1978 Lotus Esprit

Chapter 1 - Acquiring It

When I was in my early teens in the mid-70's, I heard that the car in the next James Bond movie was going to be a Lotus. I just assumed it would be a Europa, because that was really the only Lotus I knew. Well when the movie finally came out, and I sat in the audience, I was agog when that gorgeous white Esprit came onto the screen. I was smitten from the very first glance. And as I saw it move, and looked at it from every angle, I just became more and more enthralled with it.

A little later I got a car magazine that had a story on the new Esprit, and it showed a cutaway drawing. I would stare at it for hours and hours. I truly fell head over heels in love with the car. As the years passed by, and I saw "The Spy Who Loved Me" over and over again on cable, I drooled in unrestrained admiration for the car every time. I really thought that it was in every way the most beautiful, best executed mid-engined GT styling of all time.

I found that the model fell victim to what all too often happens to cars like that. The designers couldn't leave well enough alone. They began to doll it up with body kits, fender flares, whale tails, and the like. I thought that in every case it diminished the understated elegant simplicity of the original design. One day my Tivo picked up the movie, and I could actually freeze-frame the shots of the car. I pulled up some pix online of the later incarnations, and got to the bottom of why I truly liked the original so much more. What really jumped out at me was that you could actually see the rocker panels on the original model. Additionally, the air dam under the front bumper was minimal enough that the nose kept its clean shape. These stylistic points, insignificant as they might seem, made it more of a car and less of a "super car." To others that would make it more mundane, but to me it made it more accessible and intimate. It was a classic "less is more" scenario.

I did a little research and found that it was the S1 model that had the qualities I liked. Furthermore, in 1978 Lotus also won the Formula 1 constructors' championship. It was the iconic black and gold open-wheeled racer that Mario Andretti drove home to victory. I decided that I wanted a 1978 Esprit S1. I entered an eBay saved search, and pretty much forgot all about it.

Then one day the eBay search got a hit. It was a black 1978 Esprit S1 in Tucson AZ. The price at the time was within the realm of possibility for me. I decided to put in a bid as an exercise in fantasy, expecting to be outbid pretty much right away. Well, to my amazement, that bid held on for quite some time. I started to think in my mind what it would be like to actually be the owner of a Lotus Esprit. On the one hand it was terribly exciting, but on the other hand it was terrifying. I'm no stranger to esoteric, rare cars, but this was an "exotic," and a breed that I really had no experience with. Eventually it became a moot point as I was finally outbid.

That Sunday night just before I went to bed I remembered that the auction should be ending just about then. I logged in to find that the auction was indeed ending in 2 minutes, and the one bid that exceeded mine by a mere $100 was still the high bid. I came really close to placing a last-minute bid. I considered it very seriously for about 10 seconds. But I'd outgrown my "impulse purchase" phase, and had actually become capable of saying no. So I shut off my computer and went to bed.

The next day, however, I did check the outcome of the auction. There had been no more bids. The guy who had outbid me won the auction. Having a sneaking suspicion that he might have been a tourist like I had been, I contacted the seller telling him to let me know if the buyer fell through, that maybe we could work something out. Sure enough, just a couple days later, he sent me a "second chance offer." I could buy it outright for what had been my maximum bid. I stewed on it for a while, but quickly the seller contacted me again saying he needed an answer. He'd gotten another offer, and was willing to give me first refusal, but he set a hard deadline for me to make up my mind.

I hemmed and hawed some more. I'd never been this indecisive over a car before in my life. I'd usually either decided to take the plunge, or given up and gotten it out of my system, one or the other. This time I really couldn't make up my mind. I actually called the seller on the phone, and we talked about the car for a good half hour. There were things he said that made me want to buy it, and there were things he said that scared me off. I told him I would make up my mind that night. In fact I actually slept on it one more time. I woke up the next morning deciding I was crazy to even consider it. I emailed him and said he should take the other offer. I was a little disappointed, but moreso I was relieved.

Well Monday morning I sat down at my desk, and my eBay saved search had gotten another hit. It was the same Esprit in Tucson. This time it was listed with a buy-it-now price that was what he told me the other offer had been. I wrote him again, asking if the new buyer had fallen through. But before I even heard back I figured he must have, or it wouldn't be offered for sale. I figured this was a sign. God wanted me to have this car, or I wouldn't have been given so many opportunities. I called up the mechanic who services my XJ6 and asked if he'd take on a '78 Esprit (something I really should have done earlier). He said yes without hesitating. Five seconds later I clicked that buy-it-now button before I gave myself enough time to change my mind.

