Gotta love a long holiday weekend when you have lots of Lotus restoration work to do.
I decided to start the early morning with something simple like putting the new LOTUS letters on the rear engine deck. Well, that was nice thinking. Had to drill out all the holes to a larger size and very carefully bend the metal cast pins on the back of the letters to align with the holes. Then glue into place with silicon adhesive. What I thought would be a 20 minute job took two hours. Can't imagine what I would charge someone if I was a shop doing repair work for customers. I always think about how much my restoration would cost if a shop was doing it with a labor rate of over $100 hour.
Moved on to the installation of the left fuel tank that I left yesterday just sitting on the body. Spent an hour hugging the fiberglass to get the bolts & washers lined up and tightened. My "assistant" was getting her beauty sleep so I was on my own. Then cut the rubber hose to fit (5"") and went thru the same process as yesterday to install the metal filler tube and rubber gasket seal on the body.
I had number of conversations with Dave at the body shop about what to do with the firewall as it is made of flimsy fiberboard with a light fiberglass covering. It was cracked on both sides and we talked about reglassing both sides. Then realized what it would cost to do that for something that would never be seen and would only make the car heavier. Some consideration was given to putting a light metal plate on the engine side and riveting to the firewall. I nixed that idea too. What I finally came up with was self adhesive heat shield that I used on the exhaust side of my Elan S1 engine bay to keep the footwell from getting too hot. It worked great and after 4 years of road use has stayed in place. Out came the roll of brown paper for making patterns. After measuring and then tracing the cut outs in place to make a template I cut out the heats shield material and carefully installed it on the engine side of the firewall. The trick to doing this is too pull back the paper covering slowly from one side to the other while in place so you can adjust and remove any wrinkles along the way. I should have done this before the fuel tanks were installed as it would have been easier..... Overall it turned out the way I imagined and I will do the same inside the cockpit side of the firewall by reversing the pattern to cut out from the big sheet roll.
The original fiberglass battery tray was eaten up from battery acid spills and I had it restored by Dave to bring it back to original condition. It was still flimsy so I decided I would install an aluminum battery frame from odyssey to insure the battery stays in place and add some strength to the fiberglass tray.
Got my replacement "tie mounts", media blasted them, threaded each bolt to insure they were all in good condition and then spray painted them for installation later.
I had a custom fiberglass airbox for the webers and have been thinking about where I am going to draw cool air from. Measured the inlet tube for flex hose and a large capacity airfilter. The OEM version isn't going to work as my TC is built for 150HP and I need all the cool unrestricted air I can get. I have read a number of posting on this subject and I haven't come to a firm conclusion yet. Someone built an wheel well airbox area for the filter to draw air, but I'm not sure I want to go that route. Any ideas are welcome.
Stopped late afternoon on the Europa as I needed to replace the thermostat on my Elan S1 (it was stuck in the open position) and replace the temperate sensor in the radiator as it was switching the fan on at higher temps then I wanted. That should only take an hour or two.......
