British Invasion 1969 Lotus Europa S2 (type 54) Engine: Renault 1470 cc inline-4 Transmission: Renault 4-speed manual transaxle (pushing) Sold: 2005

I bought the Lotus from a local exotic cars dealer in the spring of 1990, mostly on a whim. The windscreen was cracked, it had some extremely minor body damage and the paint was trashed, but mechanically it was in good shape. I practiced my glass-fibre repair skills and tried my hand at spraying paint, and the result was what you see here. (Incidentally I learned something about taping and painting drywall, as in the course of painting the car I really thrashed the interior of the garage at the duplex I was renting at the time, and felt compelled to rectify the situation.) Unfortunately I don't drive the Europa often, as it's really not suited to the Oregon climate: In the summer the large windscreen and small black-finished passenger compartment combine with poor airflow to create a novel greenhouse effect; in the winter it leaks due to perished windlace and windscreen gaskets. I also discovered that Pirelli P-77 tires are definitely not designed for wet weather (an impromptu "270" in the middle of Burnside Street in downtown Portland tought me that). Since I moved into my house in 1996 the Lotus has been stored more-or-less outdoors and the paint I applied in '90 has weathered pretty badly. Someday I'll either refurbish it again or sell it, or both.

9/7/01 - Actually gettin' to it

The whole apparat, ready to go for it!

A bit of damage was incurred. (This had less to do with the lifting rig than the fact that there is a large spot of rotted-out fiberglass in the bulkhead behind the passenger seat. I'd never noticed that until I pulled stuff apart this time around.)

Very worrisome! The rear of the body pulled away from the frame as expected; the front of the car lifted clear of the ground! I spent about 90 minutes consulting the service manual and searching for body-to-frame bolts that I'd missed. Finally I said "screw it!" and lifted 'er higher then indulged in some pushing and pulling... turned that it was just a really tight fit after 32 years, and the backbone eventually slid gracefully out of the body.

4x4 Monster Lotus!

Just a bit higher to clear everything...

There now, that wasn't so hard... . (Yeah.) Working on the engine, however, will be a piece of cake!

Front view of the frame

Low-rider Lotus. (The body's sitting on 4-by-4s... and it doesn't look much lower than usual.)

I should probably disassemble the lift frame tomorrow -- I have the sense that the neighbors don't like the look of the thing... . (What's the problem with ten feet of rusty square-tube? I don't get it.)

9/8/01 -- Uh-oh!

Well. Here's why it stopped running. This is a bit more serious than varnish in the carburetor jets: Three bent pushrods. Not good!

At the moment I don't know what happened. It's barely possible that the clearances got too wide and they just jumped loose, but it's more likely that the timing chain slipped and the valves slammed some pistons. If I had any misgivings about pulling the body off, they're gone now -- it wouldn't be possible to correct this problem with the car assembled.

9/16/01 -- Resto Prep

Steerable cart whacked together from old scraps

Loading the body onto the cart (after removing the gas tank)

Disassembling the hoist rig

Ready to move the body

This looks like a good enough spot...

The frame hauled out into the driveway for powerwashing

9/22/01 -- Motor Disassembly

The motor torn down more-or-less to the short block. (The rust on the frame looks worse here than it really is: I was amazed at just how good shape it's in.) The copper-tubing arrangements are intended to keep the cylinder liners in place. The R-16 engine uses wet liners that are sealed at the top and bottom -- the block itself is essentially a box full of coolant.

The timing chain looks to be in pretty good shape. Maybe a tension adjustment is in order, but it doesn't seem to have jumped.

I've checked the valves and tops of the pistons, as well as the cam lift: I don't think this is an "interference" engine. (i.e. The valves can't hit the pistons.) Near as I can tell this is a neglect problem: I haven't adjusted the valve clearances or retorqued the head bolts in ten years, and it's looking like things got sloppy enough that the pushrods just worked loose while the engine was running.

1/10/02
Preparing to reassemble the engine.

Pistons and liners removed and cleaned up.

The block with its guts removed.