From there, things progressed rather cordially. The seller said he didn't need a deposit if I was going to send the full amount promptly. I had to move some funds around, and the transaction was completed more quickly than I expected. I had a bank check cut, and sent it registered mail. It got there like a day later, and the seller promptly sent me the title. A couple things jumped out at me. One was that he didn't do me the courtesy of sending the title registered mail. It arrived fine, but I still would have preferred that he not put me in a position of potential risk like that.

The other thing that jumped out at me was that it was a California title that was in someone else's name, and the date on it was over 2 years prior. I knew from my conversation with the seller that the car had come from California, but he also said that he had driven it regularly, if infrequently. I was a little concerned that there might be some drama with the DMV, but I was mostly concerned that he had misled me as to having driven it regularly. I gave him a call, asking how he had been able to drive it if he'd never titled it. He gave me some story about how he only drove it around his neighborhood. I didn't have a really good feeling about this, but it was too late now. I wasn't going to back out of the transaction, and making accusations of the seller wouldn't solve anything.

So I sat on the situation for a while. It was still in the late throes of Winter where I lived, and I figured there was no point in having the car transported here if there was still snow and salt on the roads. I started to research transport companies. I figured it would be pretty cut and dried, but in reading some online reviews I learned that there are a lot of scammers out there. For the shady outfits, the best scenario was that they took your deposit and never picked up the car. The worst scenario was that they picked it up, and made you pay all kinds of extra fees to drop it off, and only then did so after huge delays, and many calls and threats. I finally settled on Stateway Auto. I chose them because they had a reasonable price, and their website had flash animation. That might seem like an odd criterion, but I figured that a scammer wouldn't pay the money it took to implement a feature like that on their site. Plus the conversation I had with the dispatcher went very well, and I got a good feeling from them. I paid the deposit over the phone, and the car was actually scheduled for pickup just a few days later, and the pickup occurred on time. I arranged that it be dropped off directly at my mechanic, because I was going to want him to go over the whole car before I drove it anywhere.

While it was in transit I decided to get the DMV paperwork out of the way. What I didn't notice on the California title was that the VIN looked really suspicious. It was a 4-character alphanumeric value. I've seen a lot of freaky VINs in my day, but never anything like that. My insurance company made me scan the title and email it to them because they didn't believe that it was actually the VIN. But they sent me back an insurance card and I went off to the DMV. What was on my mind at this point was the fact that the AZ seller never titled the car in his name. I debated whether I should make it look like I bought it from the CA guy, or if I should go in there and tell the truth. I've always lived my life on the principal that honesty is the best policy, so I presented all the paperwork as I had received it. There was a casual bill of sale documenting that the CA guy did sell it to the AZ guy.

So I got up to the head of the line, and I handed the clerk all the paperwork with the caveat that this one was going to get a little complicated. Everything checked out, but she said that by law the AZ guy didn't have the right to sell the car unless he'd titled it in his name. My heart really sank. I started to play out in my mind how I would remedy this situation, and at the best it involved some significant delays and cooperation on the part of the AZ guy. The clerk went off to check with her supervisor. I had a few very uncomfortable minutes as I anxiously awaited the response. She came back to my window. "Okay," she said. "We're going to pretend you bought it directly from the CA guy."

"Thank you thank you THANK YOU!" I said, making the prayer gesture with my hands. I couldn't believe that the New York State bureacracy was bending the rules for me. But I didn't question it. She made me fill out another casual sale of automobile form indicating the CA guy as the seller. From here it was a matter of dealing with that crazy VIN. All that really mattered was the unlaidened weight. It wasn't indicated on the CA title, but it was required for the NY title. Ordinarily the clerk would have been able to look it up by the VIN, but she wasn't getting a response from her database. So she's looking it up in some reference book she had while I was doing Google searches on my iPad. I was hoping that "Lotus Esprit S1 power to weight ratio" might return an exact figure. She came back before I found anything.

"I found what other Lotuses weigh," she said. "How about if we just say yours weighs the same."

