Next trip out to the garage I was sitting on the concrete floor and unbolting things when I remembered that cold concrete kind of sucks the life out of your old body. When I would try to stand up, it would take me a couple minutes to be able to stand fully upright and move around. I have a rolling table in Des Plaines that is great for bringing big objects off the floor to a good working height. But not here up at our lake house. I looked around the basement and found an old wood chest of drawers. Seemed sturdy enough so again I called Sue out to the garage and together we lifted the greasy chassis with some remaining suspension components onto the old chest. Can't roll it around but at least it's at a working height now!
Another rainy Sunday so I spent some time in the Lake house garage. I do have basic cable TV out there though so as I was finishing up stripping bits off the chassis, I got to watch Paul Tracy drive over Sebastian Bourdais' head in the Champ car race at Cleveland. Also got to see the stock car boys wrestle with turning both left AND right at Sonoma. The last thing to come off the Europa chassis was the brake lines. Pretty brittle and crusty. I'm sure I will be replacing those.
I would venture to guess than every old Lotus Europa weighs about 20 lbs. heavier than when it left the factory. There are two reasons for that. #1 is all the oil that is caked all over everything. Keeps the chassis from rusting and actually makes some of the bolts easier to break loose. But it is a mess to scrape and clean up. #2 reason for the weight gain is all the acorn shells, leaves and dried up mouse mung that you find in the bowels of the chassis. Don't know how those mice get in there and make their nests, but the only way out is with my trusty old shop vac. Now since this is house number 2, we bring up all the worn out stuff up here so this shop vac is VERY tired. At least 25 years old, the motor is still quite willing, it's just everything else that is struggling. As Sue was walking through the garage, I had the shop vac going and it suddenly burped and emitted a belch of dust up into the air. The bracket that held on the air cleaner rusted off and now all the dust in the vac was spraying all over the garage. Well, at least for 5 seconds until I could shut it off. Sue laughed as she ran out of the garage to avoid the dust. Took me about 45 minutes to fabricate a bracket to hold the air filter in place. Then I spent another 45 minutes vacuuming up all the sprayed dust as well as the kitty litter I had spread around on the floor to pick up the little grease balls that had fallen off the chassis during the disassembly stage. (No Italian jokes please).
Disassembly all done. At least everything is off the chassis. I still have to tear down and rebuild the engine, trans. steering rack, master cylinder and other bits. But technically, the tear down is done. It's Miller time! I grabbed a cold one, a lawn chair and my ledger where I have been keeping track of my hours. I added up the hours and found that it had taken me 42 hours to strip all the junk off the chassis up here at the Lake. I had previously put in 85 hours in Des Plaines taking the body off, stripping it down and getting it primed. So at 127 hours, I'm turning the corner and I will now actually start the restoration work. Better have another ice cold can of planning fluid.
Although the next logical steps at this point would be to get the chassis sandblasted and painted, that work would need to take place based out of the Des Plaines garage instead of the lake house. Since the Des Plaines garage and Des Plaines spare time was still occupied by the 1965 Elan and the final detail work on said Elan, I had to find something else to do at the lake house garage on one very, very hot Saturday afternoon. It was the day before our club picnic the next lake over at Greg and Ann Wisniewski's. I decided to spend that Saturday,afternoon tearing down the engine.
I already had the engine mounted on my trusty engine stand. As I popped open the drain plug to drain the oil out. I was amazed to find so much oil in the oil pan. You would think judging by the thick coating of old oil on the entire outside of the engine that there would be nothing left inside! As the oil drained I took a chunk of scrap wood and scraped off some of the oil sludge from the outside of the oil pan letting it fall into the drain pan below. Lotsa muck all over the engine.
I popped open the valve cover and everything looked pretty good in there. Cams in good shape, no rust, no real sludge. Cam bearings looked almost reusable. No visible wear. Hmmmmm, I'll have to see how expensive new ones really are these days. Last I heard they were becoming very rare and very expensive. The distributor, fuel pump, clutch, pressure plate and flywheel all looked OK as well. Couple of exhaust studs were broken off by the previous owner (Rich). Those will have to be drilled and easyouted later. Popped off the head, no surprises there. Valves got a lot of gunk on them but it don't matter. Bill Truesdale at Apex will make them like new, or I'll just buy some new ones. No spare parts laying about inside the oil pan (always a good sign). Pistons popped out OK, no ridge buildup. Piston skirts in good shape and the bores looked smooth with no real wear. Perhaps just a hone and new rings? Bill will tell me for sure.
The only thing that was a bit askew was the timing chain tensioner. It apparently had never been adjusted so there was a ton of slack in the timing chain. The tip of the rod that pushes against the chain sprocket had nicks on it instead of a wear mark. Must have caused some performance issues.
Some neighbors stopped by for a brew just as I was pulling off the crank. They were coming in sweating from being out in the direct sun on a pontoon boat all afternoon. I was a greasy mess so I did a quick goop clean up of my hands and arms in the slop sink (excuse me, the laundry tub). I then just took off my shoes and socks and walked out into the lake for 2 minutes to cool down. I then joined them and my wife on the screened porch and dripped and drank for the rest of the afternoon. Nice way to end the day.
