It begins to seem wise and true what my good friend advised: ” Don’t have more than one British car. ”

They take a lot of time. A LOT of time.

Something is going to happen with the Series Land Rover. I can feel it. Today it hinted again but I don’t know what happened. There was a loud Whump sound under the bonnet as I exited the drive way. I thought, “do I want to get towed today? No.” and I pulled back into the driveway. There is a sound when the motor is in neutral that seems to emanate from the transmission.

Something’s amiss but I don’t know if it’s a dry bearing or a loose fastener internally or what else.

Meanwhile the Lotus is not back together. I swear there is a code among auto makers that requires the mechanical parts to be at least 90% impossible to maintain easily. One of the things that I find charming in the older cars that suit my taste is that they are real vehicles and yet there is enough rough manufacture that the reality that they were designed and built by real people is not hidden. One can imagine the actual human decision making and craftsmanship. These Brit cars are pretty much hand assembled. They were designed and built with a limited budget.

There’s more to it. I love the ingenuity. It always comes at a cost though. Something has to give. I know there are issues. Lucky for me, the Lotus Europa is a peculiar vehicle. It is quite pretty and I love the size. I think it has a reputation undeserved. With the reputation readily brought up by the oh so wise who are happy to spew what they read to their friend who has the sorry misfortune to have bought a Europa without a clue what Lotus represented in those days (still pretty much does) then the unhappy experience of owning the vehicle begins to confirm that Lotus means Lot’s of Trouble, Usually Serious.

New cars are so good, they’re almost magical. Old cars, well sorted ones, are true machines and they’re magical on an entirely different level. One senses what they are actually doing. They really are a platform with seats and amenities (like turn signals and brake lights) that function to get you from place to place in a particular fashion. The Land Rover doesn’t care if that involves a road. The Lotus doesn’t care if it involves visceral thrill. Actually, both machines are a treat for their own reasons. Neither is a pretender. They were each the epitome of what they represented. They are not wannabe vehicles. The Land Rover was specifically designed to be extremely versatile and to be field serviceable with common tools.

The Lotus is designed to handle very well as a true drivers car. It was to replace the Seven. Ironically, the Seven continues to be made and sold and has been available new since the late 1950’s. To this day Europa’s are track day cars of solid reputation.

The engineering is brilliant even if it’s old school. Because the idea was to make money so Chapman could afford to race, the fit and finish could have been better. Lotus claimed the car was designed to last three years. When you get a look at most of the outer seat belt anchor plates you understand. I don’t think they were painted. Not particularly well, if at all. Suspension parts are sourced from the Alford and Alder (I think that’s correct spelling) parts that supplied early Spitfires. So the uprights, spindles, brakes and bearings and to some extent the steering rack are Spitfire and GT6 parts and readily available if you know where to find them. Tie rod ends are also common parts that you’d find on a Midget. MG Midget, that is.

Rear bearing housings are Hillman Imp.

People get the car then they start finding that it’s got its needs. Sometimes they ignore the needs. Then they address them incorrectly. They abuse the thing.

Finally they clean it up and sell it to someone else who doesn’t know the marquee and the car becomes a bundle of problems owing to neglect. That owner follows a similar pattern but the car is too cool to get rid of so they put it by the garage or out in the field behind the barn.

A decade and a half later someone finally buys it. They leave it behind their garage for five or six years. By the time someone who understands the machine gets a hold of it a lot of the components have degraded. After all, they were not painted to last in the elements like a fallen log. Wrongful owners hang on to them way too long, expecting them to be worth a fortune.

Maybe the owner just wants to make that big financial killing that sweat equity brings. By the time they have drained their allowable funds, the project is not half way done. Either it sits another ten or twenty years, or they finish on a shoestring budget and cut corners just to get it done. By now they’ve realized that money isn’t the only thing it takes.

A buyer gets a nice looking machine but it’s not long before the ill effects of cutting corners starts to show up. It breaks down more often than it should. It costs time and money. The reputation continues.

None of this has to happen. It’s not a car for everyone. It appeals. But it’s not useful like normal cars are useful. I still believe that when it’s brought to the state of good repair and adjustment and tune that we call ‘sorted’ then it’s as reliable as any other car its age.

Side note, my red one is a good car but I have to say, I’m dissappointed in some of the build decisions that were made by previous owners. Simple stuff mostly. Tonight I was laying under it and I examined the paint on the chassis and it was clear to me that the treatment of the frame metal was nothing like I’d have done. It seems like a serious variance from honest reclamation to give the outer skin a very glorious degree of finish and yet take the chassis and lightly sand it then apply paint.

Pre-ressurected right front suspension.