"Works for me!" I said, even though I knew that the figure she found was half again as much as what my car weighed. I really couldn't care less. All I wanted was that registration stub in my hand.

"Okay," she said. "Now all we have to do is hope that it goes through the computer."

That made me scared. I thought we were home free, but I forgot it still had to go through data processing. I work in IT, and I know a little bit about data validation. That VIN really scared me. I could see a masterfile of VINs, and the transaction getting rejected because it couldn't be found. But before I even had time to perspire one bead of sweat, she said, "We're all set," and was handing me license plates.

Now all I had to do was bide my time while I waited for the transporter to bring it across the country. The day before it was scheduled to be delivered I still hadn't heard anything. It took me a little while to get a response from Stateway Auto, but they gave me a phone number to call. I figured it was the cell phone of the truck driver, but it turned out to be a yard in Buffalo. The way it worked was they used a big truck to go big distances, and a little truck to go little distances. So while the car made it from Tucson to Buffalo promptly, I now had to wait for a little truck to be available to take it from Buffalo to Ithaca. Ironically it was going to take longer for it to get the last 150 miles than it took to get it the first 2000 miles.

I wasn't in a huge rush anyway, because it had been raining hard, and the forecast was that it was going to continue raining hard. I figured that it was going to sit for another weekend before they sent it out to me. Still, that Friday afternoon I decided to call for a status report. I was all set to write down their excuses so I could escalate it to Stateway Auto.

"Oh, the Lotus," the guy said. "We're loading it on to the truck right now. It'll be there tonight."

"OMG OMG OMG!" I said. I couldn't believe it. I was so excited I totally couldn't concentrate on work for the rest of the day. The guy couldn't give me an exact time, but he did specifically say, "evening." I went home and turned on the TV, totally vegging out while I just let the time pass. I actually dozed off. But then the phone rang and I woke back up with a start. It was the driver."

"How about if I meet you in an hour?"

"Fine," I said.

It was the longest hour of my life. But as I was finally gathering my things to head out, I realized I didn't leave myself enough time to get to my mechanic's. So now I was totally rushing down the road to get there. I had nightmares of the guy leaving without me.

I got there and sure enough there was a big, 2-car flat bed across the road from the shop, and there was a gorgeous black Lotus Esprit on the shoulder just behind it. Truth be told I'd never seen one in real life before. At least not up close. It was striking. It was absolutely striking. And that was the view from my Toyota as I buzzed past to park in the lot before I went over and talked to the driver.

The sun was just going down, and there was a heavy drizzle in the air. It was pretty much the worst possible conditions to deal with a new and unfamiliar car. The guy had it running, but the front left tire was flat. He said it was all they could do to keep any air in it to get it on and off the truck. I hopped in to drive it across the street and park it in front of the workshop, but I got in the driver's seat and I was totally disoriented. I had no familiarity with any of the controls beyond James Bond movies and the pictures I had been staring at in magazines since I was 14. If there was a working interior light, I didn't know how to turn it on. The pedals were WAY too close together for the big Winter galoshes I had on my feet. I was totally flustered. What should have been a magical dream come true moment was very stressful and uncomfortable.

The driver offered to move it for me. He said he'd become somewhat familiar with it from putting it on and off the truck. That was fine with me. I ran across the street and stood where I could direct him where to park it. He damn near pulled out right into the path of oncoming traffic, which practically made my head explode, but he sat there patiently until he had an opening and he drove it right over. I paid him his money, he signed over the paperwork, we chatted for just a minute, and he was on his way.

Now I could relax a little and enjoy the experience for what it should be, but it was still uncomfortable. The sun had now gone down completely, robbing me of what little light there had been. I had a little MagLite™, which at least allowed me to check out the interior a little bit, but it was still dark. And cramped. And what little space there was was half taken up with boxes of spare parts. And the interior was dirty and muddy. And frankly the car looked a lot more beat than I was expecting it to. The one thing I did do was check to make sure the headlights worked. It was something I specifically asked the seller about, and something I was able to confirm. I hit the switch, the cans popped up, and the lights came on. Okay, good. I shut them back off again. I hung around a little longer, but after just a couple minutes I decided I was not having fun, and that I'd come back the following day when it was light out.

