Rear Suspension

1978 original Lola factory hand drawn schematics

This week I concentrated on the rear suspension. Luckily we were able to obtain original factory schematics for the car and following them was easy. The biggest challenge is the hardware which is mostly missing. I found a supplier of aircraft nuts (Aircraft Spruce) and bolts from whom I am purchasing the missing parts. 

Chassis

Today we did some more sanding of the chassis which still shows allot of rust in areas that were hard to reach the first time around. Since we ran out of nuts and bolts we did an inventory and will order some aircraft quality ANS fittings so we can proceed. We noticed that there were abandoned insect colonies in the water and oil gauges which we need to either renew or have reconditioned.

Mystique of an old race car

My dad took some photos with his big camera of the Lola. I think the pictures capture the scars that the car received in battles throughout the last 3 decades. He feels that there is a something romantic about reviving an old race car...I think I know what he means.

The Plan

Before restoring the car we want to assemble it in order to asses what needs to be modified, repaired or renewed. This way, we feel is the only way we can determine what we are dealing with as everything is in boxes. Since my dad, my brother and myself are all tall we plan to move the seat back and place fuel tank behind driver. This apparently has been done by other Lolas.

This picture shows the completed front and part of the rear suspension. Most hardware will be replaced with ANS aircraft high grade fasteners.

After we have "dry fitted" the car we will disassemble and catalog every part so that re-assembly will only take a fraction of the time it took to put it together. We will then strengthen chassis by adding steel tubing and sand it down, prime and lacquer it. Friends tell us lacquer is better than powder coating as it shows stress cracks by flaking off. A friend of my dad will build the engine to FC specs and help him put it in the car around Christmas. The body work will need allot of work and the nose is missing - but we can have that refinished in my dads boat building shop. We hope to have the Lola running by Spring.

Front Suspension

After treating entire chassis with anti rust treatment to stabilize the oxidation on the frame rails we thoroughly washed the car. Of course we sat in it and tried it on for size. Surprisingly roomy for such a small racer. Then we started assembling the front left suspension. It took us about 5 hours to figure out what goes where and only about 45 minutes to build.  Well, at the end it looked like we did a pretty decent job. Just as we started to get proud of ourselves we realized that we used the uprights from the right side. Well, here is a photo with the wrong ones still in place...we will change it out tomorrow.