At present, I have just the 6 TCs, 5 TCS and a plain TC, with one further TCS on the way.
4129R is very useable with a new 145bhp lump, 3755R is in being resprayed by ex Lotus employees, and 3089R the brown rusty car, is in bits. I took the engine of 3089R out over the weekend, stripped it down to single components all laid out on a big 8ft workbench, and I am matching up the engine parts to the vast array of bits I got in the 40ft container which had 4259R and 4688R in it, in various states of strip down, decay, crash damage and rust.
I have the interior of 3755R being re-trimmed, 5 front and 6 rear bumpers being straightened and re-chromed, 15 wheels being sprayed and diamond cut to make them as good as new, the rolling shell of 3755R in the paint shop, and the engine of 3089R in the machine shop.
With all the engine bits of 3755R laid out, and photos taken of it coming apart, I will build up the engines of 4259R and 4688R in parallel on another 8ft workbench opposite 3755Rs components.
When the 40ft container arrived, both engines were stripped down into components, so I had to pull 3755R's apart to see what oily/rusty bits were missing from 4259R and 4688R. Then the treasure hunt to get the missing bits can start. So far the wanted list is 1 alternator, 1 starter, 1 distributor, and 1 big end bolt.
One strange feature of the engine bits was that many of the holes in the blocks and heads were filled with which hard stuff. I was advised that this was due to "mud daubers", wasps from the southern states burying their eggs and using mud and spit to fill the holes. Some of the holes were hollow where the eggs had hatched, some still filled where the eggs didn't hatch.
Her indoors is frightened that we will have swarms of wasps soon. The two cockroaches in the wooden boxes haven't bred yet. I am hoping that they were two gay male travelling companions, and won't reproduce.
I am making a heavy duty trolley soon to wheel the shells around, as 4129R Towers is a bit full of non working Loti.
Meanwhile 4174R is still in Miami Florida with the vendor playing hard to contact. Hopefully soon it will be shipped, but if anyone is offered 4174R, a Regency Red TCS, I bought it 3 months ago and am still awaiting its shipping back to Norfolk UK.
So far, surplus to requirements are 1 block, 1 set of rods, 1 sump, which has a pipe return welded into the side (for an oil cooler?), and 1 US spec cylinder head without cams.
That's all for now, more news soon.
