STARTING A RESTORATION

[mrwierdwrench]

After 30 years of ownership, I'm finally going to start restoration of my 74 TCS #3733R,at the same time I'm going to try and reassemble #3857R that i purchased 2 years ago. I'm sure i'll be here alot to ask for help, suggestions,sources, etc; and hopefull to provide the same if possible! any way I'm going to start the process with a ?, what is the approx. weight of the body work of a TC Europa? The first thing I'm planning on doing is seperating the body from the backbone to make sure there is no rust or damage, powdercoat, and then refresh/replace the suspension. If the body is light enough I'm going to build a "shelf" to stack one body above the other so I can work on both chassis' at once!Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions, and i'll be posting pictures as the project develops!

[thruthefence]

If you haven't joined the Yahoo Europa group, you should check it out. Also, another huge resource is Lotus Europa Central:

Lotus Europa Central -- Home Page

[dwkoski]

If the body is COMPLETELY stripped, two men can easily lift it and move it around. As I remember it was under 200# with the doors off. Every thing you leave attached adds to the weight. See my previous post on a thread about S2 restoration a couple of days ago. Take your time disassembling and measure the length, size and thread pitch of EVERY bolt you remove and log them carefully. Europa uses SAE AND Metric fasteners so keep everything organized. when the body is off the frame, it should be stripped to bare glass, preferabley by plastic bead blasting, You won't believe how many voids, air pockets and cracks you will find as the original bodies were not that well made. Assuming you are doing a correct and quality restoration, you need to grind out and fill all the voids and then apply a new coat of gelcoat. Then comes all the block sanding, priming, sading, repriming...until it's right. Be sure you remove ALL the window glass before stripping. The frame should be inspected and if it is seriously corroded, new ones are available from the UK. If not the suspension can be disassembled (frone A arm bolts may require heat from a torch). Sand blast and epoxy or powder coat (I prefer epoxy but that's just me.) Same with suspension components and replace all bushings. Engine and trans rebuild probably contact out (although relatively straightforward if you have engine building experience.) Same with interior. I did mine 13 years ago, did almost all of the work myself, started with a car in very good original condition and still had 12 grand in parts and services in it...be warned...Dave

[tmr]

See Peter Egan's column Side Glances in the May, 2009 edition of Road & Track, entitled The Eight Stages of Restoration:

RoadandTrack.com -- Side Glances - Side Glances (5/2009)

Funny, but true.