Time to Get Gooey. The window frame is held onto the door with two small self-tapping screws and lots of really gooey black tar type adhesive. Of course I didn't really know this at first so I didn't put on any rubber gloves. I took out my utility knife and started cutting away at the goop. Then I started scraping it with a screwdriver. Finally I got out the big putty knife and scraped out enough so I could pry out the window frame. Even though the glue was 32 years old, it was a gooey mess. I scraped off the excess and then used some paint thinner and rags to clean up what was left.
Since my hands were pretty goopy, I decided to attack the windshield which was also held in with the same goopy glue. They used so much goop on the windshield that I could scrape up a big wad of it at a time and fling it into the garbage can. Only it was so goopy that it didn't want to come off my hand. I'd take it off one hand with the other and then it would get stuck to that hand. It was like one of those old Three Stooges routines (no Curly references please!). I had to reach into the garbage can and find some old paper to grab the goop to get it off my hand. Yuck! Couple this with the fact that it was 85 degrees in the garage and I was sweating pretty profusely. It's a challenge to wipe the sweat off your forehead (or in my case, a fivehead) with the only part of you that is not covered with sticky goo; which are your elbows. It took about 45 minutes of scraping and working on the windshield to get it out. After that it took another half hour of cleaning to get the windshield clean enough to grab and put up in the garage attic. My hands looked like I had just sealed an asphalt driveway with my hare hands. Even after soaking and wiping them down with lacquer thinner, they were still a mess. Oh, and that automotive lacquer thinner lets you know if you have any open sores!
Next trip to the garage was spent cleaning the goop off the area on the body that the windshield had set in. The rubber strip that held the inside interior in place had so much black goop in it that it hung down like it was held by black spider webs. The rubber door seals also had the goop all over them. This goop was so sticky that you couldn't really scrape it off. The scraper would just smear it and get stuck on the scrapper. Lot's of lacquer thinner with paper towels and old rags were used here. You know the routine. For the first swipes you reach into the garbage can and grab some already pretty dirty rags or paper towels or used Kleenex, soak them in lacquer thinner and use them first to knock down the big chunks. Then you use the "not as dirty" paper towels or rags soaked in lacquer thinner. There are different stages of dirt and grease depending on the job at hand. Just like clothes. You have your regular good clothes. When you wear those you should not even walk towards the workbench or project car. Dirt just jumps off the workbench onto your belly. Your wife will say, "What's that?" and you'll say "what's what?", because you can't see it around the bend of your belly. Also known as Over The Hill! Next level down from your clean clothes is the different level of grubbies. First level is what you wear when you wash the car, mow the lawn and do light garage and project car restoration work. Then you have your super grubbies that you use when you are going to de-grease an engine, do a brake job, re-pack wheel hearings or greet your mother-in-law. The problem with the grubbies is that your significant other always seems to want to throw them out rather than wash them. So you are left standing in front of your dresser in your undies, wondering what clothes need to graduate to the next level of dirt. This is just an evil plot by the significant other to get you to go out and buy new clothes. Being a male, you'd much rather spend your hard earned cash on some new (or used) Lotus parts or at least a case of beer. You only go get new clothes when you run out of old clothes to wear because the significant other has tossed them out and you have unwittingly put them out on the curb with the trash. If you've been married a while, the wife even learns that she has to hide the old clothes at the bottom of the garbage can. If she puts them near the top, the male will sniff them out and take them back in the house, immediately put them on and exclaim, "how could you throw out my favorite sweatshirt?"
So anyway, I got all the black goop cleaned up and after scrubbing my hands with lacquer thinner and orange goop hand cleaner I had most of the big chunks cleaned off. It just looked like I had black eyeliner on my fingernails for a week. That and the skin on my hands where white from the lacquer thinner drying them out.
Next up, or off so to speak, were the seats. On an Elan, you simply unbolt the two front bolts that hold the hinges in place. The big meaty bolts are screwed into bobbins that are glassed into the floor. Look underneath an Elan and you can see the bobbins. You can also tilt the Elan seat forward. Europas however are different. There are two sliding seat rails screwed into the seat and the mating part of the seat rails are screwed into hidden bobbins in the floor. The bottom of a Europa is smooth with no screws or bobbin heads sticking out. The problem here is that you cannot really get at the screws with the seat in its normal position. There are two bolts in the front and two in the rear. The theory here is that you release the slider latch and slide the seat all the way forward and when the top of the seat just about reaches the windshield area, the whole seat lifts out. This is fine on a car that has been used regularly. The problem arises when the seat gets rusted in place, as was the case here. Rusted real bad. Couldn't move them. Couldn't get at the screws. What to do? I opened up a "thinking" beer and spent some time poking, prying, hanging and thumping, but to no avail. I had a big crowbar, a small crowbar, a regular hammer, a small sledgehammer, a slide hammer, screw drivers - nothing was budging the seat. During the course of all this as I was sweating profusely all over the place. I had the trouble light on the interior floor with the top of my head squished down on the floor and my sweaty forehead smashed against the seat cushion to get a close up look at the rust to see if I could see what to do. I then realized that a lot of stinky sweaty butts and crotches had sat on that old rotten seat over the last 32 years. I placed an old t-shirt/rag on the seat to keep those old stinky butt cooties off of me.
I managed to get one of the front bolts unscrewed by jamming a screwdriver in the seat rail against the bolt head and unscrewing the nut. The other side wouldn't budge but the rusty seat rail began to split so I just ripped that corner off. The two back bolts were inaccessible but now the seat wiggled at least a little bit on one side. I took the 4-foot handle from my floor jack and pried on the seat hack and got a little more wiggle. After about 30 minutes more of wiggling, twisting, thumping and sweating, the seat finally slid forward and I pulled it out. Tucked in the back of the rotted carpet I found the remains of a mouse nest and some chewed up acorns. At least there was no evidence of the deceased resident rodents. That seat was on the Passenger side, which was the easier one.
The driver's side rails were really stuffed full of rotted carpetmung. I had a hard time even jamming a screwdriver into the rails. I ended up just ripping both front bolts out. It split the rails. I'll either have to find new ones or do some welding work here. The seat still would not budge. No amount of prying, twisting or banging would give me the slightest sign of a wiggle. I ended up pulling off the vinyl and pulling apart the seat to get access at the two remaining nuts. Now I couldn't get even a finger underneath to the bolt head, but now I could at least get at the corresponding nut. I decided to try and tighten instead of loosen to see if I could break the bolts rather than unscrew them. They were fine thread and pretty good grade, so the air gun wouldn't break them. I put a long pipe on my breaker bar and after a turn and a half of really tough pushing, one snapped off. Surprisingly, I did not mash my knuckles on anything! The other nut/bolt wouldn't succumb to the tightening strategy, it just spun. So I managed to fit the air cut off tool in there and cut the bolt into pieces until it all came off. I had to keep the sparks under control as the old seat and carpet were as close to spontaneous combustion kindling as you can get. Finally, after about 4 hours of heating, hanging, prying, twisting, cutting, tearing, swearing, sweating and bleeding, both seats were sitting on to the floor of my garage, their rusty undersides and rotting foam exposed for the first time in 32 years.
I went in the house and cleaned up in the slop sink (excuse me, my significant other prefers that I call that the laundry tub) before I got into the bathtub. As I was striping down for the tub, my wife came in and remarked - what happened? She pointed to my knees, which were beet red from my kneeling on the throw rug in the garage (my garage rug is also known as the Polish creeper). I guess red knees are just a normal by-product of all the kneeling and praying that takes place when working on an old British car.
Next - Europa Euphoria, Part 4
