#460002 - Restoration

[BDA]

Great job on those tail light lamps, Serge!

Did the transaxle not have a provision for a reverse tail light switch?! Were they not required on cars in Europe and England back then? That is surprising to me.

Did the brake fluid help the lens gaskets? I was thinking you might want to make tracings of those rubber gaskets in case you want to try to make your own replacements. Even if they're made with flat rubber, they should still work pretty well. I thought Eastwood used to have a rubber "casting" kit to make new rubber gaskets but I can't find them now. Maybe somebody else makes something for that.

[EuropaTC]

I've done some research and there are some fuel tank coatings available on this side of the world, so I might need to coat these before I will be using the fuel tanks.

Is it considered normal practice these days to internally coat new Al tanks ? When I made mine in the late 80s/early 90s I just welded up the Al, used Dye penetrant testing on the seams (dye inside, developer outside) and left it at that.  They've got to be at least 25 years old now and no obvious signs of corrosion, which is really what I'd expect.

I would use a coating to rescue an old steel tank with internal rusting or porosity in places but I'm not convinced it's essential on a new one. What do the manufacturers do these days ?

Brian

ps - nice welding on the tanks BTW.

[Serge]

I could not find a reversing switch on the transmission or the linkage, but the wiring had been messed with. The lenses being painted was clue no 2. Also there were electrical sockets for all of the lights in the unit, except reversing lights. My deduction was, that there probably never were any on this car.

Serge

[lotusfanatic]

Hello Serge,

I know that some older cars would use a manually operated switch to operate the reversing light, is that a possibility?

Great work!

PS, what colour are you intending to paint your car?
Yellow, per your YouTube account credits?

(Apologies if you’ve already mentioned this!)

Mark

[Serge]

Could be, Mark. The electrics on my car were changed a lot in the course of its life. I have clue how it would look originally. Also unsure why there werent any bulb holders or why the lenses were painted. If somebody lost the bulb holders, which would surprise me, why paint the lenses?

I will be painting the car its original colour, Lotus Yellow L07.

Serge

[lotusfanatic]

Serge,

Lotus Yellow is a great colour!

My car appears to have originally been Cirrus White, unfortunately Lotus don’t have any record of the original colour so I will look at the car’s hidden areas when it is being stripped.

I’ve watched a number of your videos with great interest as I will be carrying out the same tasks on my car (once I’ve completed the garage/workshop for it)

Mark

[Bodzer]

 Another great video Serge, thanks.

Admittedly mine is a much later car (1970), but I found the last part of the VIN and the colour written in black crayon on the side of the central tunnel.

I hope it helps.

[Serge]

I've done some research and there are some fuel tank coatings available on this side of the world, so I might need to coat these before I will be using the fuel tanks.

Is it considered normal practice these days to internally coat new Al tanks ? When I made mine in the late 80s/early 90s I just welded up the Al, used Dye penetrant testing on the seams (dye inside, developer outside) and left it at that.  They've got to be at least 25 years old now and no obvious signs of corrosion, which is really what I'd expect.

I would use a coating to rescue an old steel tank with internal rusting or porosity in places but I'm not convinced it's essential on a new one. What do the manufacturers do these days ?

Brian

ps - nice welding on the tanks BTW.

Brian,

I think you are right that aluminium tanks on this side of the world don't really get any coating in them. My guess is that the reason for this not being the case in Europe, compared to the US, is the ethanol contect in our fuels. The ethanol content of fuel in some states of the US is quite high, and this will attack the aluminium. However, over here this is only starting. They made quite a fuss about our 95RON in Belgium, because since last year it containts 10% ethanol. So I could do this to prevent any trouble in future, but am not quite sure about it.


Serge

[Serge]

Another great video Serge, thanks.

Admittedly mine is a much later car (1970), but I found the last part of the VIN and the colour written in black crayon on the side of the central tunnel.

I hope it helps.

I was looking for hand written VIN numbers everywhere. Especially inside the doors. Only place that I have been able to find this, is on the left rear wing. Once all of the paint and gelcoat was removed you could clearly see "REAR WING #02". I have a photograph somewhere, but can't find it at the moment.

Serge

[EuropaTC]

Brian,
I think you are right that aluminium tanks on this side of the world don't really get any coating in them. My guess is that the reason for this not being the case in Europe, compared to the US, is the ethanol contect in our fuels. The ethanol content of fuel in some states of the US is quite high, and this will attack the aluminium. However, over here this is only starting. They made quite a fuss about our 95RON in Belgium, because since last year it containts 10% ethanol. So I could do this to prevent any trouble in future, but am not quite sure about it.
Serge

I think the corrosion aspect could make a debate all on it's own, there seems to be a wide range of views between "Armageddon" and "nothing to see here".  I get the corrosion aspect with Ethanol but it's also temperature dependent and inhibited by water content which I haven't seen as widely quoted.

I've had steel petrol tanks corrode internally due to moisture content as the tank breathes so I suspect my Al tanks aren't going to have a problem because you only need 50ppm of water to inhibit. And I'll bet the tanks see that even during our tropical English summers.....   

If you were running a sealed system with anhydrous conditions then it could well be different, in which case I'd look for the  water content in typical fuels. If this (ethanol corrosion) becomes a large scale problem then I'd expect the fuel companies to be including 100 ppm in their spec because there are a lot of cars out there with aluminium alloys in the fuel delivery system.

This isn't something I know much about, so if you find anything new I'd be interested in your research.

[Serge]

New video! A very short video on a boatload of work! Stripping paint, I did it all by using a very sharp putty knife to chip off all of the top layers of paint (red-green-original yellow). Afterwards I sanded down the primer and the gelcoat to bare fiberglass using an electric DA sander.

Couldn't really make an interesting video about something as boring as this. It took me a lot of time to get to a bare fiberglass body. I needed to go to bare fiberglass to be able to redo all of the old repairs and repairing the damage.

I am slowly getting up to date with all of my videos!

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FudpR_v4og


Serge

[jbcollier]

Reinforce where the a-piller meets the roof by bonding in a bent/shaped piece of flat metal.

[surfguitar58]

Great video Serge! The cat should get star billing.  Interesting that the old paint is coming off in nice clean sheets. Looks like you have a good surface to work with underneath. The heat gun should help. Be careful of that subtle temperature difference between softening paint and softening paint AND fiberglass. Keep up the great work!
Tom

[Serge]

Yes, the cat is a star!

I have completely finished stripping the body and am halfway through the fiberglass work. Video's of this will follow shortly.

Reinforcing the A-pillar is a good idea. Most of the body is really sturdy, but that is one section that could be stronger.

Serge

[jbcollier]

One of mine cracked when installing the windshield :-(