Well, things went pretty fast, and I am almost unexpectedly finding myself the proud owner of a very Vintage looking Super 7. As I said in the previous post, it is not a "real" pre 1972 Lotus, but rather what is known as a "PreLit" Westfield, a 1986 kit that was finished up in the early 90's.
PreLit refers to the litigation that took place in the late 80's when Caterham threatened to sue Westfield for making kits too close to the original Lotus design, and won. PeLit Westfields are almost identical to the original, with aluminum body and hood. Post Lit Westfield are covered in fiberglass, and for a "plastic hater" like me, that was a big deal. Even better, the body was never painted.
The original car had a 1340cc Ford engine. This one has a 2 Liter Toyota with a 5 speed transmission.
I rode the car all the way from North Carolina in one day, and that was a little rough, but really not that bad. We stopped in Asheville for lunch, and sneaked it into Biltmore Estate to shoot some pictures:
The car is a perfect fit for me: 6ft, 180lbs, size 34 waist, size 10 shoes. Shorter people will have a hard time reaching the closely spaced tiny pedals, taller people will be cramped, and bigger feet will hit two pedals together.
It is very easy to drive, at least for people used to stick shift. The wheel is tiny, but yet easy to turn, the steering is very precise, the shifting smooth, the car almost perfectly balanced , with easily handled oversteering.There is no real need for double clutching, but I do it anyway because it sounds good...
It corners like a demon, especially since I replaced the old dried up Yokohama tires with a set of much stickier Uniroyals. I put semi synthetic oil in the motor to flush out whatever was in there, and will go to the best full synthetic next week.
It's a blast!
Well, I was doing research on the Lotus a couple of days ago, and ran across this car for sale in Charlotte, which is a mighty tempting toy:
I have talked to my friend Landers, and to people at the Barber Museum, and things look pretty good, especially if I can get the price down. It is not actually a full blooded Lotus, but a Winfield kit that was started in 83, sold around 1990, and finished by a father/son team in the 90's. But unlike later Winsfields, it has the aluminum body like the Caterhams, which I much prefer to fiberglass.
This is an issue that was left undecided when I last posted, but months have gone by while I was finishing the Requiem Projections, and I have now made up my mind. I like the car to look old, but I also want it to be drivable, so I want it to have a Lotus Type Double Wishbone front suspension. The issue now is whether to build it, use a kit:
or a whole front end including Rack and pinion steering:
Landers came by on Saturday and helped me figure out how to take some stuff apart I was afraid to break if I pulled on it too hard. Most everything is held with 10 mm nuts.
He helped me disconnect and unravel the wiring harness, and take it off.
Today, I took the throttle and choke cables off the handlebars, drained the radiator, and took it off the bike.
I proceeded to cut the two tubes of the front frame just above the engine mount. I used a 6" counter rotating saw with carbide tips for most of the cut, and finished with a reciprocating saw:
I then cut most of the air intake tube built into the top of the frame:
I will need help to finish the cut so the front end doesn't just fall over.
Next will be the cut of the lower right part of the frame, leaving the rear brake bracket attached to the rear end and the engine bracket attached to the front frame:
Removing the top rear engine bolt should let the back end come loose with the gear drive separating from the transmission at the U-Joint:
I finally figured out how to wiggle a wrench in the really tight spots and managed to take off the whole muffler system, the battery holder. I will need to take the rear wheel off to take out the air box.
Anyhow, I am beginning to get a better view of the frame, and thinking of the right places to cut it to separate the V Twin unit
from the rear wheel swing arm unit
Here is a revised left view mock up of a possible Chassis Assembly:
Landers delivered my new bike right to my workshop so I could keep my promise not to ride bikes again. I had moved the stage set stuff to another location to make room for it, but I still have to clean up the benches and reorganize the space to work properly on the built.
I started stripping it yesterday morning even though the workshop is still a mess. Not so easy for an old man with arthritis. I couldn’t lift the darn thing up on my hydraulic lift because of the way the bottom is configured, and the ground is much lower than it used to be. Left hand can pick up a wench, but can’t do much more. I can already tell it’s gonna be a laborious and tiring project...
Everything is packed so tight my basic wrenches can’t reach some bolts, like those holding the exhaust pipes and the transmission cover. Part of the frame is actually used as the air intake.
I really need some expert advice(Landers') on how to proceed.
I would like to re use as much of the frame as possible, and design the chassis so I can:
1. Leave the engine attached to the bike frame and weld the front half of it into the front end of the chassis
2. Weld the back half of the bike frame onto the back end of the chassis.
So it is critical to cut the frame in exactly the right places, and I need to look at it and talk about it with Landers.
Now, assuming I go with the idea of using the Honda as a donor, what kind of chassis do I want to use?
The original Morgan 3 Wheeler actually used a very simple tubular backbone design:
That was used again in the Tatras, and in a much beefier version by Colin Chapman for the Lotus Elan:
I like the simplicity of the design.
The old fashion option is of course a ladder design like the Bugatti 35, which also means an old fashion rigid front end and leaf springs:
The back end would be simplified and just follow the shape of the body, while a strong cross member and braces would be needed to attach the swing arm.
The third option, which offers more rigidity, is a tubular space frame like the Lotus 7, with the back adapted to attach the single wheel swing arm:
The mockup might then look something like that:
