Restoration of 460489

[lotusfanatic]

Hello Rainer,

you are making me feel guilty as you have made a great start on your restoration!
(I am still building/preparing my garage workshop before I can consider starting my restoration project)
I'm particularly impressed by the new Plexiglass windows and the 3D printed fan...

Mark

[lotusfanatic]

JohnMcL

I had overlooked Rainer's restoration post somehow (I was away on holiday) then, having found it, found the link to the Motor Sport report.
I had read this report a while ago but I just had to read it again, which had me smiling as soon as I read the 'oh my goodness! this has put the fun back into motoring' and 'this is going to be a riot' comments!
My admiration for the Europa and the intrepid reporters of the past, has just taken a boost.

Apologies to Rainer for going off track..

Mark 

[Rainer]

Sorry for not posting such a long time.

Work in my shop exploded and left nearly to no time for work on the Europa and even less for creating pictures and posts.
The upside on this is the year was pretty good so I could afford, closing down the whole December and spend at least some weeks on this project.
Finally this month I found some time downloading all pictures to my computer.

I decided to split post more in build groups then in chronological order and hope to do updates more frequently.

The chassis:

I decided to remove the chassis from underneath, mainly because there have been some attempts of this method before. I don't think the chassis was removed before but the tunnel have been re laminated from the underside.

Drilled out all rivets, removed the screws. Then cut around the frame and the front section, and the engine bay back to the axles. After the chassis was lowered I could twist it to the side and removed it out the engine bay.

Rust damage was as I expected, the lower 15 centimeters of the chassis from the front section to the middle were pretty much nonexistent.
Before sandblasting I cut out the remaining lower part of the frame, this way the chassis could be blasted from the inside. And found the original badges of the car in a plastic bag.
20 minutes after sandblasting the chassis already was primed in 2K epoxy primer.

Next part was cutting of the fronts section. I decided to weld the backbone first, I had two sections bend from 1.5mm steel, cut out damaged areas and welded the new profiles in.

The frontbox was a bit more complicated, i removed the lower part completely besides the anchoring point for the suspension. The front side is spotwelded and I had to remove a lot of welds.
The frontside have been bend, the rear side just cut from a sheet. Welded everything together, spotwelded in the original locations. The brackets on both sides have been remade and the lower plate had to be recreated from pictures.

Before the front section was welded back to the frame, i primed everything again, to reach all regions of the frame later not accessible.

When re-welding the front section, i used 1.5m long spindles through the upper suspension points, by measuring the distance of the spindles to the frame i could verify the correct angle of the frontbox.

The holes were cut in, everything primed again. The chassis was the painted white on the inside, this should make visibility a lot better when installing the handbrake.

Last thing to do will be a new rear tube for the gearbox mount, but this will have to wait until engine and gearbox is in for a testfit.

[Nockenwelle]

Good work, Rainer. That looks very professional. The chassis really was in a bad state. The bag with the badges must have been a very pleasant surprise for you. Keep us updated :-)

[BDA]

Very nicely done, Rainer! Rebuilding that frame seems pretty ambitious (I might have bought a new one), but it really came out really good! Congratulations!!

[gideon]

I'm impressed.  It looks like you did enough, but not too much, and I agree that the results looks very professional.

[lotusfanatic]

Hello Rainer,

it's great to see that you've made progress on your car!
Lovely work repairing the original chassis, I bet that you are pleased to have saved the majority of it?
I hope that you don't have any problems with the 'drop out' method of chassis removal? (there's divided opinion on which method is best!)
(I intend to drop the chassis out through the underside of my S1A car too)   

regards,
Mark

[dakazman]

Rainer,
   that was some undertaking and have to say,  nice work. a true craftsman you are. I compare that frame to serge’s and JB’s and they both repair their own. So now you are in that club.👏👏👏

Dakazman

[Rainer]

Thanks,

Finding the emblems was a very happy moment, I never expected them to be in the car.

Indeed I wanted to keep the original frame, and everything above the lower 15 centimeters was in perfect shape.

So far I experienced no problems with the frame removal through the underside. I thought about adding clamping struts in the central part, but i don't think this is necessary.

Just something small for today.
Pedals:

The original ones were rusted solid and the outer tube was rusted through on the underside.

