Restoration of 2358R

[Certified Lotus]

It snowed last night and although it is mild out today, a good reason to fire up the propane heater in the garage and get working on the Europa. The objective for today was to get the headers installed, the generator and associated brackets and washer spacers installed, run the speedo cable thru the chassis and hopefully get the balance of the shifter linkage installed.

I had SS exhaust studs to install, but first had to remove the studs already in the head.  All came out easily except for one which the threads stripped immediately when I used my stud remover. Tried everything, the darn thing wouldn't budge. Contacted my friend Drew who said "use a torch to get the stud cherry red (not the aluminum head) and then let it cool. Use vise grips to remove.  Worked like a charm.

Chris came over to help (its always great to have another set of hands and someone to bounce ideas off of) and I set him on installing the headers while I worked on the other more mundane stuff. He put never seize on each of the studs, then installed the gaskets, finally lining up the headers to the studs and gaskets.  Of course, nothing is every as easy as it looks when your installing custom anything.  Two of the header flanges were interfering with the block threaded cap bolts. I could either go to the store and get new bolts or grind a notch in two of the flanges.  We agreed to grind.  Chris did a great job with the SS headers.

Installing the generator, bracket and spacer washers was easy.  Installing the speedo cable at the transaxle and then routing thru the chassis was also no issue (although a bit time consuming).

The shifter tubes.......well, that is another story. Ever since I bought the car I have been reading about the sloppiness of the shifter (finding gears can be a challenge) and no one (that I know of) has created a solution for the 352 four speed transaxle that make shifting more precise. Now, the original shift tubes and associated hardware that was on the car was very worn (u-joints sloppy and a few cracks in the metal holding the u-joints).  Then there was the issue of many holes drilled thru the collar of the ends of the shift tubes for worn pins.  I had another set of shift tubes from the other Europa I bought for the Weber TC engine and a third set I bought on ebay. All of them had some issue or another and none of the them were perfect.  I had thought combining the various parts and pieces would be the best solution, but after installing and looking closely Chris and I agreed that finding new OEM shift tubes would be best.  Then I could use locking nuts and drill my own holes.  By the way, I had bought the new u-joint design for between the two tubes from RD Enterprises.  Has anyone installed this in their car?

Media blasted some of the shifter parts for painting while I am on the hunt for front and rear tubes.

[BDA]

Great write-up again! Congratulations on your progress!

[EuropaTC]

On the last photo, is the central steel tube in the rubber bush proud of the steel carrier ?  From what I remember the steel tube is clamped firmly between the ends of the bracket that goes on the engine block and whatever swivel movement you get comes from the rubber flexing. The engine carrier bracket shouldn't rub against the steel of the swivelling part, although looking at the groove on the lower flange it has done in the past.

Going from memory again (often dodgy in my case    ) the bush looks wrong. The bolt which clamps the swivel part in place was small, about 1/4" or thereabouts, but the bush looks to have a 1/2" central tube. Is it a suspension bush ?

Brian

[Steve_Lindford]

Mine has worn in a similar way. The central tube drops - because of gravity and perhaps the rubber shrinks. I assumed the rubber doesnt need to flex - it just grips the sides and the inner steel shaft rotates around the bolt.

This design SEEMS so much better than the earlier S2 - I feel that if the wear is removed from all parts the system SHOULD work well - or am I being too optimistic??

When I removed my linkage - there was no nylon washer at the gear lever end - and a bit of wear everywhere - Im amazed I managed to get any gears at all!

Steve

[Certified Lotus]

The rubber bush has a steel sleeve that has an aluminum fitting inserted on each side. This fitting sits proud of the bracket so the entire mounting piece can move back and forth inside the bracket mounted to the engine. See photos below (I painted the metal brackets last night, they are the same as the previous photos).

[Steve_Lindford]

I forgot about the aluminum bushes. Is there any point in putting in grub screws through into the rubber to stop the mounting sinking down - like yours has in the past - and mine...

[jbcollier]

Engines vibrate and rubber is used to isolate the vibration so your gear lever/linkage doesn't buzz and rattle.  Adding grub screws would make the rubber superfluous.  In which case, don't add grub screws, just machine up a solid bushing to replace the rubber one.  Shifting will be more precise with the downside of significantly increased noise, vibration and harshness.

[EuropaTC]

The rubber bush has a steel sleeve that has an aluminum fitting inserted on each side. This fitting sits proud of the bracket so the entire mounting piece can move back and forth inside the bracket mounted to the engine. See photos below (I painted the metal brackets last night, they are the same as the previous photos).

Another school day....   I never realised it was like that. Mine must have rusted together because when I pushed the bush out I thought it was just one assembly. It's still in the "keep it for reference" cupboard so I think I'll go and take a closer look tomorrow !

[Certified Lotus]

Installed the "A Pivot Bracket" to the bell housing (Note that you cannot add a lock washer to the bolt as the A-Pivot is too close to the bolt head and a lock washer makes the bolt head too proud interfering with the A-Pivot).  Then I installed the A-Pivot. 

I moved to the back of the transaxle to install the Reverse indent housing (which I media blasted and painted).  Then installed the protective cap over the reverse indent and the rubber bellows over the 13mm control shaft (which has a bushing on the end to make it a 15mm shaft for the shift link).

[Certified Lotus]

Greetings from my garage!

[BDA]

The bolt in your pivot that you're concerned about screws into the bell housing, right? Sounds like a job for blue loctite.

[Certified Lotus]

That is a good recommendation BDA.  I’m wondering, I have found a number of areas on the car where the bolts do not have lock washers. Did they come that way from the factory with or without any liquid adhesive like lock-tite ?

[Certified Lotus]

My 352 Transaxle has the 13mm selector shaft, but someone put a copper sleeve on the rear of it to make it a 15mm OD. I’m guessing they did that because all that was available for new rear shifter links was the 15mm version. Does anyone else have something like this?

[Certified Lotus]

Here is another question for those that have seen, owned or worked on several Europa TC’s. The front and rear shift tubes (or links as they are called in the manual) are connected in the middle by a u-joint assembly. This assembly has threaded studs on each side that screw into the links (right and left threads).

I have seen three of these assemblies and links and so far each of them has the same issue. No lock nuts on the studs to secure the u-joint threaded stud to the link (once final adjustment is made). Additionally, all my links have multible holes drilled in them for pins to secure the location of the final adjustment. Some of these holes are very large suggesting bolts were used instead of pins.

My question is, if you had thin lock nuts to secure the u-joints in place, the pins would not be taking the full load each time you shifted and rotated the links. Am I thinking about this correctly?

[surfguitar58]

Looks like the light at the end of the tunnel is coming into view! That is going to be one clean machine, congrats! 

I'll be interested to hear if the new linkage bits noticeably improve shifting. Whoever solves the Europa awkward shift issue should win a Nobel prize.

Tom