Lola SL142/20 Restoration

[Reto Kuprecht]

The chassis is back from the paint shop and I am very pleased with the result. It's a 2K paint, RAL 7040, over a primer on the sandblasted chassis. Looks very much like powdercoat, but isn't. If I need to make changes I can take this paint off much more easily than powdercoat. I look forward to the (re-)assembly of the car

[911hillclimber]

Looks a superb result.
Really liking your restoration, makes my 'rattle-can black' effort seem a bit second grade!
Graham, from England.

ps: know someone over here doing a car like yours, but a little younger i think

[Reto Kuprecht]

Thanks Graham. Rattle-can black in the right places is perfectly OK though
Best regards, Reto

[Reto Kuprecht]

We didn't really know where to start and decided on the fuel tanks. Before mounting them we cleaned them and cut and inserted anti-slosh foam. I was glad I had friends Peter and Peter helping me:



Before bolting the tanks to the chassis I had to attach and test the belts. My idea to anchor them via a loop system seems to work well. It saves space in the very tight confines of seat and chassis, and makes adjustment easy. And there is no way they can pull out:



Both fuel cells mounted, filler tube connected, looking good. I'll continue with the fuel system, including the fuel pump.

[Rhino]

Top Notch Reto! Looking good
Reinhold

[Reto Kuprecht]

Thanks for your much needed moral support Reinhold But it's getting better now indeed, I see more progress from each session now. Will you do another of your great videos?

As planned, I continued with the fuel system - header tank, vent lines, and installed the fuel pump (with a good electrical ground):



After this, I decided to tackle the pedal box. I had to do some minor fitting on the pedals, determine the zero position of the pedals, and bolted the unit in:



Also fitted the access panels and installed the dzus springs. This is how it looks with everything closed. The openings in the main panel are for the anti-roll bar:

[Rhino]

I have mock assembled my car for show purposes and it is back in its original livery; however, the engine is still in limbo
I should have the engine back some time this week hopefully Then I can Rock and roll on my videos once again Reto.
You can see the finished paint project on the chassis registry under T-190 on the heritage web site.
Gerald did a fine job putting it together for me

[Reto Kuprecht]

Yes, Reinhold, I saw the pics of the assembled car - it looks abolutely stunning and I hope you'll get the engine right too. My engine has been running on the dyno. But this is now more than two years ago - so I don't know whether and how it will run in the car
Here's the progress I made in last Saturdays session. Steering rack and shaft bolted in. Hydraulic lines installed (brakes and clutch), battery, main disconnect and main ground bolted in, and starter cable and external battery plug installed. Here are the pics:

[Reto Kuprecht]

More cables, wires - looks like creating a big mess. But it does have a system. All professional electricians please look away Starting with what I wanted the whole thing to do and keeping things as simple as possible, my father put it on paper and made it into a wiring schematic:



I am trying to be particularly careful with proper grounding everywhere and follow the principles I have applied earlier on aircraft - which should be OK for the road as well

Wiring still loose behind the panel:



The loose ends in the rear:

[Reto Kuprecht]

The wiring went quicker than I thought - all connected and tidy now



One add-on on the panel is an aircraft type circuit breaker (instead of the flimsy fuses). Heavier of course, but much more reliable and, they can be reset:



The "plus" terminal bar, for which I should probably make a cover or something to prevent shortages:



The left hand fuel tank. From left to right: Air vent/valve, header tank vent, fuel pump return, fuel level sensor:

[Reto Kuprecht]

This is the setup I thought out to test the tanks and the fuel pump. Doing this I realized there was a small leak in one of the lower connections. So I pumped the first cannister of fuel out again - with the fuel pump. And that worked perfectly. But now I have to look at this connection. Might be that the AN bung got distorted from welding. I'll find out.

[Reto Kuprecht]

The AN connection is tight now with the help of a SECO seal. I filled the fuel system again and everything is tight .

Next thing I did was to finish the oil lines from the engine to the filter and cooler. I had them already, but made them ready for installation now. The rubber hose is clamped, and the fire sleeve goes over everything. Then the ends of the fire sleeves are sealed with silicone tape:





Another issue was the engine starter. I knew I really wanted to have it perfectly right BEFORE dropping the engine into the car. However, it took me a while to find out that the starter gear does NOT have to retract when the engine doesn't start. So I shimmed the starter more and more, trying to get it to retract, to no avail of course . Until I found the relevant info on the net, explaining that reduction gear starters only retract when the engine starts. With that I took all the shims out again and adjusted the gear backlash to the recommended value. I was also concerned to turn over the motor "dry" - but I had to test the starter, but also to install and do final adjustments to the ignition/distributor. So I lubricated the cylinders through the spark plug holes as good as I could and went ahead. Here's the starter test setup:



I am very good at procrastinating certain things and the radiator vents on the nose were among these. You remember, the initial plan was to cut openings into the nose piece and glue in flaps. But I wanted a system which could be changed and adapted more easily - and if possible without the use of duct tape . So, again, I choose the more time consuming version, which are metal covers, set into the nose piece, into which I can cut openings/vents as needed. Here's the cardboard template and first aluminum cover cut and drilled:



There is a slight curvature on the nose piece and I had to bend the covers into shape with my trusty little roller bender:



The covers bent, drilled, and taped to the nose piece to transfer the mounting holes. To be continued.

[Reto Kuprecht]

The nose piece is cut and the openings ground to accept the aluminum covers:



Right cover test fitted, nicely recessed into the nose piece. I will leave them bare for the first tests to see how water temps develop, and make openings into them as needed. When they are painted I think they'll blend in well with the fibreglass piece.



The instrument panel is pretty much finished, including a small panel with the battery master symbol and the shift pattern of the LG500 box:

[Reto Kuprecht]

Some might think this is overkill - but I really wanted all the options to control water temps. Besides the top vent option I already cut the openings for, flaps can be added to the side outlets to improve radiator venting. Here's a pic of the blind nuts glassed in (at the right places ) to attach aluminium flaps:



And here is a view of such a flap in its raw form yet:



This is how it looks from the outside, with nicely faired-in side outlet. This gives me the option of playing with flaps of different sizes, or none at all of course.

[Reto Kuprecht]

This is the final fitting of the fibreglass body parts. This again took more time than I had anticipated - of course this was "self inflicted" because of the vent and flap options I wanted to add
The pieces will be taken off now and put away until I can bring them to a specialized painter nearby. The colour scheme is clear: A broken white overall with the trademark Sidney Taylor green stripe on the nose. The problem with this livery was that the car crashed and was done with red stripes later in the year, and with different lettering and number too So it took me quite a while to make sure I was right with the early 1969 scheme I wanted. In the Nostalgia Forum in http://www.autosport.com I found the answers - here's the link to that lengthy discussion, eventually involving the man himself:

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s ... try4227764