I have been meaning to get you all up to speed on the progress of The
Europa Project (sounds like a movie title about sinister doings on The
Continent). I have taken a lot of vacation days to see if I could get it
out yet this season. This cuts down on my net time as breaks and lunches
tend to get eaten up by real work. Vacation is a fallacy, as the work
load is still there, so you just get to work more when you come back.
This 1970 Lotus 65 Europa S2 (Renault) will be on the road tomorrow and
entered in the last MAC autocross of the season on Sunday.
The voltage stabilizer connection with the third tab going to ground seems
to be correct. More later
The turn signals, window lifts and windscreen washer didn't work, but that
turned out to be poor connections in the multi-conductor plugs installed
to allow easy removal of the steering column and koa-wood console. Weird
part is that all the dip and flash functions of the headlamps worked fine.
I just slightly twisted each tab with a long-nose and repeatedly plugged
and unplugged the connectors to clean them up. All works OK now. I
suppose a bit of TV-tuner spray couldn't hurt, but I didn't have any lying
around.
The wipers work OK on high and low speeds, but they don't park. That
extra wire from the wiper motor which I did not hook up must be to blame.
I know it is supposed to be connected to the stock switch, but don't know
what the switch does to it. Maybe it is supposed to be grounded when the
switch is in the off position. I don't have a way to do that in my
DP/DT/Center-off switch without using a relay. For now, I suppose I will
have to park them myself.
The gauge lights came on as soon as I connected the battery. Seems I
connected the wire to the parking light fuse instead of the switched part
of the circuit. Oops. I just moved the fork terminal to the screw on the
barrier strip where the power goes out to the front and rear lights.
Since this is the only wiring error I made (I knew what to do, and did it
wrong anyway), I guess I did OK for wiring a whole car from scratch. I
came up short one bulb and socket for the gauges, as the one from the
Stewart-Warner ammeter won't work in the Smiths voltmeter. I left the one
off the fuel gauge, as it is the easiest to reach later. The rubber cap
that came on the voltmeter will keep the dust out until I get a
bulb-holder. I left a butt connector within reach to hook one up when I
get it. Anybody got a bulb-holder for Smiths gauges floating around loose?
The oil pressure gauge works fine. I shot some more oil in the cylinders
and cranked it with the spark plugs out until I saw the pressure come up.
The wire goes to the sensor which is midships on the right side of the
engine, down low. Where is the "oil pressure switch" that is connected to
the red light on the dash? The factory schematic implies that it is not
near the gauge sender. Terry Pitts says there are two wires on his gauge
sender and thinks one goes to the gauge sender. This seems
counterintuitive to me. There are two male Lucar spades on the sender,
but they are electrically the same. If the sender and switch were the
same, why run two wires, why not just put the light in parallel with the
gauge? Also, the gauge goes up with increased current as the oil pressure
rises, suggesting lowering resistance through the sensor to ground as oil
pressure rises. The light should glow when oil pressure is low. There
has to be another switch. Where is it? The connection at the rear left
of the cylinder head is obviously the temperature sender.
There is a separate ballast resister, and some kind of Yank coil, where
the mechanical fuel pump used to live. I was told by one of my
autocrossing buddies to run a wire from the positive side of the starter
motor to the point between the coil and ballast resister. The idea was
that when starting, the ballast resister is taken out of the ignition
circuit. Well. Either the solenoid on a Europa shorts the starter motor
to stop it faster, or the static resistance of the starter motor is low
enough to cause trouble. Either way, the engine starts right up, then
dies when you let go of the key. As you sit there with the ignition on,
wondering what is wrong, the ballast resister heats up like crazy. Once I
figured out what was going wrong, I removed the starter-motor connection,
thus allowing the ballast resister to be in the circuit at all times. Car
starts and runs just fine.
The horn is a problem, as I don't seem to have the spring-loaded contact
that fits in the steering-wheel hub. This hub is a Grant unit, presumably
to mount a Grant wheel to a Spitfire. There was a very ugly Grant wheel
on the car when I got it. The Minnesota guy had to get a Hawaii safety
sticker when he bought the car. He apparently didn't have the setup to
make the horn work, so he put a doorbell button on the side of the
backbone. My buddy Norm sold me a brand-new Grant GT (the F1 look) 13"
wheel last year. I have installed it and it looks and feels great. The
tach and speedo are fully visible through it. The arm relief is just
about perfect. I would like to get rid of the red Grant GT logo and get a
yellow-and-green Lotus horn button, but that may be difficult. Anyway, I
am hoping that Grant was expecting you to use the original British
spring-loaded contact and that the Midget one I have kicking around can be
made to fit. My wife broke the frazzled wire while playing with it, but I
think it is soldered in. It should have been replaced anyway, so maybe
she was doing me a favor.
The seat is all the way back. Believe it or not, I might want to drive
with it one notch forward! Of course, my wife will need it up even
further. If I try to move it up, it runs into the clutch-cable bracket.
I will have to relocate that a bit closer to the backbone.
I have the 6" BWA wheels (thanks, Mike and Cory!) and 185-60-13 Yokohama
A008Rs tires mounted. They look sharp, especially against the crummy
black paint job.
The sway bar is in and the suspension bolts are tightened. A good trick
to tighten the upper bolts when working alone: Put a 3/4" box wrench on
the nut. Get a removable cable tie and strap the other end of the wrench
to the swaybar strut. Then use a long extension on a ratchet from inside
the car.
The springs are all wrong. The car sits too high, especially in the
front. I will probably get street/autocross springs over the winter. Is
Bean the right choice for these? Suggestions?
The car is not pretty, although the dashboard and wheels are. Neither of
these are Lotus parts. Do I sense a pattern here? The chassis and
running gear should be OK, though, and I cannot wait to get out there and
drive it. I get about two weeks, and then it goes to bed for the winter.
All I will have is memories and a list of things to work on, but I think
it is going to be worth it.
Phil Ethier, THE RIGHT LINE, 672 Orleans St, Saint Paul, MN 55107-2676
h (612) 224-3105 w (612) 266-6244 phile@stpaul.gov
"What could go wrong?" - Big Bird
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