I knew I was going to have a fitful night's sleep, and I did. I tossed and turned all night, thinking about the car, and having restless dreams about all the various unknowns. I woke up feeling more tired than when I went to bed, but I was high on adrenalyn. It was a little chilly, but at least the sun was out and it was dry. I loaded up my truck with some tools, a floor jack, and an air tank, and I headed out.

Chapter 2 - Revitalizing It


Just off the truck - cold, wet, dirty, lonely, and afraid

Seeing the car in daylight, the body did look in pretty good condition, although it was absolutely filthy. I tried to inflate the front tire, but the bead was broken and it wouldn't hold any air at all. Okay, so much for the hope I might be able to actually drive it up and down the road once. But I still put on the rear plate and placed the registration sticker in the window. When I took off the California plate I noticed that the registration sticker read 1993. It didn't register right away, but it looked like the car hadn't actually been legitimately on the road in 18 years, which was more than half its lifetime.


Had this car been off the road since 1993? Sure looks like it to me.

Even though I couldn't move the car, I decided to fire up the engine just for the Hell of it. If nothing else I could position it a little better in front of my mechanic's garage. I had learned from the driver the night before that the choke was the little lever on the front edge of the arm rest between the window switches. It's the control that Roger Moore used to squirt sticky goop onto the windshield of the car Jaws was chasing him in. I pulled the choke, and the engine did fire right up. I eased the choke down as the engine warmed up. When it felt ready I put it in gear and tried to pull forward a little. The car didn't want to move because of the flat tire, but it also felt like the clutch wasn't engaging. I let it all the way out, and the car did creep forward a little, but I quickly smelled the distinct aroma of burning clutch plate. Okay, that was enough of that.

There wasn't much more I could do, so I fiddled with some of the dashboard switches. I was able to determine that the directionals didn't work. The ventilation controls were utterly seized. I tried to raise the headlights again, but they didn't come up. I went up front to inspect, and I realized that the front compartment cover, which I had opened up, was blocking the movement of the cans. I went back to the dash, but I wasn't sure if which switch position was on and which was off. I was pretty sure I had it in the off position. I kept poking around. But after a few minutes I saw smoke coming from out of the dash, and the unmistakable smell of burning electricals. Not knowing what else to do I jumped out and disconnected the battery, which thankfully wasn't locked down tight. I would later learn that the headlight switch was indeed in the on position, and I had just burned out the popup motor that I had confirmed worked perfectly the night before.

Things having gone from bad to worse I decided to bag it and go back home. There was nothing I could do but more damage. I had another fitful night's sleep as I wondered if I'd made the biggest automotive mistake of my life.

Monday morning I stopped by my mechanic's on my way to work. He was excited to see the car there, and we chatted a bit. I found out that his willingness to work on the car was not based only on his experience with Jaguars and other British makes. He actually had direct experience with this specific model.

"These cars are very mechanic-friendly," he said. "The turbos and V8s got real complicated, but these are real simple cars."

I left feeling really good, which was a distinct improvement from my trepidatious worrying all weekend long. I knew I was in good hands. He told me he'd look the whole car over, but the first step was to sort out the hydraulic clutch and get it moving. Then it would be a matter of tracking down whatever was wrong and addressing it.

This was all well and good, but things quickly devolved into a "hurry up and wait" scenario. This guy ran a regular shop, and he had customers who needed their cars right away to get back and forth to work and whatnot. My little project was always tumbling down his priority list. And what was worse, he wasn't good about calling me. I had to continuously call him for updates, which made me feel like I was pestering him. A couple days turned into a week, which turned into a couple weeks.

During that time I got plugged into the online Lotus community. I found a really good Yahoo Group full of Lotus experts. They were welcoming and friendly, but they were also a little dogmatic. The first recommendation they made was to replace the timing belt. They were only rated for 2 years or 24K miles, mine was of an utterly unknown age, and if it went, it would basically take the whole engine with it. I wasn't exactly reluctant, but I was so anxious to drive the car that I kind of wanted to weasel out of it. But they positively browbeat me over it.

I ordered up a new timing belt and tensioner bearing, and had them delivered directly to my mechanic. He was perfectly willing to install them. In the mean time he had actually gotten the hydraulic clutch working. He also got the front tire to hold air, but he told me that all the tires had so much dry rot that they needed replacing too. He would order some up, install them along with the new timing belt, and the car should be drivable.

