Restoration of 74 TCS - 044615R

[BDA]

There are also two behind the dash that anchors it to the frame. There are also two bolts that hold the heater and choke cable bracket under the front of the elbow pad. I believe they all have to come out but the second pair might not have to come out but it would at least make things easier.

[Bainford]

Welcome to the forum Andy. You've got a great start on your project. The Europa is a great choice for a father/son project as it's an interesting old car that captures the interest of car guys of all ages, and the end result will be one of the most fun driving machines ever devised. It's surprisingly poor as a chick magnet though, so possibly a disappointment to your son on that point.  I'll be watching your project come together. Cheers 

[BrianC]

Is it better to leave the doors, windshield, and rear glass on the car when pulling the body off the frame? I'm just about ready to pull the body on mine (4552R) and thought that leaving these on might provide some rigidity.

[BDA]

The windscreen will add rigidity but I don't think the doors add anything more than weight. Having said that, I don't think the windscreen, glass, or doors helps or hurts when separating the body from the frame.

[4129R]

Take the doors off.

But getting the steel pins out can take ages. Rather than cutting through them with a hacksaw, I drill through them with progressively increasing drill bits. Normally they are rusted solid in the door and just do not move up or down.

[Stuleslie]

May I expand on 4129R's notes.
The handbrake cable has to be disconnected from the hook at the front accessible through the large rubber grommet in the middle of the front plenum. You will have to disconnect the lever at the other end under the dash. Then remove the long bolt from the lever pivot that runs through the chassis.
Did someone mention the speedo cable? That should be disconnected behind the dash as well as the oil pressure pipe.
There should be eight bolts to hold down the body. Four already mentioned plus two holding the seat belt buckles onto the central chassis box section and finally two bolts just in front of the heater hoses on top of the chassis box section which hold a brackets to the bottom of the dash.
You may have a closing plate under the front which joins between the body nose section and the front bottom edge of thechassis  'T' section. It is held on with small screws.
Hope this helps.
Stu

[BrianC]

For those of you who have removed the body from the frame; How easy should the body separate from the frame. What's been everyone's experience?

[andy harwood]

Mine came away easy - I used a shop crane at the rear, and a floor jack at the front. Raised a bit at the time, while I stacked blocks, and got body high enough to slide a 4x4 under and onto blocks. Repeated until high enough to roll frame out from under.

[BDA]

It's been a long time since I separated mine but I don't remember having any problems. I think I probably used a similar method to Andy and IIRC, I did it by myself.

[EuropaTC]

For those of you who have removed the body from the frame; How easy should the body separate from the frame. What's been everyone's experience?

It's been a while but I like the other guys here, I don't recall it being too difficult. I used 2 trolley jacks and lifted it a few inches at a time, allowing the weight of the chassis to pull itself out of the body.  (once the oil pipe had been removed that is    )

However I lifted the body off a rolling chassis so there was some weight to assist the operation. When I changed the chassis on the Elan I had removed the engine and most of the running gear and that was harder to separate, I remember levering it with crowbars to break the accumulation of rust & dirt holding it in place around the rear turrets.

Brian

[4129R]

I used 2 metal trestles each side at the front, and 2 at the rear (bandstands). Put 4 x 2s across side to side. Put a 4 x 2 in the front where the spare wheel goes side to side. Ditto at the rear about where the petrol tanks are located, and with simple ratchet straps, just pulled the shell off the chassis.

The shell without doors, seats and other easily removable stuff is quite light. I could lift one end on my own. 

[skippopotamus]

Mine did not come off easy.  I used two floor jacks and two 4x4s running front to back under the body from the back of the front fender well to the front of the back fender well.  Once I had some tension lifting on the body I still had to do some gentle prying on both sides of the front T section.

[racurley]

Haven't had any opportunities this week to work on the car.  One of the activities was my son earned his Eagle Scout in boy scouts on Thursday!  And he started an Automotive Technologies program at the local community college and is in the T-Ten program to focus on Toyota.  Unfortunately, they did not offer a focus on Lotus.

We got the gas tanks out last week which had some nasty old gas in them.  I think we have one more good weekend and we'll have everything off necessary to lift the body off.  My wife is not willing to give up the side of the garage occupied by the Mini Cooper so I need to find a location to put the body while we're working on the chassis.  I've got the stuff ready for the rolling platform like was used in the instructional email.  Might need a car cover if I can't get it indoors.

I'll post some other pictures in a bit showing a few things we've been able to do.

What is the inside anatomy of the gas tanks?  I think only the LH one has the level sensor.  Can I take that out and then clean the insides without damaging anything?

[BDA]

Congratulations on your progress! When I had my frame and body separated, I put the body on saw horses above the frame which was on stands until I got it to where it was a roller. Some have made fairly elaborate stands and I think some even hung their body from the ceiling. There are lots of ways to skin that cat so you don't impinge on your wife's garage space.


You are correct, the left hand tank only has the fuel level sender. The right tank has nothing. If you are intent on keeping the steel tanks, I might consider trying to modify them so water can't collect on the tops of them. I would also seal the inside and paint the outside with some good primer and paint. If you can swing it financially, aluminum tanks are a better solution.

[Grumblebuns]

The sender is fairly easy to remove. I would be wary of using a screwdriver or pin punch on the sender tabs for fear of breaking them off. Instead fabricate a sender removal tool using a plastic irrigation/sewer pipe coupler (I believe the diameter is 3", need to measure sending unit diameter to make sure. Cut three slots about 120 degrees apart for the tabs to fit into, per the picture.