Lotus Europa Community

  After taking a few detours on car shows, birthdays and just about everything else I got a few days of work on the lotus.
In fact having enough courage and faith that I pushed her out of the garage and started her up again but this time being fed by the OEM fuel tank. I removed the temp tank added a inline fuel filter and she started right up after a shot of starting fluid.
  While idling a bit I jump in camera going only to find a problem with my gas pedal not returning to idol. I decided to not chance a first drive. some other instruments weren't come on line either, tacho and fuel.  Then I saw steam coming from engine compartment, shut down engine and opened lid to find it overheating with fluid in compartment. afterwards I found I did not have the temp switch to the radiator hooked up, my bad... Then while pushing it into garage I found a puddle of engine oil... work in progress, but probably the fitting from the electric that I took out and went with a pressure line and gauge.
  Maybe tomorrow,
  PS, you wouldn't believe what fixed my van from dying at 40 MPH but showing 100 MPH,  Changed out the instrument cluster , operation now normal. Signal from VSS to cluster then to ecm. The ecm gave up and shut down engine.
,
Dakazman 

I've attached a picture that gives an indication of how to read it. The hash marks are not halfway between 50 and 90 or 90 and 140 as I tend to think about them but it seems clear that your water temp is over 100°C which may not be terrible (I assume you're not boiling water out of your system) but when my car was new, the needle was always just before the 90° mark which is what I aim for (actually, my car runs closer to 75°C but I have a different engine).

That's great that you've got it handled.

And you've got me thinking that I should try to do better.  My gauge reads as below (orange line) if the ambient temperature is below something like 85 degrees F, and I've come to accept that I don't really know what the temperature is, but it's under control.  It creeps a bit higher at higher ambient temperatures, but with the fan on it still doesn't peg at 130.  So I've been satisfied.  But you've got me thinking that I'd be glad to have a little more accuracy here.  Even if my gauge and sensor are pretty accurate though, I wonder what that temperature is that's showing on the gauge?  I don't know how to read that thing.  LOL!

I know from being in the industrial heating systems business (kiln building) that measuring temperature accurately can be quite difficult. Anything and everything from the sensor to the sensing circumstance (where, how, etc.) to the readout, and any electronics in between can and will affect your measurement.  The more measurements the merrier I think, as you start to get a consensus.  But in many many circumstances, there's no way to get additional measurements.

So just beware:  you can't trust anything by itself. And there is no reason that something that reads out digitally is any better than something that reads in an analog fashion.

Quote from: berni29 on Tuesday,April 16, 2024, 11:38:32 AM

There were quite a few potential negatives to using a modern alternative.

What potential negatives do you see?

Hi

I was trawling the net for peoples experiences. Most of the negatives revolved around "NVH" from using neoprene or similar. I then looked up the chemical properties and expected lifespan of some of the different materials that people use (neoprene, other closed cell rubbers/foams, yoga mats for instance) and just came away feeling that the original felt was in fact the best compromise.

As they say YMMV!

All the best

Berni