While these were necessities for regular operation, it actually was possible to take it for a quick spin in the condition it was currently in. I took the key from him that Friday afternoon, and returned the following Saturday morning to see where I could get with it. I fired up the engine, and when it had warmed up I put it in gear with shaking hands.

I could barely get the car moving. The clutch was gripping, but the car didn't want to go. I inched out of his parking lot onto the busy highway as soon as there was a gap in traffic, and immediately down the first side road. Something was wrong, and I was not sure what to make of things. But as I made a little distance and built up a little speed I realized that I had been in 3rd gear the whole time. The car was shaking to beat the band on those crappy old tires, but it was moving. I got up to the nearest intersection, brought her to a stop, and ascertained that I had to really push the stick to the left to get it over into 1st gear. When I did that the car took off like I expected. I went back down the side road, and except for the tires feeling like square blocks, the car was doing okay.

I wondered if I actually dared taking the car to my house. The mechanic was out in the country, and my house was out in the country, and I could avoid the one little village between us by taking back roads. I decided to chance it, and I headed out and away from my mechanic's lot. The further I went the more comfortable I got with the car. It seemed to be geared really low, and it had a tendency to backfire every time I lifted off the throttle to shift gears, and I didn't know when one or all of the tires might blow out, but other than that the car was doing okay. At one point as I drove along, I said to myself, "OMG, I'm driving a LOTUS ESPRIT!!!"

I very gingerly and cautiously made my way to my house. By the time I got there I was getting more comfortable with the car. The first thing I did when I got to my house, other than gaze upon this beauty and how magnificent it looked parked in the bosom of my home, was to clean it up. It seemed sort of superficial, but by the same token it made a big difference. It's kind of like when you take in a degenerate street person. The first thing you do is clean him up, give him a shave, and put on some nice clothes. This car had been filthy when it arrived, and it had only gotten dirtier while it was here. It had rained almost constantly the whole time, and my mechanic had a dirt parking lot that had been mostly mud these past couple weeks. Every time they got in and out of the car they tracked more mud inside it.

I got out my shop vac, my kit of cleaning products, a pail and sponge, and I got to work. Detailing the interior got me more acquainted with the space, the fit and finish of the carpeting and the seats, the upholstery, the dashboard, the glove compartment, and all the nooks and cranies out of which ganglia of loose wire clusters might fall. Overall the car was in pretty good shape, all things considered.

Once I finished the interior, I got to work washing the body. There's something oddly intimate about that act. Washing a car is like making love to someone for the first time. Everything's slick and slippery as you're touching her in all her intimate cracks and crevices, pouring over every square inch of her body after having only looked at her from afar all that time. And I got a feel for how water-proof the car was. It wasn't. That was the irony. In the movies it was an air-tight submarine. In real life it was a sieve.

After the car was all spic and span, I gazed at it some more, finally presentable. But all too soon it was time to get her back to the mechanic. She fired right back up, and away we went. This time I decided to chance it and drive through the little village on the way back. I could only guess at the kinds of stares I was getting, because the visibility inside that coupe was such that I couldn't see people after I drove past them.

Again, the tires were so thrashed that it was like driving over railroad ties, and I prayed that I would make it back without them blowing, but other than that the car was doing okay. In those moments I finally could tell for the first time that this car was going to work out. It might be a bit of a money pit. It might break my heart from time to time. It might downright piss me off. But it was going to work out.

Once the car was back with the mechanic, I was back to the waiting game. It was just a matter of installing new tires and the timing belt. But once again days turned into weeks, and I had no way of knowing when it might be ready. Eventually he got the tires mounted. I didn't want to operate it much until that timing belt was installed, considering the consequences if it went, but I did want to just take it out on the road a little. And I wanted to show it off. All I did was talk about this car, but no one had seen it and people were beginning to think I was making it all up.

Finally on a Friday afternoon the tires were ready. I planned to just buzz around in it a bit and then bring it right back. My mechanic mentioned something about the clutch being "funky." As I fired it up and pulled away I did notice that it was engaging much closer to the floor than I remembered. I was very edgy as I drove along. When I pulled off the main road onto the street that led to my office, I found I had to absolutely cram my foot as far down as possible, positively pegging the pedal right against the floor. Then when I made a turn and down-shifted, it wouldn't go into gear at all. I had to put it neutral, bring the car to a stop, and put it in first while it wasn't moving. Fortunately my office was just up the road. I pulled into the parking lot and showed it off to a couple people.

