Restoration of 2358R

[tedtaylor]

glen, did you use the sandpaper washers that came in the kit?   or did you use better larger grit sandpaper others have suggested work better (never needed future adjustment, never moving)??

Very sad about the falling door..... I would not have been so gracious

[Dan C 2624R]

Real Shame about the door.  I hope I would be as calm in a similar situation.  Good to see the other door went together as you guys were able to adapt and overcome.  New Hope is nice but LOG is the target.  Dan

[BDA]

That really is a shame about the door! I know the feeling. Remaining calm through it is important!

I have Richard's hinges and it may be because I'm a klutz but I can spend hours aligning a door and it will end up only being a lot better. I've heard people use the stock hinge setup and done really well with it. I think the biggest advantage - and this would be useful here - is that you can adjust the door and take it off. Then when you put it back in, you only have to worry about the height adjustment.

Also too bad about the New Hope show. I'm still crossing my fingers and toes for you to make the LOG!

[jbcollier]

It's easy to adjust the doors... until you put the seal in and try to make them fit and leak proof.

[dakazman]

Dang Glen, I can’t imagine the words that would have flowed out of my mind, good thing it’s sometimes disconnected from my mouth.
 It’s only a material item,   I’m sure Dave can fix those defects, even if it may just be temporary.

Knowing what you know about the doors , do you think it could have been hung without help? With nothing but a bare shell?

Dave

[Certified Lotus]

Thanks for all the moral support regarding my door drop.  Off to Dave's tomorrow morning and hopefully he can turn the repair around quickly.

Ted, I used the sandpaper washers that came with the kit.  They seemed fine. Dakazman, I think it would be extremely difficult to install the doors by yourself, if not impossible. It's a two man job.

JB, my Elan S1 leaks like a sieve through the door gaps in the pouring  rain. The Europa will be significantly better I am sure.  Never the less, I am not expecting 21st century car weather proofing. I am fairly certain I can make them fit properly with the door seals in.

BDA and Dan., New Hope was a target for completion that kept me focused. Now that I have decided not to even try to complete by then I can use the valuable hours to finish up my rebuild.  LOG39 is the real target. 

Let's see if that is possible.......

[Certified Lotus]

Another hot and muggy day in NJ.  Spent the morning doing errands and house stuff that I had been ignoring.  Got back to work in my garage at lunch time and didn't quit until 9:30 this evening. Good progress on a variety of things.

Installed the rubber trim molding in the door frame openings. Was fairly simple.  I did not glue it in as it seems to stay in place very well. 

Installed the new lock on the bonnet. Needed a bit of fettling to get it to fit properly, but it all worked out fine. I test fit the rear engine deck lid to see if the hinges line up.  They will needs a small adjustment, but no major issues.

I had two major projects that I wanted to get done.  Finish wiring the car and installing the 8" springs on the front coil over shocks.  The shocks won as I just could not spend the rest of the day upside down finishing the wiring inside the car in this heat. 

Spent most of the afternoon and into early evening removing the shocks, compressing the springs to remove them (my friend Chris made me a great custom spring compressor.  Best device I have ever had for this purpose.  You should sell these Chris!) and then re-install them.  I needed help on the right side holding the shock in place while I hammered the large bolt through the A arms and chassis suspension point from the inside of the car. My wife came out to help me (commenting how heavy the shock is......really?) and everything got installed. I put the grease caps on the ends of the hub.  Installed the plastic Lotus center wheel caps and made a holding bracket that is screwed to the cap to make sure they don't come off (My friend Bruce came up with that design.  I copied it).

Safety wired the rear of the shift tube pin and the two axle shaft pins.

Lowered the car back on the ground to see the stance with the new shorter springs.  Exactly what I was hoping for.  Needs some fine tuning but I'll do that once the car is on the road and settles in.

Need to finish the wiring early this week and install the carpeting.  And a long list of other things.......

[Dan C 2624R]

Glenn,  Yes a hot and sticky day in NJ.  Progress made though.  I do want to say the Black Center caps do look good on the Alloy wheels.  I did not get the anodized ones, just the Aluminum.  Wonder if Ray will work an exchange if he has any left.  I have some parts to order so I think I'll bring it up.  Dan

[Certified Lotus]

Dan, I bought the grey plastic ones from RD and painted them black.

