Lotus Europa Community

There is a fixed pin that sticks out at the bottom near the pivot, I think it hits the base plate of the pedals. Mine had been bent and was allowing the pedal to come too far towards the drriver.  I think it was shown/mentioned in the service manual.

Does anyone have a source for the bayonet sockets in the TCS rear lights? I need to remove them to re-chrome the light bases. But that is sure to destroy them. So I'm looking for a replacement. I looked all over Moss Motors, but found nothing. I emailed RD Ent, but haven't gotten a reply yet.

I just took the wiring base, spring, and wires out and rechromed with the sockets in place.  Not like anyone other than yourself is going to see that they are chrome rather than brass.  Really, you can leave the bulb sockets in place, but remove (if these are the rear) the reverse light assemblies carefully drilling out the rivets.  Put back together with 4-40 stainless screws. 

Thanks all, I have reflected on this, and given the dire state of the pedal box, and an emotional response to knowing that I may need to stamp on the refurbished part and rely upon my handiwork holding to stop the car means that I'll be buying a replacement pedal box. I'm very impressed by the skills of those who can and have done so though.

Needing more immediate retail therapy, I took Europa TC's advice and went to Lidl today and bought a cordless impact wrench aka ugga dugga gun for £20 (plus another 20 for battery and charger, but that'll come in handy when I buy more cordless tools  Got a feeling I'm going to need it when I get to the body to chassis bolts, as well as every nut and bolt on the chassis itself...

I put oilite bushings in mine when I remanufactured them.

When undoing the long 1/4" UNF nuts and bolts holding the rack to the 2 clamps, one of those pairs of bolts has the 7/16" head inside the chassis. It is a pig to get at to stop it turning. There are 2 ways of stopping the bolt from turning when undoing the 7/16" nylok nuts.

1) Get a long 7/16" combination spanner (wrench) and bend it into a C shape so you can get the O part of the spanner onto the bolt head inside the chassis.

2) Cut a slot in the threaded end of the bolt with a thin hacksaw, and put a thin screwdriver into that slot to stop the bolt turning and undo the nut with a ring spanner.

If those bolts come out of the chassis, they are a real pig to get back into place.

Mark the position of the rack where it meets the two clamps, as its position should be absolutely central so that the arms on the ends of the rack are exactly the same length, or else the steering will not feel right and you might get bump steer.

I was told by a Lotus employee that the length of those arms is critical to the millimetre to get the car to handle properly over bumps.