"It was a cold and stormy night"...
I'm still trying to use that line. Maybe for my murder mystery. Which by the way this may turn into, once my wife got a good look at the "treasure". I believe that is what she wanted to do to me, all bets are still not off. We stuffed the Europa, trailer and all onto the driveway with a shoehorn, and the last few feet into my carport with two more shoehoms. Unloaded the remainder of treasure trove and settled in for a long winter's nap, (another story, the night before Santa).
No longer a cold and stormy night, and by the light of day I investigated the totality of the 'treasure". Rust is the order of the day on any exposed, or not, steel surface; frame, suspension, engine, gauges. Followed closely by peeling paint, broken and cracked fiberglass. demoralized dashboard, failing door hinges. Eureka! I found my total project car and decided it may take a few more weeks than the original estimate and maybe a few more tools, parts and beer!
The seats were removed, an easy task, just lift and out they come. Careful don't disturb rust and rot. I discovered what the firewall behind the cockpit was made of... "nothing". There is nothing to be found. Gives great access to the water pump, pulley, belt, if this were a twin-cam version. Being a Renault this had no great advantage. The only thing more plentiful than rust were acorns and exhibits of small animals setting up housekeeping inside of various parts of the Europa cabin, frame, basically every nook and cranny (I could not find these parts in the manual, but I've heard of them).
Lets take it easy step by step with baby steps first. Clean and clear. Watchwords of the day. I started with easy flat and very paint peeling surfaces. The front and rear deck lids. Whoever repainted the car red, did so without proper surface preparation. This is a key step in any Lotus restoration or repair, get down to the glass, I found two other colors, white and green. I believe the factory color was BRG. The tool I found worked the best was a single edge razor window scraper. The paint just jumped off the car with little dust and usual clouds when using a sander or other power tool. Only to find copious amounts of Bondo! Hidden under the detaching paint trying to reshape the lids to something other than original specs, it seems they wanted a flat surface at the edges which is not stock. Of course the inlet screens on the rear deck lid are trash, they are steel, and I am beginning to think there was a flood in this area of the country during storage, ala Noah's Ark, with rust from the flood and rain, acorns for feed and straw/fur for animal habitats.
Easy, lets move on to something more complicated. The DOORS, not the rock group, but the ingress, egress devices. Anyone familiar with the hinges on Europas knows a damp day will prevent removal of the hinges any time after two weeks of original car build date. Can you imagine almost 40 years? Both doors were cut from their openings using a hack saw and much swearing. The 1/2 inch shafts are not easy to get to and stroke is limited and I broke too many blades on the saber and Sawsall tools to do it with power. Normally the hinge can be cut inside the door shell and lowered or raised from the bobbins. On this car the shafts were not letting go of the bobbins, so cutting outside between the door and body was necessary. Once out I found both left and right bottom door pockets broken out that allowed the removal of the steel bobbins which constrain the hinge shafts. With all the genius of Lotus Engineering you would have thunk a better system would have been proposed. On further inspection it was discovered a further repair guffaw was evident on the passenger door. Approximately 6 to 8 pounds of putty, Bondo and fiberglass were wrapped around the door hinge. The only way to extricate the material was to perform major surgery on the door shell cutting the hinge portion out to expose the cancer. Every time I find another problem solved by an unknowing or uncaring clod I could spit... I'm being nice now. If anything, we are fortunate in Lotus Corps; we have expertise in all aspects of our cars construction and repair, so anyone can plead ignorance, I'm #1, and ask for help from club members who like economists will point in all directions at the same time eventually giving the correct advice and procedure to follow.
Still using the scrapper and sanding technique I was able to strip down the doors to arrive at respectable surfaces inside and out. All the time the mind is working on what modifications could be made to improve operation and appearance. During this experience I have found to put down on paper an idea or method, think it over again and again, put it on the side and come back later, sober, and rethink. Before each endeavor I found at least one or two ways to approach it better than the first potentially catastrophic method, Patience is another watchword in restoration, (schedule for completion now past 4 months). You must look for an easier, more positive approach, watch out for pitfalls such as putting two things in the same place or not being able to put something back in. For instance, I had considered glassing in the top access hole in the doors; not good if you want to reach in to the door handle mechanism. Why would I want to close in the hole for the side window? Simple... I don't want side windows with heavy motor operator, guides and glass. Aha! We are on our way to making a Europa Convertible, next time, "Europa del Sol"!