I ordered Steel tube 26x2mm and 20x3,5mm and a bit bronze
Turned the bushings on my lathe and welded the old pedals onto the new tubes. The clutch pedal were made a removable press fit and secured with a roll pin, an idea I borrowed from Serge's very good video on this topic.

The brackets were made from 2,5mm steel i had lying around.
Finally I inserted a grease nipple, to easily grease the inner bushing as bronze is sometimes a bit squeaky when not properly lubricated.

[BDA]

Pretty pedals, Rainer! It's a shame nobody will see them. 

Some have put great fittings in their's. Just a thought.

[Rainer]

Its time to source engine parts, but before i need to know what i already have.

Engine disassembly:

First was setting the engine up in the stand and remove the valve cover.
Besides some dirt and cloth parts it looked clean as new.

Removed the oil plug and there was a foreshadow of things to come, rusty water.

After removing the head things did not look to promising, all cylinders full of water and the camshaft a rusty mess.
Removed the oil pan and things did not look better.

I decided not to turn the engine, if anything could be rescued, turning through the rust would destroy it for sure.
I removed main and rod caps and to my suprise they looked pretty good, new bearings, no scratches.
After lifting the crankshaft out i measured the journals, all are factory spec, maybe a polish will be enough, worst case would be grinding to first undersize. Even the bearing shells are perfect.

Next step was removing the liners, the pistons are stuck but the rods are free to move. The sealing surface in the block is perfect.

So i decided if i will keep the block the cam have to come out without turning it.
I split the camgear and cam to release the pressure, this way the gear was easy to pull of.
Removed the oilpump drive and sprayed the cam with lots of rust remover, using very carefull heat from the welding torch, the camshaft loosened.
I was able to get it out without scratching the bearing surfaces.
So what looked like a complete writeoff at first, seems to be a decent block.

I filled the liners with rust remover and pressed one piston out with the workshop presspress, lucky me 21mm floating pins in the rods.
Can someone identify the piston its 79mm with just two small slopes?

Decided to check the head, looks pretty good. 42/35 valves 93,5mm head height, and the sealing surface like new. Double valve springs i do not know if these are stock. Followers only show minimal wear but will get refurbished anyway.

The engine was rebuild and never run, i guess the assembly lube on all parts rescued it, it was still in the bearing shells and followers.

After i know what i have i need to source the right parts, so i need your help.

The goal is 140HP street driveable

- Pistons, i would like to get the compression ratio to 10.5 do anyone know a supplier (what compression did the A310 4 cylinder use i can't find data on this subject?)
- Liners are available
- Camshaft profile, i do not have an idea, i have a second cam for a regrind, but billet ones are also available.
- Intake 40 Dellortos
- Exhaust i will do my own

Any suggestions are very welcome.

Regards Rainer

[BDA]

That is a mess! Hopefully some of the rust will not be too deep to buff out.

Good luck!

[jbcollier]

Salv Sacco out of the UK is a noted Renault crossflow engine builder/parts supplier.  I had him regrind my cam to a "fat" street grind (emphasis on torque) as I wanted an engine that was pleasurably street-able.  I'm very happy with the results.  He also steered me to pistons and supplied intake manifolds.

Mecaparts is the gold standard for all things performance Renault Alpine.  They can supply the pistons you're after and also offer options up to 1800cc.

I'm running 40 Dells and can share my set-up.  Bear in mind that the Renault Alpines ran 45s.

You can find Alpine engine specs here;

http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=1429.msg12764#msg12764

[Rainer]

The last year did not developed as planed, i became a house owner and had to build an extension and renovate one floor completely.
But the disaster struck, two discs slipped in my spine, probably due to work i am not used too and i was not able to even sit for more than 10 minutes in front of a computer and it took 9 months until could work again as before.
This delayed any progress on the Europa.
in this time i was only able to order parts from Salv Sacco which i can highly recommend, a real pleasure to deal with, he supplied cam, lifters, pistons and manifolds.
In October i was able to complete a few smaller projects, instruments are done and i printed new speedo gears.
The car came without keys, so i picked the doorlocks, created a 3d model from a blank, disassembled the locks measured the height of the discs and was able to recreate a key from this data. Which then could be copied to a blank again.

The 3d model for the speedo gear are available at thingiverse, more things will soon
https://www.thingiverse.com/capri2600/designs

Regards

[TurboFource]

Glad you are well enough to work on it again!