Travails of An All-Aluminum Lotus 7 Replica

 

Winter mode; a time for projects, cursing, freezing rain, cursing,
mistakes, broken knuckles and (did I mention?) cursing.

A series of “hold-my-beer” activities had me working continuously on the Lotus 7 (replica).  Previously, I mentioned that I’d built a top and doors. 
Now, it was time to make the foreboding aluminum nose cone. Internet forums said building an aluminum nose cone required hundreds of labor hours, if you had access
to an English wheel and an aluminum welder; I had neither.

I started by making a paper outline, based on the fiberglass
nose I had.  It quickly became apparent
that a design revision would simplify things; the compound curves of my
fiberglass nose were simply too much for paper to lay across; metal would only be worse.

My plan was to make a face, and a surrounding wrap, and epoxy
them together. That veritable source-of-truth, the
internet, had told me that modern aluminum epoxy was just as good as welding.

I cut out a face and bent my cylindrical body, riveting the
body pieces together at the hidden bottom edge. I left tabs on the face to
epoxy it into the other piece. 

Then I epoxied a lip onto the face, using some epoxy the internet told
me was strong enough to lift a truck when applied to a broken aluminum chain (“aluminum chain”, does
such a thing really exist?).

Things were going along swimmingly… which is an odd
phrase.  Is swimming that great?  I mean, I like swimming… but I’ve never
thought it a great descriptor of joy.  It
wasn’t in my wedding vows that, “I promise to love you like I’m making laps at
the community pool”.

Then I tried to polish the face plate.  Instantly the orbital movement of my polisher
snapped all the epoxy mounts.

Ok, so, epoxy… not so great.

Also, it effectively ruined the face plate, so I made another.

I saw a commercial on TV for amazing aluminum rods that you could
use to solder aluminum together, heating them with a propane torch.  I
bought some, and, to be fair, they did work to solder two small flat pieces of
aluminum together, laying on top of each other, after about 20 minutes of heating
with a propane torch.

It turns out, it doesn’t matter how fast an aluminum rod
melts, you still have to get the aluminum pieces you’re soldering hot enough
for the aluminum to stick to.  

If you have two
small pieces of aluminum, you can get them hot enough and it will work.  But, if you have a large aluminum piece, the
rest of the aluminum works like a heat sink and you can’t ever get the aluminum
hot enough to bond. I placed some aluminum rod only to have the bond easily snap; then, I could easily peel off the rest of the added aluminum.  The aluminum rods melt and stick to the other aluminum, but the strength is about the same as Elmer’s glue.  No true adhesion occurred.

Needless to say, the miracle aluminum solder rods did not
succeed in welding my face plate to my nose cone body.  It did destroy another face plate.

So, I made another face plate and revised my plan.  I only needed a few tack welds, I thought I’d
reach out to an aluminum welder.

If you want to talk to a truly lofty and important person, don’t call a
politician or rich man, call an aluminum welder.  I called a couple of shops, and they were
booked through 2025 and didn’t take small jobs (slight exaggeration, but not
much).

Finally, I found one who said he’d do the work.  He even knew some of the people at my work.
The next day, at work, I mentioned who was going to weld my aluminum
together.  I was then told that he was
not well-liked, and had a tendency to do terrible things that I can’t even mention
here. Not wanting to be exposed to that, I called and cancelled.

I found a hot rod shop, nearby, that posted photos of their
nice welds and shop.  They didn’t answer
the phone, but I thought I’d just stop in. I arrived at a decent time, on a
workday, and tried the front door, which was open. There were no signs, except
a shop name, on the door.

The shop was barren, but it did have nice cars.

“Hello?”, I repeated, three of four times into empty cold space.

A small and edgy looking man, with cats-eye glasses, and lots
of tattoos came out of somewhere with a cast on his arm and an annoyed look on
his face.

“How’d you get in here?!” he cried.

“Uh… the front door” I responded.

 “We’re not open to walk-ins”
he retorted.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“What’re you holding?” he asked.

I had brought the nose and face in with me. I showed him my
plan and what I wanted done.

“Crap. It’s all crap. I wouldn’t touch this. I don’t want my
name on it. Your tolerances are horrible, I don’t want to put my name on it.
Anyways, it’s a $400 dollar minimum charge and I can’t do it until my arm heals” the primadonna replied.

I thanked him for his very valuable time and left.

I realized he was probably in a cast because someone had beat him up.

At first, I was a little annoyed. But then, I realized, to
some degree, he was right.  There were
wider gaps around the face then I wanted. 
I guess my tolerances were truly crap.

So I went home and made yet another face plate. And I didn’t
like that one, or the next one. Finally, the third face plate looked like it
would do the job.  But, in reality, I was
on the fifth or sixth.

I decided that I was done messing around and would
weld it myself.

Thankfully, my friend Andrew also thought an aluminum welding
gun might be of future use, so we went in halves on the endeavor.

And welding aluminum worked great.  We used a spool gun and argon and, while it’s
not as easy as welding mild steel, it worked fine.

To polish grittier aluminum, you have to sand it with four declining grits of sandpaper, wet sand, and then polish with a compound. It’s no small thing to polish an
aluminum car. Basically, you’re taking the rough layer of aluminum completely off.
Any miracle aluminum polish, like miracle aluminum bonders, will not work, in
my opinion. You have to put the work in. But, Mother’s Aluminum Polish does seem to work best, in my experience.

Once the car was polished, I made a second set of hinges for the
doors; with just one hinge they were sagging a little too much. I
also refit the windshield wiper I took off to make the removable top.  You’d
never drive the car in the rain, but a wiper is nice on foggy mornings. I am proud of how well the two hinges, mirror and wiper fit on the windshield post.

The buyer’s DMV hassled him a little about it being a “kit car”… although
it really isn’t.  It’s a homebuilt.  But, last I heard, he’d drove to another DMV,
where they weren’t a pain in the hind-end, and they’d given him registration. Note, this is a good technique that I’ve employed as well.

I did have some regret, but I’m not rich and I only have a two-car
garage.  I’d like to turn my attention to
another project I’m gaining steam on. 

The Lotus was nearing “completion” for
what I could do with a “hold-my-beer” attitude. 
I think the only thing I was still mulling was forced induction of some
type; likely a supercharger since I think you could find them for that motor.

Strangely, my kids were never that into the Lotus.  I think it was because it was a little
rougher ride than my MGA.  They love the
MGA.  So that factored into it.

I think the buyer and I are both happy.  From my point-of-view, monetarily I got back what I’d put
into the car, which is rare (I hear).  My
six years of work didn’t get a dime of return, but I had fun creating and can take some pride in my results.

The buyer got a well-optioned Seven.  I was going to market it as a “choose your
adventure” car.  Between the two sets of
wheels, two nose cones, the top, the doors, etc, the car could look different
every time you drove it. 

You could even take the windshield off to further change the look.

On top of that, the buyer got top-swing pedals, Wilwood
master cylinders, adjustable shocks at all corners, laptop programmable ignition,
limited-slip rear end, durable five-speed transmission, heater/defrost system,
doors, removable top, Bluetooth stereo, etc., etc., etc..  

Although I am an amateur builder, I optioned
that car well.  What it lacks in fit and finish, it makes up in options.

Well, writing this might be sadder if my next project wasn’t already
in the bay the Lotus inhabited.  I get to
keep creating. This time with an American classic (my first) and I’m excited
for it.  I’ll leave you with a preview.

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