In reply to nocones :
Yes! Like welding for the first time. You mean I can just join this piece and that piece permanently? I can do ANYTHING
In reply to nocones :
Yes! Like welding for the first time. You mean I can just join this piece and that piece permanently? I can do ANYTHING
Harbor Freight is the answer....
https://www.harborfreight.com/10-ft-x-17-ft-portable-car-canopy-62860.html
I won't be doing any more fiberglass work unless I can roll it outside, which is a little demotivating. So I'm trying to knock out other stuff to make it drive, despite a giant opening between cockpit and engine bay.
The radiator is halfway mounted. There are 3/8" pins on the bottom of the Jeep radiator that insert into rubber bushings. I cut threads to turn them into 3/8-24 studs, which can mount through the fiberglass nose. Still need an upper bracket, but this location is great becase it allows the hood to hinge open.
The Toyota airbox simply wouldn't fit, so I had to build a cold air intake. The key here was to save the MAF housing so the airflow readings would be correct. A little scrap PVC, a LOT of JB Weld, and a generic 3-1/2" cone filter later...boom, custom air intake.
I also installed the pedals assembly and put a few body bolts into the frame. The frame is definitely not lining up with the body mounting holes. Either the frame is warped, the body is flexible, or most likely both. I think I can stress it into place. There is also supposed to be a thick piece of foam between body and frame, but I omitted it because racecar and budget, NVH be damned. This truly is the crappiest Lotus being built right now.
In reply to maschinenbau :
I've never seen fastest spelled that way before.
coils numbered 1 thru 3 berkeleyed me up a bit until i remembered this is a V6.
Gas tank, made from old gas tank. Definitely not a FIA legal fuel cell, but it's legitimately free, mostly watertight, and only cost me 2 frustrating days of garage time. The Lotus originally had a vertical 7 gallon tank behind the driver. I put it up front and horizontal to counter the front-rear weight imbalance. The diagonal matches up with the original location of the radiator, in the front part of the passenger wheel well. My radiator is in the nose instead.
Over a year ago I saved the fuel pump flange from the Toyota's gas tank. This lets me use the stock Toyota pump/sending unit module. I made sure the total height of the tank accommodated this module. Not too short or it won't fit, but not too tall or that's wasted volume. Had to section part of it to make it sit flat in the car.
Had to cut a large notch to clear the radiator. Welding this old steel is difficult. I also salvaged the original Lotus filler neck and cap and welded it straight to the tank.
Welding and leak check was an obnoxiously iterative process, but it seems to hold now. I found TIG welding to be more successful, though much slower. I ran out of argon touching up the final leak! Usable capacity is about 5 gallons, with extra room to account for the pump module. It's filled with 5 gallons in the picture below, with about an inch of air left. Just needs some mounting tabs now.
I feel like your car needs one of those ridiculously large metal fuel funnels they used to use to fill race cars and airplanes back in the '30's out of metal cans.
"Crappiest Lotus being built right right now", I don't think so! Keep it up I think it will be great!
Any time welding a fuel tank does not include a description w/ the word Boom, it went well.
And, if, I ever find the world largest pry bar, and separate my azz from this chair, so I can go down and actually see the Challenge, it will be so I see this car on the track.
Finally got the radiator and gas tank mounted securely to the fiberglass nose. In true Lotus fashion, the radiator actually stiffens the nose quite a bit. I will need to lay more glass in some key areas, including behind the fuel tank where I cut out the opening for the original radiator.
I'm very pleased with the radiator hose routing. I even included a bleed port on the upper radiator hose, since I foresee that task being a pain. Starting to see a first drive light at the end of the tunnel, firewall be damned.
Any consideration to a larger gas tank for its post-challenge life?
There is definitely room for a larger nicer tank or fuel cell, perhaps one that spans the width of the nose enclosure. There are also aluminum aftermarket upgraded versions of that radiator (Jeep XJ). Trying to keep this thing as future-proofed as possible, including the unused clutch hydraulics and pedal.
I've heard of engines and transmissions as stressed member.. can't say that I've ever heard of a stressed radiator. But here we are.
Make sure you reinstall the "closing" plate between the nose and T-section of the chassis as the fiberglass supposedly will crack without it.
love it. I retail OEM Toyota parts, let me know if there's anything I can get you at cost for stock replacement maintenance parts. Happy to sponsor 
Current goal: bare minimum to self-propelled car. My Lotus came with one original seat frame, with no upholstery and badly rusted. I repaired the major structural rust and have a plan to upholster some simple foam cushions.