When they started to disburse I got in to take it back to the garage. I made it through one intersection, and then as I was turning through a yield sign the clutch pedal lost all pressure. By the grace of God I was right next to a parking lot. I coasted in and came to rest in an open parking space. I got out and saw fluid still dripping down from right behind the clutch housing. Clearly the hydraulic clutch had failed again. There was no point in trying to do anything about it there. I just called AAA and waited. I rode back with the truck driver, got into my waiting car, and had a pretty miserable weekend.

The report was that the fitting at the slave cylinder was old and leaking. My mechanic ordered a new one. I had to wait for it to arrive, then wait for him to bring the car into the shop, and then found out that it was the wrong size. He ordered another one, and I had to wait for it to arrive, and then wait for him to bring the car into the shop, and then found out that it was also the wrong size. So he ordered yet another one. I had to wait for it to arrive, then wait for him to bring the car into the shop, and then found out that YET AGAIN it was the wrong size.

I told him that I'd order the damn part. I got online with one of my now trusted Lotus parts suppliers and ordered exactly what I needed. It was a little expensive for a damn fitting, but I knew it would be the right one. But then I still had to wait for it to arrive, and then wait for my mechanic to bring it into the shop. It was the right size, but the hydraulic line was so old and dry rotted that he couldn't install it. Fuck it, I ordered a whole new line. Then I had to wait for it to arrive, then wait for him to bring it into the shop, then wait some more because it was a pain in the ass to run the line back through the body.

Finally he got it done. And by some miracle he had installed the timing belt when I wasn't looking. There was still the matter of the headlamp motor. I had found one on eBay that was for a Triumph TR7 but was listed as compatible with an Esprit S1. It was close, but not quite right. He had the lights manually placed in the up position, so if I found myself out at night I could still run the lights. This was close enough for me. I just wanted to drive the goddam thing!

By now it had been about 8 weeks, and all that time essentially just to mount new tires and install a new timing belt and hydraulic clutch hose. But I didn't care anymore because it was over. The car worked. I did have to do hand signals wherever I went, and there were still lots of things that needed tending to, but it would move and I didn't have to worry about the engine self-destructing while I drove it.

Chapter 3 - Driving It

Now I could finally drive the car. I mean really just drive it in a relaxed state without worrying that something was going to go kaboom. Living out in the country, I had a nice variety of twisting rural roads with rolling hills and beautiful views. I could go right out of my front door and take a nice long drive with no red lights or traffic to speak of. The first time I drove over some manure in the road I cringed a little, but then I pictured the car zooming through the English countryside, where such things would not be unheard of.

It took a little while for us to get to know each other. Overall it was an easy car to drive. It was running fine, but it would backfire each and every time I let up on the gas to shift gears. The biggest problem I had driving the car was finding 5th gear. It was almost all the way over to the right and up. It was easy to overshoot. Most often I either couldn't find it at all, or I'd put it into 3rd by mistake. Eventually I learned that if I aimed the stick shift lever just to the right of the radio that I'd find the gear pretty consistently.

I got the car cleaned back up and the interior vacuumed out again. It wasn't long before I put the headlights back down. My mechanic had them held in place with a set of vice grips. I figured out how to put them back up again. I kept the vice grips in the glove compartment along with a flash light so I could see what I was doing if I ever got stuck out after dark. I also took the car out for a test drive at night so I could see how it worked. The headlights did bounce around a bit (something I learned was endemic to these early models, which was the major reason they switched to 2 motors), but they worked. And to my astonishment the dash lights worked as well. I didn't really intend to do a lot of night driving with this car, but it was good to know I could if I wanted to.

I actually drove it into work a couple times. It was kind of fun using it as my commuter car. There was a little garage with a father and son team right up the street from my office. I knew the son claimed to have experience with British cars from one time when I rolled in with my Jaguar when it had a flat tire. He agreed to check out my electronics and see if he could get the directionals working and stuff. I dropped the car off and went to my office. When I came back at the end of the day the guy had already gone home, but his father said the guy tried for a while but wound up throwing up his arms in frustration and quitting.

One day when I drove the car into the office I ran a couple errands after work. I decided that I wasn't going to baby the car, that I would drive it in traffic and whatnot until such time as I determined a reason I shouldn't. It was a beastly hot day, but the car did just fine. After buzzing around town a little bit I headed home.

