Restoration of 2358R

[Certified Lotus]

The day I have been waiting for.......for 6 months!  The body shop arrived to pick up my Europa    Went over all the "custom work" I wanted done and we spoke about what color yellow to use. I've got an original mint condition Lotus paint color brochure that we are going to use to match the color.  But that will be months from now. First is sanding and all the fiberglass work to be done.

My engine shop called to let me know my twin cam is on the dyno and running nicely but there is some issue with the electronic distributor advance not functioning properly. They are working on sorting it out and I'm scheduled to go to the shop next Saturday see it run on the dyno and pack it up to bring home.

Now I can focus on rebuilding the chassis this winter.  The next big project is re-assembling the transaxle with all new bearings. 

[BDA]

Congratulations!! That's great news! Things should start moving pretty fast this spring.


You have to watch posting pictures (or I have to watch for them) of your garage. You're giving me severe garage envy!

[Certified Lotus]

Jim, sorry I keep posting pictures of my garage  . You will notice that it’s a “real workshop” meaning there are always multible projects going on with lots of parts around in various stages of needs to be worked on, disassembled, rebuilt, painted and waiting for install, media blasted and waiting for paint, etc, etc. I’m always amazed at the garages I see that have beautifully painted floors without an oil stain anywhere and everything is in perfect order. 

I’ve been collecting tools since I was a teenager working on MG, Triumph, BMW, Jaguar, Porsche, and my favorite Datsun 2000.  Over that many years you assemble a large collection, hense all the tool boxes, presses, tubing benders, media blaster, compressed air systems.

The lift I had my wife buy me for my 60th birthday.  I had been working on the garage floor under a car for an entire weekend and could barely move on Monday (and I have a very fancy creeper that holds your head in the right position with easy to reach tools trays on either side) That got me looking at lifts and I was amazed how inexpensive they were for a home shop. Should have done it years ago.

The Lotus art work, posters, signs and photos have been collected since 2005 when I started owning Lotus cars (migrating from Porsche 911 cars).

So, I’ve been a sports car guy since I was 16 and although I have been through many cars in my life I have always kept and added onto my tool collection.

When I retire, this will be one of my major hobbies. Restoring older Lotus sports cars.

[BDA]

You've done it right. Always buy a tool when you need one and never throw one away because you never know when you'll have a use for it.


Unfortunately, there is a support beam holding up my ceiling so there really isn't enough height for a lift. Maybe in my next garage...

[Certified Lotus]

Stopped off at the auto body shop today to look at the work done so far.  Dave called me to say come over, he wants to show me what he found while taking the paint off....

Seems this car was painted a couple of times (I knew that but scratching my head as to why.  It is a low mileage car.) He pointed out a grey "skim coat" over all the fiberglass and then a primer with a coat of paint, then another coat of primer and another coat of a different color of yellow.  Dave has done plenty of Lotus fiberglass cars and said he has never seen a Lotus completely covered with what looks like a skim coat of bondo.  This is what was causing the cracking of the paint, not the fiberglass.

I have heard stories of cars coming off the ship that needed complete repainting from the factory, but I thought that was the early years (early Elan's).  Is this some type of fiberglass coating the factory was trying out?

Here are a bunch of photo's. Anyone have any ideas or knowledge of what this is?

[BDA]

I used to hang out at the Lotus distributor in New Orleans that was the port of import for the central US. I heard that sometimes a Europa would be damaged by heavy wire rope being dragged over it. There was probably other damage that could occur in shipping too. Something like that might prompt a complete respray.

Then there were the cars like mine that sat out in the New Orleans weather for a year and a half. The metallic paint on my car was pretty sad. Another good candidate for a complete respray.

I remember one guy who bought a car off the lot but wanted an Earl Scheib paint job on it before he picked it up. It didn't look too bad except there were bubbles in the paint in the headlight scoop outs! He was supposed to be happy with it! I wouldn't have been!

[EuropaTC]

It's very difficult to comment sensibly on photographs of topics like this but I'll give it a shot.

