Lotus Europa Community

Hi

Just a quickie to say that I removed both fuel tanks today. The bolts all came out reasonably easily (against expectations) and the tanks are at the metal finishers. There was about 5 litres of very old fuel in each tank. One tank also had a fair bit of rust in it. The outsides looked ok. I will soon know if they are any good once they are blasted.

The rear of the car actually has to be raised quite high to get them out.

All the best

Berni

Water lies in the bottom. The outlet pipe is about 15-20mm above the bottom, so only water above 20mm will possibly pass through the pipe to the other  tank, but there is already petrol in the pipe so the water has to fight the petrol to pass through a pipe which is about say 4mm internal diameter.

So the leaking tank will have 20mm more water in it than the other tank.

If only one tank is leaking, there will be more water in that tank, water from the bottom of that tank up to the outlet pipe, and half the amount greater than fills up to that outlet pipe, with the other half flowing through the connecting pipe to the other tank.

Unlikely that both tanks would present as leaking at the same time IMHO.
If I've understood this correctly, yes, but I'm not sure what you mean by "fills up to that outlet pipe".

But interconnected tanks will certainly syphon both ways.
F'rinstance, assume there's, say, one pint of water accumulated in the left tank while the car has been parked over night.
(OK, technically, it'll start to syphon immediately the rain water starts to get in.)

If you now park the car on the right side of the road, you'll find the water has syphoned itself to the right tank. This assumes there's a reasonably steep crest in the road.
Similarly, if you then move the car to the left hand side of the road (facing the same way) you'll find the water has moved back to the left hand tank.

I recall going to a BBQ somewhere and parking on a slope. When I later stepped into the car to go home, I noticed the fuel was low but rose back to normal along the way.

There's also "Water Finding Paste". Our guys used this stuff to keep track of water ingress to an underground fuel storage tank we had, back in a past life.
Here's a link to an Oz product (and demo) but it must be fairly common.

https://www.fuelequipmentspecialists.com.au/water-finding-paste/

Might be a part or three missing as well.

What is the square depression and cut-out in the front plenum area for?

But still, a nice looking survivor - just too bad whoever wrote the ad glosses over so much. Or maybe has no idea?

Ron

I suspect they have no idea, but I think such assumptions are quite unbecoming when flying the Hemmings banner (though, having said that, my respect for Hemmings as a pillar of the collector car community has diminished significantly over the last few years).  The word 'original' is tossed around quite a bit in this ad, but there are many non-original features of this car including the paint, interior, and engine (or at least the cylinder head). Not a big deal, but it needs to be presented as such.

Besides, the ashtray is missing, so it's really just a parts car