It should have been completely prepped. Sanded, degreased, utterly eliminate rust, patched, primed, and properly painted. The chassis holds it all together. You would want your finest work to be there. Excellent inside and out. That wasn’t the case in the red car. I think the idea was to dress it up nice and leave it at that. It’s like someone who tries very hard to look very attractive but lets themselves slide in matters of character. So what good is all the work on appearance in that case? It becomes deceptive. The chassis appears to be in very good shape so maybe the PO was just being practical. While he was there, I wish he’d instead taken a no prisoners approach so that the car would have the very best chance going forward. Maybe if it had been worse it would have gotten better attention. What was done was okay, but this is a Lotus Europa! Come on!

So I expect to have the chassis gone through properly while it’s in my care. Not now though. I have the other Europa to build. Who knows, maybe I’m just as bad. I didn’t use Por15 on that one. I was new. I used the best paint and primer that I could find. So maybe that’s what the last guy was about also. Maybe the lad was innocent. I haven’t found any cancer in the car. So maybe I’m just being nit picky, seeing as I paid as if the overall quality of the build was consistent but definitely was not. Wah. Whine cycle complete.

I see the water pump is leaking. That’s a new pump and it doesn’t even have water in it yet. Geeze. I got fancy. Instead of just using the paper gasket I bought special goop that would make it even more unlikely to leak. As I recall, the water port decided at that moment to dribble and the gasket sealer refused to bond at that point. I wiped it off and tried to apply the bead again. Of course it would happen that the only iffy part of the joint would be at the bottom where coolant is most likely to always be pooling. So the stuff I got to make it tight made it leak.

The exhaust system is short and sweet with the Lotus. It drops out of the manifold, connected by a clamp that’s sold by Ford tractor stores for tractors. The bolt up point is in a place where it is just about impossible to get ones hands in there to work on. The whole exhaust came out in one piece, but not easily. So I had to figure out how to get it apart. The PO used the wrong paint on it. It’s such a strange mixture. He clamped the pipes together with expensive air craft clamps. They were the first twelve point nuts and bolts I’d seen and none of my sockets should have worked. Expensive little parts for specialty use have numbers stamped on them and that’s how i discovered that I didn’t need a special tool at all. They were just odd sized and would work with six sided normal sockets. After I got them off I used my inner McGuiver to figure out how to separate the pipes and make the unit manageable. I don’t want rusty metal so I figured I’d use bake on paint.

Some people use a High temp wrap. That’s currently a fad with motorcycles. It keeps the heat in. I think it’s unattractive and I read the usual reviews. It’s the best thing you can ever do. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever do. Just like political forms. Each candidate is the angel and the devil. Every piece of policy is the most godly blessing and the most vile insult to humanity, depending on who is reviewing it.

I also looked into ceramic coating. A place in the local big city applies it for $25 a running foot for under 3″ pipe and they do the muffler for $50 or so. Ceramic stops the rust and insulates. This means the engine bay will be cooler which is a very nice feature considering the muffler is right under the rear trunk.

One esteemed Europa owner says he had his ceramic coated and then he still did the wrap. Now he can accidentally touch exhaust parts and not be in pain for a week after. I’ve not had the problem, but I like the solution.

I put it all back together after learning that they want the parts for two weeks. So next time I do major work on the car, I’ll pull the exhaust and have it done while I trudge along with the other problem. Most likely it will be when I decide to swap out the U-joints and the rear bearings and hub spacers.

For now I just want it to work again. I’m tired of having it in the hospital. It will break again, but I’ll save that maintenance until the weather is comfortable and dry. If it’s too hot I sweat into my eyes and drips on my glasses and then I get annoyed.

Fastener sizes are all over the map

How many tools does it take to install a wee little one muffler three foot exhaust system? Well, let’s look.

Six sockets, 4 wrenches, a hammer, and a pry bar. I used the pry bar to  position the body of the silencer between the chassis tube and the crook of the chassis Y. Share the heat. It is quite nicely held in place.

I continued with assembly by installing the belts and pully’s. Of course I put one on backward the first go around and of course fasteners were missing and had to be  replaced with new despite my clever practice of filling up a box with the parts as disassembly progressed.

The water pump belt tension is adjusted by adding or removing  pully shims. It’s tedious. It looks to me like the right number of shims is none whereas there were two. after I run the motor I’ll tighten the fasteners and if that makes the belt too tight, then fine, one of the shim rings can go back in.

I sat in the cockpit and worked the clutch pedal. Looks like there’s a problem It is utterly useless. The cable must have come off the pedal. Joy! But not until another day. I have to locate a flashlight first.

My garage is Land Rover University. Now, it’s Lotus University. The education continues.