It was such a hot day that I took a dip in my pond when I got back to my house. Afterwards I decided to wash the windows on the car, which had been horribly filthy since I'd gotten the thing. I went to start it, just so I could pull it out into the sunlight to be able to tell if I'd adequately cleaned the glass or not. It didn't want to start. I figured I'd flooded it, so I just put my foot to the floor and kept cranking. Then I heard a "poof" noise and thought I saw a flash of orange in the rear view mirror. I thought maybe there was a backfire out of the carbs with a little bit of fireworks. But I had a bad feeling about it.

I got out of the car and popped the rear hatch. There was smoke seeping out from under the engine cover. I went to lift it off, and I saw flames. My goddam engine was on fire!!! In a burst of adrenalyn I yanked the cover off amid the flames, with no regard for whether I'd burn my fingers or not (I didn't). There was my engine in flames. I wasn't entirely sure what to do. The only recourse I had was to grab my garden hose and squirt the whole engine bay with water. I was able to put the fire out, but it was kind of like those trick birthday candles. It managed to keep lighting back up again. I could basically tell that there was gasoline leaking from the general carberator area, and I was having real trouble getting the fire to stay out. I was about to yell to the neighbors to call the fire department, but before I needed to resort to that I was able to get the fire out all the way.

I stood there panting. Having just come back refreshed from a dip in the pond, I was now totally dripping with sweat. I wasn't sure what to do next. I had owned many, many cars of wildly varying ages, conditions, and countries of origin, but this was the first time one of them had ever caught on fire. I decided that in that particular moment there wasn't really anything I was going to do, so once I was triple sure that the fire was entirely out, I jumped back in the pond to rinse all the sweat off me, and I went back in the house to recover.

My first instince was to take the car back to my mechanic, but I didn't want to do that for a number of reasons. First of all, I'd just gotten it back from him after almost 8 weeks. I didn't want to think how much longer he'd have it if I took it back there. Secondly, this was now more of a project than a repair. What I'd been learning about this guy was that he was good if I gave him something specific to fix or install, but he wasn't really all that much into checking the car out and doing whatever needed to be done. This work was solidly in that category. But finally, if I were to try to find some deeper meaning in this happenstance, it would be the fates inspiring me to get directly involved in the maintenance and repair of this car. Back when I was a kid I had to get under the hood of my cars because that was my only option. Now that I'd become older and lazier and had more disposable income, I'd grown accustomed to paying other people to get their hands dirty for me. This car wasn't going to fit that model so well. For me to be successful as a Lotus owner, I was going to have to get back into the game.

I basically let the car and the situation sit until the weekend rolled around when I would have time to really conentrate on what I was doing. That Saturday morning I made a more thorough examination and assessment of the damage. All things considered it really didn't look too bad. Some wires got the insulation melted off them. There was a thin, plastic line that had melted. I originally thought it too was a wire, but I eventually learned it was the oil line from the block to the oil pressure gauge sending unit. The throttle and choke cables got the outer plastic casing melted off them here and there. The hard sheathings in which the cables moved seemed to be intact, but the throttle cable was essentially locked up. Finally, a couple of the plastic components of the carbs got melted to varying degrees. The rear carb got it worse. I figured there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment, but in a flash of inspiration I remembered that I had that stupid old Triumph Spitfire in the barn, and it had a Stromberg carb on it. It was the first time I was happy to have that old thing lying around. I canabalized a couple of the plactic pieces off that and put them on the rear Lotus carb. They fit like a glove.

I kind of wanted to just see if it would fire back up, but I knew I needed to do a more thorough job. I sought out advice from the online community. One guy, a fellow named Lyn who lived just a couple hours from me who had his own 1977 S1 that he'd bought new, was particularly helpful. In fact he agreed to drive down with his tool kit and work with me in person. I was ecstatic that he would help me to that degree. We set up a day and he showed up right on time. It was great having someone who knew exactly what the engine bay was supposed to look like. He started by taking some things apart, undoing some of the wiring harness in the affected area, and basically reverse-engineering some of the improvised wiring that had been done over the generations. He got out his automotive electronics kit and started replacing the damaged wires as needed, always with the proper connectors crimped onto the ends. He even fixed up some kluge work that had been done in the past. The most egregious example of that was the fuel pump. The ground wire had been just wrapped around one of the screws on the solenoid. We put a proper connecter on that, changed where it was getting power from, and locked everything down tight. I wrapped the harness back up with electrical tape while Lyn put his stuff away. There was still more work to be done, but already the car was getting into better shape than before the fire.

