For as long as I can remember, this winter season, especially around and shortly after Christmas has been an exciting time for me. I am energized!

The cold weather hasn’t often been a negative for me. Mostly I’ve had warm clothes and always I’ve had shelter. Bundling up just makes it all the better. I might as well be working the controls of one of those ‘walkers’ in a Star Wars movie sometimes. That’s what it was like when we’d have snow days in high school because I’d mink oil the waffle stompers and then layer up. In the end, my eyes and nose would be the only part of me exposed to the light of day. I’d have long johns, wool socks, the normal clothes, a vest, a coat, a hat, and a scarf with gloves.

What always struck me was the sounds. It was all muted, but still lively. The snow on forest put everything in a calm and there never seemed to be a breeze. That would cause me to stay home. The sound of the footsteps – the trudge of boots in snow – and the near silence around me were somehow complimentary. Snow makes a compression sound with each step through it.

Usually I was either looking for a sledding spot, checking out the familiar paths, or going to the top of Bald Mountain, which was just a big hill. A really big hill. In the mid west it would qualify as a mountain for sure.

The reason for the winter excitement had nothing to do with the snow. That was just a unique part of the environment. Fall and winter have an invitational component. The (some say) miserable weather invites the cozy qualities of home to step up and show themselves off. At night the bedding starts cold, gets toasty warm, and ends wastefully with the necessary evacuation of the body from the womb like perfection.

My best artistry has usually come from the winter months. If it were not for warm houses, that would not be the case. Warm house, warm drinks such as chocolate or herbal tea, and warm ideas all combine well.

Of course, life goes on as before in other ways.

When I enter the house from my garage, I have a reminder placed there the first day that dad was in intensive care. A little further into the house and if it’s night I have a view of the place where he died after intensive care didn’t solve the complications from the car accident that put him in intensive care in the first place.

He came. He hunted, fished, camped, and applied himself to the ingenuity that typified his own father. Then it ran its course and he died.

So here is the original name tag they put on me when I first went to see him right after the accident that put in intensive care at the hospital. Beyond, see the mess that is my garage, and one of the machines that park there. Big things happen, and life goes on.

All of dad’s tools and fishing stuff, all his doodads and devices that he’d acquired for the purposes of his life are now redistributed and serving others for their own lives. I bought his truck. Sometimes I imagine how it might have felt to him to take delivery of that magnificent thing and marvel that something so nice in his life as that experience were enjoyed quietly alone by him. He didn’t say anything to me about getting the truck. Maybe it was no big deal. Or maybe he didn’t think it was anything others would appreciate and relate too.

I understand this.

Speaking of machines, I decided to start reassembling the Lotus rather than wait for the water pump and thermostat. I got the clutch in, a first for me.

Clutches began this road toward mechanical aptitude when the linkage between the clutch pedal and the pressure plate kept breaking on my first car. Dad got tired of responding to a bad design and welded something better for me. I wondered in those days if cars only broke down when they could be repaired in a cold mist.

To install the pilot bearing I had to peen the out of round flange until I could get past it.

Turns out it’s quite simple and the clutch plate actuation works differently than I ‘d ever thought. The Brits refer to their engine as a “lump”. It is an extreme description that takes a magical creation and presents it as some simple thing. I thought of that when I looked at the strange way the power of the thing is harnessed and passed on to the transmission. The engine, deprived of the clutch and transmission, does look sort of like a lump.

To set the pilot bearing in place, I drove it with a 30mm socket so all the push was on the outer race

The square bare metal patch with yellow green liquid is where the water pump will go. this is the new clutch

The flywheel is one of two pressure plates that work with a friction disk to transfer rotational movement through to the traction wheels. I’d always imagined that when I press the clutch pedal that either via mechanical action (the Lotus uses a cable) or hydraulic, the disk is moved away from the motor by lever action.  What actually happens is that a pressure plate normally presses hard against the disk because of a series of springs. When the clutch pedal is depressed, an actuator moves a bearing against those springs. When they are pressed, then they flex, causing the clutch disk to pull back off the friction plate which breaks the transmission of power so it is no longer available to turn gears down stream. No matter which gear the transmission is in, the car acts the same as it would if it were shifted into neutral.

Uncleaned flywheel with the clutch removed. The cam driven water pump is still attached.

I rounded up the six bolts and cinched up the pressure plate to the flywheel with the new disk between the two and centered by an alignment tool I bought for that purpose. I didn’t feel like making my own. Not for the price I paid.

Then I secured them all at 25 foot lbs as the shop manual recommends. Finally I got some use out of my torque wrench. Last year I bought one and found it to be just about useless. This one has a flex gauge rather than the confusing setup that supposedly makes the thing stop cinching when the desired torque setting is reached. I kept the flywheel from turning by fitting a screwdriver strategically to catch on the flywheel teeth.

Trans axle is in the general vicinity of where it will bolt in

I tried to install the trans axle but that will have to wait for daylight and I’ll have to use the hoist. It’s not cooperative otherwise.

I put a pail beneath in case I needed to support the transmission. I’ll have to use an engine hoist and straps to jostle it in place.