Undo the bolt that holds the plastic softtop-rail catch mouldings in place (keep any shims). Finally, undo the bolts at the tail of the shroud. The female part of tail shroud is a captive plate in the clam and can be reached/adjusted by reaching through the engine bay up into the buttresses.

2. Remove speaker trim panel it's only held in with 4 of those black plastic rivet things with heads that maul when you try to unscrew them so decided to remove passenger seat and passenger seat belt top mount to clam shell (is this supposed to be a sentence?) seat is only held in by 4 sownward (downward?) allen bolts (as above) front 2 are easy to get to rear tunnel(what tunnel??) is ok if you have enough extensions rear near side only if you have a flexible extension,and the bolt is so tight it ("tight it"? so tight that? you need to rotate the seat too(Really? going to rotate the seat to unscrew a bolt?), to help it release ( you'll need to remove the bracket holding the lumbar bubble thing too - allen head ) ok then remove the trim panel undoing the speaker wires

all this (is) for 3. Remove bolt each side going sideways into the clam

4. Remove engine cover 2 bolts each hinge with assorted washers (that's LITERALLY not even a sentence) unplug the aerial near the engine cover from inside cabin (seriously dude! define "cabin") unscrew 2 nuts per hinge and remove hinge clamp brackets which hold down front of clam

5. Have a rest (from my terrible grammar) and remove carpet(,) foam etc from within boot remove battery bracket 2 bolts (rest is over! back to the poor writing) 2 more clam bolts through floor battery side 3 clam bolts right side (somewhere on the right side) discover ("discover"? if you had to "discover" this you're an idiot) tyre weld above offside wheel arch

6. Remove 2 allen bolts holding ecu (you'll be able to discover this even if you can't discover the tyre weld) unit to boot partition leave ecu where it is (Where you discovered it)

7. Remove n/s wheel ( jack car first)(no s**t, Sherlock) remove liner (After removing the following) remove half dozen of those screw plastic rivet things remove one 8mm bolt just above shock absorber

lift liner over shock absorber - it's tight easerest (what?) of wheel arch liner out of space - its a good job its flexible - I found back end easiest to get out first and there's a clip holding some wires which you need to poke out from inside the wheel arch

this gives access to 2 bolts holding clam / air box tube/side grill towards front of wheel arch - there may be 'C' shims here! from inside liner pull battery wires through clam with grommit same for rear lightclu(s)ter wires - undo connector in boot(.) refit wheel lower jack

8. Do same for o/s wheel after removing the liner undo the 8 screws holding the petrol filler aluminium ring aand press the filler cap gently - it should unstick and move slighly inside clam

9. I found it easier to Remove the rear undertray

10. Remove a pozi screw each side holding the grille around the exhaust

11. You will need to unbolt the exhaust silencer hanger which is bolted to the clam near the N/S/R wheel

11. Remove one more bolt each side at this point(where??) screwing sideways into the clam

lift off the clam

refit by reversing the above procedure :)

Top tips

• Find somebody that can write in English, or at least sentences, to make a how-to guide. This was worse than useless because first of all, IT'S FOR AN S2!!! Secondly, I spent more time translating this guide than actually finding anything that I didn't already know.

• Not all the cars have the same fixings (early/late S1s for example) so there may be different / missing steps not mentioned here or in the service manual. Likewise, the service manual doesn't mention disconnecting the boot release cable from the clam, pulling free the co-located drain hose (because it doesn't need to be removed?) or that you have to prize the numberplate off to get to the rear centre attachment.

• Worth removing the edge finisher (rubber trim) around the air intake grills, they may be glued on and are attached to the rear clam and the sill panels. If they are glued and you try to remove the clam they will probably tear (although if they are glued you will probably have to replace anyway, part no A111U6034V).

• Replace the standard zinc bolts & washers with quality Stainless Steel ones. Speedy Fasteners Speedy Fasteners Web Site or Speedy Fasteners eBay Site sell S1 and S2 clamshell kits.

S1 rear clam shell

Firstly, you need to jack up the rear of the car and remove the wheels. Secondly take of the soft top. For those who don't know how, you need to undo the two 8mm hex fixings at the rear tips of the soft top's canopy. Inside the cockpit there is a clip on each window beam near the back, pull them down and the canopy can be taken off and then the beams. Either side of the rear window is a black metal clip. These hold down the roll bar cover (body coloured piece). Take care not to drop the glass if it sticks to the cover when you lift it.

Once the roof is out of the way, get behind the seats(or remove them: 6xM8 cap heads and 2xM8 button heads going into the floor, plus 17mm seatbelt bolts) and remove the speaker surrounds sneaky self-tapper behind the rollover bar, M4 pozi pan in the stowage net hook, then just velcro round the edges). You can remove the trim with the speaker attached, there is quite a bit of wire, but remember to detach the spade terminals before throwing it in the corner of the garage. You want to get between 300mm and 450mm of extensions for your ratchet now (or you can reach in with a spanner, preferably with a ratchet because there isn't a lot of room for manoeuvre). There is one 13mm bolt behind(ish) each speaker. If you haven't taken the seats out, get your hand in and reach out to the side of the vehicle (closest to the door but upwards slightly).

Once that's done, take the engine bay door off the hinge (3xM6 bolts). There are four body coloured or stainless steel bolts in the engine bay gutter closest to the rear window (plus two fixing the boot bulkhead on early cars). Remove these and then take out the carpets in the boot and the foam underneath. You should see a bare fibreglass floor now with two sets of two 13mm bolts nearest the centre, and a row of three bolts on either side of the boot. The four centre most bolts are holding the silencer exhaust hangers (be careful, these may have deteriorated over time and its worth removing the diffuser/undertray to inspect the other side first), so removing at least the silencer makes things easier. The outermost bolts fix the clamshell to the longerons and are simple enough provided the rivnuts don't spin.

Remove the wheel arch liners, fixings vary depending on the model year. I'm not going to lie, you'll probably end up replacing all or most of the fixings. The rawlnuts may be seized beyond recovery, but you can pull back the liner and reach the backs to try and unfasten them. Scrivets can usually be removed with a sensitive approach, but go at them like a bull in a china shop and you'll just spin them and eventually strip the heads. Don't forget the bolt near the top of the damper (and the shear plate bolts on early cars). Unscrew the fuel filler cap and remove the screws holding the retaining ring. On the inside of each door there should be two 8mm Allen bolts that need to be removed. Don't forget the single bolt behind the number plate, if you have an early boot-bag car.

Before removing the clam, disconnect the electrics going into the boot, they should be going through the offside rear of the boot, and unscrew the ECU at the front nearside. Detach the boot release cable from the catch and feed it back through the clam.