Lotus RH suspension mostly done

Last week was the UH Manoa Gamelan concert so no time to work on cars. On balance, Dave Bean shipped my shock and anti-roll bar bushings, so today I had all the big stuff. I still only had three hours today, so if I want the car on the ground in time for All British Car Day I need to take a few days off from work.

Recently I bought new grease to pack the hub bearings, but I still needed gear oil for the trunnions and new zerk fittings, so I stopped at Redline. They had the oil, but no zerk fittings. Why is it always little things are what hold you up?

The guys on the Europa mailing list recommended liquid dish detergent to lube the bushings, so I brought along some. Hard to find plain dish soap! I expected a battle but they went together easily. I gently clamped the bar in the vise and used the jaws to backup the bushing.

While working on the bushings I noticed the angle of the bend at each end was different. Not the little bend, the big one. Probably a side effect of the crash impact. I won't be able to set it straight until the shocks are in place, because I need to know the distance between the bottoms of the shocks where the bar attaches.

I finished assembling the RH upright -- the steering link and backing plate. Greased up the hub bearings and added the hub. Couldn't do the tie-rod because I still don't have the steering rack bellows.

Since I got the new shock I thought I'd spend what little time remained getting out my home-made spring compressor. Made an interesting discovery. I have to compress the spring to even get the top mount point even with the top of the spring, but the nylon strap will not fit between the spring and the mount. Catch-22. That will take some thought.

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Lotus odds and ends

The wheel bearings are done so I am not including this in the series, however I still spent the entire day working on the Lotus. Nothing that warranted a picture, so no new pics today.

The reason I decided to replace the drive shaft u-joints was a broken nipple. I think the grease gun was the culprit. The first order of business today was greasing the four new u-joints. Rather than take any chances I used an odd-looking adapter the shop has. It does not clip to the nipple. Instead, you just press it really hard against the nipple. Sort of like an aircraft style needle fitting only the tip is concave. It did require a lot of pressure, and a lot of grease leaked out, but it worked.

During the time the car has been up on jack stands it leaked some oil onto the floor. Today I checked and it was transmission oil (the smell is the give-away). I still had a fresh quart from when I switched to Redline 70W90, and I was surprised that it took more than half to top off. I need to keep an eye on that. After the oil was in I washed the transaxle, first with solvent, then with a strong batch of POR-15 Marine Clean. Now maybe I can tell where it is leaking. After that I mopped the floor.

With the wet and messy stuff out of the way I could hook up a battery charger. At that point I thought I might be taking the car home at the end of the day, but it had been raining all morning and I hate driving the Lotus in the rain. After lunch it was still raining, more than ever, so I decided to install the LH rear side marker light assembly and get the RH one, which I had already installed, wired into the harness. To get these after market pieces to fit required cutting away some of the brass that forms the receptacle for the ground wire and filing the holes in the body to get more clearance.

There are two more things I really ought to do: fix the rear license plate lights and repair the loose duct tape at the front of the brake line access bay, which runs under the car right down the center. Lotus used some really sticky, wide tape here. Good old duct tape is the best thing that is readily available. I wonder if there is any difference between duct tape, gaffer's tape, and 200 m.p.h. racing tape?

The rain never stopped, so the car is still there. Next week, for sure!