In any car restoration you need to see signs of progress to keep inspired. To keep motivated. To keep from getting out the can of gasoline and torching the whole thing! I had purchased my 1960 Lotus Seven America in 1998. The glossy pictures sent to me looked OK, the price was OK and the owner said it needed a "Light" restoration. What it ended up needing once I got it was a "resurrection". There was nothing on the car that didn't need a complete rebuild. Even the chassis was just a bunch of boogered welds and rusted out tubes. I ended up getting a set of chassis drawings and building my own new chassis from scratch.
So anyway, as I was saying, you have to see signs of progress. An engine rebuilt and ready to go, some primer on a finely sanded fender, electricity applied to a wiring harness without sparks and/or fire - That kind of thing. This whole project has been a series of one step forward and a half step back. I would get the engine and trans in the chassis, only to find out when trying out the shifter that a little detent ball was put in the wrong place and I had to pull everything back out. Put in a fresh battery only to find it dead after a weekend from a shorted voltage stabilizer.
Put in a fuel pump (the one that came on the car) only to find out it was locked up and had to be replaced. Put in a new pump that I bought off eBay only to find that didn't work either. Put in an old Holly fuel pump that I found I had laying about only to find out it was too powerful and was blowing past the needle and seats of the itty-bitty SU carbs. Put in another new fuel pump from a reputable supplier only to find out the fuel regulator wouldn't dial down low enough for the itty-bitty SU carbs so I had to get an itty-bitty 1 psi fuel regulator.
I would bleed the brakes only to find one of the fittings wanted to weep and needed to be replaced. Are we having fun yet??? I had fired up the engine and it seemed to run fine. (That in itself was quite a nice accomplishment) Lots of oil pressure. No oil leaks. But it was idling real high. Several hours with the manuals and I figured out the choke linkages were backwards. Fixed that and tried it again.
Next up, the old thermostat housing had rusted out and it was pissing anti-freeze all over the place. Pull that off. Take a die grinder and cut off the rusty parts and have a new tube brazed in. Here's a tip. If you use a carbide bit in your die grinder and it spews little shards of steel all over the place you had better be wearing gloves on both hands. I had a glove on the hand holding the part but somehow my right hand got impregnated with dozens of tiny little metal slivers. Slivers that didn't show up until you go to grab something and you feel as though you just grabbed the wrong end of angry Hornet. Tiny slivers that are almost invisible to the tired old naked eyes and are barely visible with my garage magnifying glass. You end up just taking the tweezers and tearing out a chunk of meat around the sliver to get the #$%rs things out! But I digress. As I said, it was time to show me some sign of an accomplishment. It was time to take the Seven for a lap around the block. Not exactly one lap of Road America, but still something. I started the car up and ran it for a while in the garage. My newly repaired thermostat housing was now pouring antifreeze out whereas before it was repaired it had only been pissing - not good. The brakes hadn't been bled since I replace a bad fitting so the pedal went almost to the floor before the brakes did anything. There was no windshield. No hood. No nose. No plates, no city sticker and no insurance. Hey, at least it had a seat belt.
Time to go! I was dressed in my usual garage summer attire - Worn out t-shirt with holes (for ventilation), worn out multistained shorts, big clunky garage shoes and a sweat towel wrapped around my head. Yes, GQ readers would puke if they saw me. Not exactly a poster boy for Lotus either. I put the trans into first and tried the clutch - it worked! I shifted back into reverse and it went in without any racket. I slowly backed the Seven out of the garage and nothing fell off - another good sign. I proceeded slowly down the alley and then realized that with my big clunky shoes the only way I could get at the brake was to twist and point my foot and try and make a spear out of the tip of my boot. To get any braking I would end up pushing the gas pedal half way down as well. This revving effect had the benefit of warning unsuspecting pedestrian and bicyclists of my approach. Out on the street I shifted into second with no problems. I coasted through the stop signs while trying to spear the brake pedal with my foot while the engine revved away.
Somewhere in this process I realized that the wheels were only held on with 2 3/8" lug nuts each and I think they were only finger tight. Also the steering wheel was quite removable right now as there was no nut holding it onto the splines - better take it easy. I rode past lots of neighbors who didn't really know me and they had that "Deer in the headlights" look. What the heck is that thing'? Only Hazel, the nice elderly lady and her neighbors on the corner knew what was going on. They all smiled and waved as I cruised on by. Hazel lives next door to Paul Quiniff. Between Paul and I, they were quite used to having some strange thing that looks like part of a car cruise noisily around the block. Glad to give them something to talk about.
I made it all the way around the block and my wife was waiting with the camera. I gave my best pose and then pulled the Seven back into the garage. If the cops wanted to find me, the trail of antifreeze left no doubt as to my whereabouts. Whew. I made it! Time to crack open a beer and ponder what needs to be done next. For now, the only thing that was important was to have another beer and clean up the antifreeze mess from the floor. Not too many people have big smiles on their faces as they spread out oil dry and clean up a big mess - but I sure did.