My car hadn't been sprayed before I bought it apart from a small area over the LHS front wheel arch where there had been a light scrape. So when I sprayed it I was sure that what I saw was OEM Lotus stuff.

Your image 1824-2 looks very similar to what I found. Looking at the lower edge of the front bonnet you've got fibreglass, white, grey, then colour. I don't have any good pictures from back then, only a scanned 6"x4" photo,  but this will give you an idea of what it looked like part way in the prep. You can see areas of grey, white and the bare fibreglass over the wheel arch where I re-did the repair with GRP instead of just filler.

Looking at image 1821 (door ?) I'd take off the rest of the grey and then wipe the area with acetone or thinners to see what's left. It wouldn't surprise me to find there was a hint of the crack in the gel coat of the fibreglass. Thick coats of paint do crack, but that looks like an impact on the grp rather than paint cracking through being applied too thickly.

Having said that, you could most likely paint over it in that position and never see anything return because unlike the door handles that position shouldn't see much stress. I'd repair it myself though, it's very frustrating to find cracks re-appearing later on.

Brian

[Certified Lotus]

BDA, I have heard many stories like your about the condition of cars upon arrival coming off the boat. Also heard that cars would sit outside on dealer lots for a long time. Anything is possible. It doesn’t look like my car was damaged, just repainted.

Brian, your response is what I was looking for and greatly appreciate the photo (could you send me a higher resolution one via pm? I want to show my body shop). I’m feeling a little better now about the various coats found on my Europa.

[4129R]

Does the "Crinkle Finish" on 4259R make you feel any better?

[Certified Lotus]

Alex, that is a clear representation of a car stored outside for a number of years. The question is, what is below the top coat of paint and how many layers? I think I see some grey peaking through?

[4129R]

According to Lotus records, it is a completely different colour (L15 black I think), according to the VIN plate, it is no colour at all, with not even a scratch where the number should be embossed.

According to the doors and everything else, it has always been yellow.

[EuropaTC]

Brian, your response is what I was looking for and greatly appreciate the photo (could you send me a higher resolution one via pm? I want to show my body shop). I’m feeling a little better now about the various coats found on my Europa.

Hi again,

Unfortunately it's the only one I have, and it's scanned from a not very good 35mm 6x4 print.  That's the 1980s for you, no digital photography and "mobile" phones the size of a house brick ! 

I can do an enlargement from the scan on the front section though and that might highlight the grey/white/bare fibreglass areas slightly better.  At the time I thought the grey was conventional cellulose hi-build primer and the white a polyester spray filler.   It was a thin but harder film than the grey and I found similar layers on my '68 elan, albeit under half a dozen layers of various shades of red - that one had been sprayed several times in it's 9 years before I bought it.....

For what it's worth I took off all the grey and the white rubbed through in several areas along the way.   I normally prefer to go back to bare fibreglass on a respray but felt that the white patches that remained weren't going to cause paint reactions.  20+ years later I found micro blisters between the paint layers but don't think that was due to leaving the white patches but to my daft storage ideas when we moved house and the roof on the outbuilding was leaking. The paint had been fine until I covered it with a plastic sheet......

Brian

[EuropaTC]

Does the "Crinkle Finish" on 4259R make you feel any better?

Now if that was a kitchen table & chairs you'd see it being marketed as "shabby chic" and youngsters would be queuing around the block to buy it.....   

[dakazman]

I agree with certified, working at cold weather stations all the fiberglass deiceing equipment had that finish . You caught it in time before the water got into the glass and then froze  . I had to scrap many buckets that the aerial lift person stood in at 60 ft height.

   As for what is on the car looks to me as a high build primer that can be sprayed directly on bare fiberglass instead of gel coat. Sometimes people add “icing” which is made to go on entire panel and blocked flat with “durablock” block. I used a 12” over my car with 3m dry guide .

I also found a lot of repaint when I stripped the car down and filler where after stripping there was no need for it. Looks great can’t wait for more pics.
Dakazman
.

[Certified Lotus]

Thanks again Brian. I'm good with the photo you posted, no need to go through extra trouble to make another copy.  Appreciate the offer to do so!