Picture please

[cal44]

I am doing some fiberglass repair and if someone post one or two pix of the area inside the engine compartment just above the muffler on a  twin cam Europa.  I would like to make sure the body work hasn't been goofed with.

A little side note.  If you are doing any fiberglass repair, remove all paint and dirt.  I use extra coarse sand paper and get into virgin layup.  Without giving it a good scratch the new resin has nothing to bite on to.  I am fixing a few places where it looks as though the guy used chewing tobacco and glass cloth.....over paint.........I'm happy it was just some small spots under the rear of the car.  Don't forget a gel coat.

Mike

[EuropaTC]

I don't know if this is the area you're talking about Mike, if not post a shot of the area on your car & I'll take more.

I don't know if the cut-out directly above the exit pipe is genuine or not. I suspect it is, or at least a dealer mod because the edges are very neatly cut and it's a difficult region to cut neatly with everything in place. No idea why it's there other than maybe the heat from the pipe caused the paint to blister if the car was stuck in a traffic jam for any length of time ?

Above all this is the luggage tray, and mine has a stainless sheet bolted to it with spacers and an air gap.

Brian

[cal44]

Brian,

Perfect.........that will do er'.

Mike

[pboedker]

Funny, my '73 Special doesn't have this cutout. Just a very regular formed 'tunnel' for the exhaust pipe. 

[EuropaTC]

Funny, my '73 Special doesn't have this cutout. Just a very regular formed 'tunnel' for the exhaust pipe. 

    

Lotuses.....    every one a little bit different,  don't ya just love 'em ? 

As I said Peter,  I've no idea if it's OEM or not, it's always been there and I've had the car for 25yrs of it's 40yr life, with only one other owner.  Apart from adding cosmic alloys he didn't even fit speakers to the door panels (the radio was loose in the glove box with a horrible boxed speaker above it)  hence me thinking he didn't do it. 

Maybe it was put in when the stainless exhaust box was fitted as that's clearly a one-off thing, or perhaps the two drain holes blocked and collected a couple of gallons of water in the rear valence and this was a solution, heck I can't even make a sensible guess.

But it is very neat, with perfectly rounded corners and properly finished off.

My last guess - I wonder if the exhausts burned the paint on the first TC's, the quick fix was "cut a hole in it" followed later by "alter the molding to give a bit more clearance like a proper designer would do" ?  It seems Chapman-esque enough to be real, although I bet whoever added more fibreglass later got the sack !