Installing the steering column was a major PITA. There is one u-joint between column and rack, positioned in the interior of the top of the frame "T". It's normally somewhat difficult to tighten, but even more so on mine because of the complicated brake booster and lever system I added. I found the one angle of the front wheels and enough socket extensions to tighten the u-joint bolt.
So we have seat, steering, brakes, shifter, cooling, fuel tank, and electrical. Also need a gas pedal. I have to use the Toyota e-pedal, which is hang-down compared to the Lotus bottom-hinged brake and clutch pedals. Need to figure out a bracket for this and extend the pedal harness. Not pictured: had to slice the plastic pedal pad in half because it was too wide to fit in the footwell with the brake pedal.
On any Lotus Europa, the steering column is supported by the wooden dashboard. So I need to build a dashboard. I found a scrap of 3/4" plywood that will have to suffice.
Starting to look like an operable vehicle.
That seat frame looks like it's from a Twin Cam. The S2 seats didn't have a hole in the bottom of the frame, had a different width at the head rest, and had a slightly different angle for the back. I think, and don't quote me on this, you sit a bit more upright with the TC seat.
The dash looks like it should work just fine. I opted to run a piece of 1" square tubing behind the dash on my car with plates at either end to bolt it to the body tub. The column mount bolts to a plate on the tube.
In reply to RoddyMac17 :
Good eye on the TC seat. I shouldn't assume anything in this pile is original! I did some test fitting, and will probably need to lay the seat back at a lower angle in order to fit with a helmet on. Or cut the back and re-weld it at a different angle. It's a tight fit in there...
maschinenbau said:In reply to RoddyMac17 :
will probably need to lay the seat back at a lower angle in order to fit with a helmet on. Or cut the back and re-weld it at a different angle. It's a tight fit in there...
Gurney bubble!
I made the hole in my chassis larger to get to the steering joint clamp.
Engine is running again!
First I got the kill switch wired. I have two branches from the battery positive: 1) battery > jumpstart post > starter and 2) battery > kill switch > power distribution block. Surprisingly there is only a 10ga wire supplying the whole power block from Toyota. Funnily enough it was spliced into a much larger cable. I wonder if Toyota uses the same power block on multiple models, and maybe something like the Lexus version (ES350) has a fatter wire going to it instead of this silly 2ish gage to 10gage splice. Either way, I replicated it to run my own longer wire lol.
The battery side is not much more elegant, but hey it works.
Shrink wrap hides these sins.
Then I simply plugged everything in. And...it runs again!
The super sketchy welded fuel tank is working great, including the fuel level gauge. Bleeding the coolant was challenging because the whole time I thought I had an air pocket at the coolant temp sensor but it turns out the gauge in the cluster somehow isn't connected to the sensor. The ECU is getting the signal though, so it's running very smoothly with a nice warm up then settling into a closed loop idle. The data just isn't making it to the cluster. Not sure what went wrong there, but otherwise bleeding the coolant went pretty smoothly thanks to the sealed funnel. No leaks so far, including the junkyard Jeep Cherokee radiator.
Not much is keeping this car off the road outside of common sense and self-preservation.
No update in two weeks, and none expected in the near future. Life is getting in the way right now with closing on a new house, fixing/updating it, moving this weekend, then work travel for a couple weekends. Crazy times. By the time I can hit the ground running, I will have only 2 months to get this thing race-ready!
The bright side is its first drive shall be this weekend, when I back it onto a trailer during the move.
Current state of the GRM Free Europa: it has landed at the new house in the suburbs of Atlanta. This is the third house this Lotus has followed me to, but hopefully the last, since I bought this time with the intention to stay put for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for the Free Europa, the Rice Rod is coming home too, so now it's an outdoor car until I build a bigger shop. I still have a LOT to do before I'm ready to work on cars again, so I'm sorry about the tease. And by the way, it drove on and off the trailer!
Such a charming face to look at while Dad tows it for me. Notice how narrow it is on the trailer - so narrow that I strapped my ladders on either side to save space in the trucks.
And such an incredibly low roof line. Any pictures you've seen online of a Europa don't do justice to how small they are. The roof is below my El Camino's mirrors.
If you're in the Atlanta area, I welcome any and all help this spring to get it to the Challenge.
In reply to maschinenbau :
congrats on the new crib!
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