England punished car makers with onerous taxes on their finished vehicles, so some of them competed by offering their cars as kits. I think it saved 20% of the final price. It caused warranty problems though. Users forgot to fill the  transmission. Kiss of death.

Colin Chapman offered the Seven that way. I think some of his other vehicles were also offered as kits.

The government caught on and forbade the inclusion of assembly instructions if they were to evade the tax.

Colin Chapman, the genius behind the Lotus Car Company was a talented rule avoider. He was downright admirable in his dedication to it, in my opinion. I’m a rules follower and it’s caused me plenty of trouble.

Lest you think I am encouraging truancy or bad behavior, no. Not at all. There are rules to help you thrive and rules to protect you. There are rules to box you in, prey on you, disarm you, and otherwise disadvantage you. Those were the ones he was adept at managing.

He got around the no-assembly-instructions rule by instead supplying instructions for disassembly.  This was brilliant! Just start at the end.

Anyone who has climbed a tree will assure you that the way up is not the same experience as the way down. Similar path, for sure. It’s not entirely the same though.

This is especially true for my old Lotus cars. I took one apart a couple of months ago. There is one similarity: the matter of discovery. Trying to break it down properly is a different matter than reassembling, especially if pieces get misplaced. That’s my fault. Sometimes I move quickly, assuming that it will all make as much sense going together.  You don’t have to worry about torque settings or alignments or tolerances on disassembly but will maybe  ruin your project if you ignore them going the other way.

I’ve replaced my clutch, including the release bearing, pilot bearing, friction disk, and friction pad (the part with the springs). I’ve cleaned the bell housing up along with the trans axle case. I’ve renewed some bushings and attended to the state of some rusted pieces that the PO painted over.

Tonight I reconnected the starter. It’s as far as I could get. Lots more to do.

Those top bolts were not the piece of cake they look to be. So innocent looking.