[BDA]

Exciting stuff, Certified! It starts to look more and more like a car! Hopefully, you'll get your door back soon and finish the doors so you can get on to other pressing issues.

Keep up the good work and try not to worry about the heat so much. After all, you could be in New Orleans or Houston!

[brucelotus26r]

I did the alinement on my Europa. Using my 4 post lift that I have totally leveled and 4 alumina angles that I use to make a square box around the car. I can then use a Caliper to get the car and all the wheels square and parallel. It worked great on my Europa and Elan.
If you want to bring it over we can set up your car!

 

[Certified Lotus]

I did the alinement on my Europa. Using my 4 post lift that I have totally leveled and 4 alumina angles that I use to make a square box around the car. I can then use a Caliper to get the car and all the wheels square and parallel. It worked great on my Europa and Elan.
If you want to bring it over we can set up your car!

I will take you up on that offer Bruce! Thanks.

[Certified Lotus]

Have been putting in the hours after work each day to keep things moving on reassembly. Seems everything needs some type of custom work. Of course a portion of that is just me as I have in my mind how the car should be reassembled and take the time to do it right.

Started the final electrical connections of everything in the engine bay after tracing all the color coded wiring and confirming the connection points. A couple of non OEM wires have forced me to trace to the connection point under the dash......but most of it went fairly easily. Replaced all the plastic wire harness holds with aluminum rubber coated.   I had a large wiring diagram printed that is easy to read while working on the car.  No need to stop and go to the bench to squint at the factory manual wiring diagram.

I clean the OEM wires with lacquer thinner to get off dirt and grime and then spray all the contacts with CRC contact cleaner before connecting.

The OEM fuel tanks had a spade plug soldered to the tank for the ground connections. The new aluminum tanks don't have this "feature" so I had to drill one of the mounting brackets (Note: do this with the tanks out, not after they are installed like I did) on each tank to bolt in a spade plug to connect the ground wires. Note the tight fit to install the lock nuts, surgical tools needed again! Anytime I make wire or repair a connector I always solder the connection and shrink wrap it.  No crimp connectors on my builds!

The negative battery ground strap need to be connected to a chassis bolt.  In order to insure a good clean ground I wirewheeled the paint off on the part of the chassis where the washer covers. Don't just assume the bolt going thru the hole will be enough of a ground point.

I went to wire the new gear reduction started and noticed that one small corner touches the exhaust pipe. There wasn't any way to move the pipe in the right position so I took the starter out and filed the corner down to create some clearance. I know you can rotate these in different directions, it just so happens that any rotation wouldn't have given me the right clearance on one side or the other. Tight fit.

The choke cable on this car had been butchered at the carb end so I needed to buy a new cable. Unfortunately no-one seems to sell the cable length needed for a Europa that has the OEM knob.  So I ordered the right length cable from RD Ent. and cut off the knob they supply then filed down the end of the metal receiver for the OEM knob to allow for a flat surface and drilled out the old pressed in wire and silver soldered the new wire in place. Now I have a brand new choke cable with the OEM knob. Will do same with the heater control cable.

Installed the hold down bolts for the engine area storage box on the chassis cross bar.  Asked my friend Roman how his was configured and he was kind enough to send me detailed photos of his install which I copied.

Put the front bonnet on and looked at the stance of the front of the car.  I now have it lowered to a point where I need to jack up the car with my hydraulic racing jack to put the lift points under the body.  It's a pain to do that, but I have the same issue with my Elan S1 so I'm used to it.

[surfguitar58]

If only the original manufactured cars had this level of quality and attention to detail, there might be more of them still around! 
Tom

[dakazman]

Thanks for the choke numbers and instructions. I’ll put it on my parts list . I also see the mounts for the rear tray I’ll need to make. I still need to mount my wiring diagram like you mentioned. It definitely beats tracing it on a tablet or my phone.
 Try using rubbing alcohol on the wires it won’t melt the plastic as much. I also doesn’t evaporate as fast.
 Looking great ,
Dakazman