In fairness, the PO of 3291R didn't do anything during the 3 years he owned her...except bring to a couple shops north of Boston to attempt to get it going, and finally admitted he was in over his head about the car, which, after calling around to other lotus owners he knew after I expressed my interest, he was willing to sell her to me (I guess I have a reputation in the Europa world...lol). But, before him? 70% of my time thus far has been backing out the bodges and hacks that others (whether they're "D"POs or just POs is left as an exercise) performed in a misguided attempt to get her running properly.

For instance...the common belief that you start at the rear to bleed brakes...unless you think about it and realize that the furthest cylinder in the fedspec TCS is actually the one closest to the MC because of the spaghetti routing of the piping...you will never evacuate the system. But, a couple minutes spent looking at the parts diagram will tell the whole story. In fairness, a production shop will not have (or not want to) the time to research...time is $$$, and no one wants to spend (or charge if they're honest) more than they need to in order to get the thing out the door and roll in the next patient. It's up to us that have an intimacy with the Europa formula to set it straight.

I'm at the stage now where I know 1) age and probably leaks have roached the clutch (it's either on or off, and very little, if no, 'mid point'), so, time to pull the trans and rectify (along with prophylactic replacement of the rear seal) with fresh plate, pressure, throwout, return spring (iI installed a new cable yesterday...no difference in the actuation...figure a head-down weekend should do it...2) 'While I'm in the area'...with the tranny out, pull the lump and attend to the multitude of leaks from aged gaskets and seals and refresh the head (I made a virtual handshake deal with someone who listed one in the for sale section...no $ changed hands yet, still waiting to hear back...)...and clean out the years of accumulated schmutz in the engine compartment and put it all back together...I like a clean engine room.

If it's not one thing, it's a dozen others, right?

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