3780R Resto - Engine Restart

[DManglano]

Sorry for the delayed response.
Took the alternator to shop that rebuilds them.  He confirmed that it's shot.  Unfortunately he cannot rebuild because he can't get the parts.  Putting the alternator on the back burner.

Used the test light.  Good light at the battery.  Good light at the ground to the chassis.  Can't find the ground from the engine block to chassis.  Good light at the starter solenoid.  Good light at the brown wire attaching to the ammeter.  No light at the brown/white wire from the ammeter.  No light at the ignition switch.  I guess that confirms I need a new ammeter or to get it rebuilt.

The Lucas part number is 36426B.  Have seen a similar 30 amp ammeter made by Smith.  Not sure if it would be a replacement.  Anyone know?

In the meantime, can I connect the brown at the ammeter to the brown/white wire without frying anything else.  That should at least get me power to the ignition switch, starter, etc... and I can at least keep working to an engine restart.   Thanks,

[jbcollier]

Yes, you can connect the brown (N) and brown/white (NW) wires together, no problem.

Any ammeter can be used.  The original was Lucas though the rest of the gauges were Smith.  Knowing Chapman, the Lucas version was cheaper.

[EuropaTC]

Any ammeter can be used.  The original was Lucas though the rest of the gauges were Smith.  Knowing Chapman, the Lucas version was cheaper.

   now here's a bit of either "off topic trivia" or internet myth.

It always puzzled me why we had one Lucas gauge and the rest Smith so a few years ago I decided to find a period Smith's ammeter in the same font to match up the set. I couldn't find one but picked up that back in the olden days of the British motor industry Smith & Lucas were the two big players for automotive electricals and carved up the market between themselves.

Smiths did the instrumentation but no doubt in some back-room deal they decided that because Lucas did the charging systems they would also provide the ammeters as part of that circuit. Hence we got Lucas Ammeters but Smiths Voltmeters.   You can find Smith's ammeters these days but they aren't exactly the same as the instruments used in our cars, but after finding that little gem I decided to leave mine the same anyway !

[DManglano]

Ok, so hot wiring the car got me power.  Still did not achieve a start.  But the positives are that the fuel pump is working.  Cool that you can see it pump through the glass bowel.  Also due to endless cranking the oil pressure gauge showed pressure. That's a big thumbs up.  Did almost get the engine to fire once or twice, with a big back fire that blew the exhaust pipe from it connects to the muffler.  So I figure with all the fiddling done to the distributor it is way out of time.  Getting a timing gun but the manual isn't clear on the timing.  Should I be timing the engine so that spark plug 1 is at TDC at idle (cranking in this case)?  Another timing tidbits are of course welcome.

[EuropaTC]

If you suspect the timing is so far out that the car won't start then I would set the static timing first and see what that brings. Mine is 12 deg BTDC, if you are on Stromberg carbs then I think that's 5 deg but check your manual.

You can set that very crudely with a test bulb bulb between the coil terminal to the distributor and earth which will be good enough to start the engine and then you can move on to the timing light. It will be easier than trying to adjust using a timing light while you're cranking the engine.

Brian

[BDA]

Brian is correct - for Stromberg cars, the ignition is 5 BTDC static, for Dellorto cars it is 12 BTDC static. If you're not familiar with static timimg, here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpp67aqwM2Y

[DManglano]

Happy to announce that she is running.  Have to give credit to Dan Smith who I meet at a meeting of my local Lotus club - Lotus Corps  www.lotuscorps.org.  Turns out Dan lives 10 minutes away and was willing to take a look at the car.  Next thing I know we are check compression, ignition, spark plugs, firing order, fuel pump, breaker gap on the distributor, etc…  Not finding anything out of sort we decide to try and start her.  Dan quickly finds that one of the dash pots doesn’t want to go up, and when you force it up it stays up.  On the other carb gas is leaking out of float bowl.  So off come the carbs, only to find out that the o-rings have split and allowing a lot of extra air into the fuel mixture.  Time to rebuild the carbs.  Dan takes them home so that they can soak in carb cleaner while we wait for the carb kits to come in from R&D Engineering.  Following weekend we rebuilt the carbs.  Interesting to note that the original diaphragms, needles, floats were all in working order.  Even before Dan put them in carb cleaner he said the bowl and other internal parts were extremely clean.  Put them back on and turned the key.  She still wouldn't start.  So the next thing was to make sure the distributor is in the right position for 5 degrees BTDC.  The other important point was to make sure we were also on the compression stroke.  Little trick Dan told me is to open the oil cap and look at the cam lobe.  The cam lobe should be point towards the outside of the car.  However on this car at BTDC the visible lobe was pointing up or down.  Can’t remember, put certainly not out.  This was very odd and it led Dan to think that we were not at TDC.  So we took a long wooden rod and placed it in cylinder 1.  Rotated the rear wheel and could see that when the marking on the flywheel showed TDC the rod was at its lowest point.  When I rotated the rear wheel and moved the rod to its highest point there were no markings on the fly wheel to indicate TDC.  After a lot of scratching I remember that many years ago the engine did come out after a bad valve job almost destroyed the engine.  Best we can figure is that whoever rebuilt the engine put the flywheel back in the wrong position.  Crossing our fingers we marked the new TDC on the flywheel and rotated around to 5 degrees BTDC.  Made sure everything else was were it was supposed to be, hit the key and after a few turns she fired.  Had to give it a few more tries until there was clear flow of gas to the carbs but then she ran at idle and actually sounds rather smooth at higher revs.  Dan says we still have some fine tuning but I’m just happy we got her running.  Could not have done it without Dan.  Wish I could post a video so you could hear her.  Sounds pretty good after 20 years.

Well, I guess this means I’m onto the next phase.  With someone like Dan, a local Lotus club and an online Europa community I’m confident that she will be heading down the road soon.

[BDA]

I'm glad you got her running! Since most cars are timed on the crankshaft dampener or pulley so it's not surprising that someone would not think about the fact that the TC is timed from the flywheel.. Having the flywheel installed incorrectly is certainly not optimum and might be worth indexing it correctly. I doubt that you can determine TDC very accurately just by watching a dowel in cylinder #1 and 5 degrees BTDC would be difficult to gauge too. Having the flywheel installed properly would be very useful.

[pboedker]

The crankshaft pulley on the front of the motor can only be assembled one way and it will tell you if the flywheel has been positioned correctly or not. Just turn the engine until the flywheel shows 0 degrees and then go check the notch on the front pulley. It will be either perfectly next to its own 0 degree mark on the engine, or 180 degrees to the opposite side or 'somewhere in between' (60/120 degrees off to either side).

If this shows you that the flywheel is 180 degrees wrong, you can still use it for timing the engine, just hook up your strobe light to cylinder 2 or 3. This will be more precise than using the wooden rod to mark the flywheel zero. 

I was not so lucky, as it turns out that my flywheel has been assembled 120 degrees wrong long time ago...

[Bainford]

I'm glad to hear you got your Lotus running. A mis-indexed flywheel is a curious problem, but once discovered is easily dealt with. It must be great to finally hear the Twin Cam making noise.

[DManglano]

At some point I expect that I'll have to separate the trans from the engine.  I can the position the flywheel so that it is correctly indicating TDC.  Interesting to note that the fly wheel has markings for 30, 20, 10 degrees BTDC but not 5.

[BDA]

That is a bit surprising. Re-indexing the flywheel would give you a chance to have the 5° BTDC mark added to your flywheel. Maybe somebody here can convert the 5° BTDC static with timing at idle or at some specific rpm. Maybe one of those marks coincide with that.

[DManglano]

Here’s a You Tube link if you’d like to see the engine running.
https://youtu.be/tZk1aQkZFvw
You may have to copy and paste into you search bar.

[DManglano]

So just finished doing some more tuning on the engine and balancing the carbs.  One interesting discovery was what was keeping one of the dashpots from moving freely.  It was hard to lift it up and then it would very slowly come down.  It turned out to be one of the dampers.  At the end of the damper rod is a c clip thatt holds a spacer/roller.  Above the spacer/rollers is a washer that has a flat side and a beveled side.  Turns out that this washer was installed incorrectly.  Once we flipped it into the right position it must have allowed the oil to pass through.

Okay.  Now for the big question.  I thought my next step would be to remove the body and inspect the chassis to make sure it is still structurally sound, blast it of any rust and paint with a rust inhibitor.  My new friend who helped me get her running does not agree.  I'd like to hear from the group.  Remeber, I'm not trying for a showroom restoration, just looking to get her road worthy and safe.

[jbcollier]

Get underneath and poke the bottom of the chassis hard with an ice pick.  If it's solid, no need to take it apart but do spray the inside of the chassis with a non-hardening rust inhibitor.