At this point, other than re-mounting the carbs properly based on Lyn's observation that mine were mounted wrong, it was a matter of replacing the throttle and choke cables. I was able to order a couple new ones no problem, but installing them meant removing the upholstered cover off the steel backbone down the center of the passenger compartment. Doing so got me some familiarity with the interior trim. It was a little tricky feeding the cables back to the engine compartment, but with a little fiddling I got them through. I also took the opportunity with everything apart to clean up a lot of the random, tangled wires around the radio, although I didn't bother to try to get it working. It probably wouldn't have been too big of a deal to supply power to it. It was more the speakers I was worried about. And I was trying to avoid scope creep. My mission was to get it running again. I could worry about the amenities another time now that I knew how to open everything up.

There was also the matter of the oil line to the pressure gauge sending unit. I got a new one of those too, which was pretty trivial to install, although it was just a wee bit short, and I dropped a tiny but critical washer that I had to search for before I could attach one end. With that in place I put the carbs on (properly this time), attached the throttle and choke cables, and was pretty much set. I figured the carbs would now be horribly out of adjustment, but I tried firing it up anyway, and to my utter surprise the engine actually ran!

I had an air flow gauge that someone from work had given me. You hold it up to the carb and it draws a little bead up into a graduated cylinder. I remember seeing such a device back when I was 17 and had the MGB with the twin carbs. With the engine now running I held it up to the rear carb and got a reading. I then held it up to the front carb, and there was so much vacuum that it sucked the device right to the carb and choked the engine out. I expected there to be some imbalance between the two carbs, but nothing that dramatic! It made me wonder what might be going on.

I invited a mechanic friend over to help me do a compression test. He had the kit, and the expertise to use it and a couple other things. The front two cylinders were about the same. The third was a little lower, and the fourth somewhat lower again than that. The theory was that the valves needed to be adjusted. Or at least they should be eliminated as needing adjustment. I had intended to have them checked/adjusted in the initial go 'round of work, but with all the time that went by I blew it off. It was time to get to it, and I couldn't really drive it in the interim or risk burning the valves.

While my friend was there he also threw a timing light on the engine. He said it was a little retarded and he adjusted it for me. The last thing he did was to disconnect the smog pump. He said that could be responsible for the backfiring. We got everything buttoned back up and took it out for a test drive. It was definitely running better, and the backfiring was finally gone!

So now the car was in pretty good shape, better than before the fire really, but I still couldn't drive it until after I got the valves adjusted. I knew from the online forums that the Lotus 907 engine used shims for the adjustment, which meant that it was a rather complex process, and that you need the shims. I ordered up new cam cover gaskets, but the guy said there was no point in buying any shims until I knew what I needed.

I went back to my mechanic. He said that he had the shims. He'd had that stuff for ever, and was going to put it up for sale on eBay at one point, but decided you never know when you might need it. That was lucky for me. This guy may have had his faults and shortcomings, but he sure was equipped to service this car!

He could take the car in at any time, but a couple of my cars were up for inspection, and I decided to deal with that situation before digging into the Lotus. In fact I decided to get all my cars on the same inspection cycle. Even though some of them weren't due for some time, I figured that if I got them all inspected now that each year I could just cycle through them all at the same time. That was what I was going to do this year. I'd get a ride to drop one off. Then I'd just drop another one off and pick that one up, and repeat the process until I worked through them all. Then I'd get a ride to pick the last one up. That was the only way I could work through them all and minimize the number of times I had to pester a friend or neighbor for a ride.

I forget why I decided to let the Lotus sit while this was going on, rather than get that cooking first, but that was how I played it. It had taken a couple weeks to get all my other cars inspected, even though (for once) none of them needed anything beyond an oil change. Finally we worked through them all, and I left the Lotus with him. As usual, it was a few days before he brought it in and did the work. Every day I'd go past his garage on the way home from work and pray that the car had moved to a new spot. Every day he was apologetic that it had not been done. But finally it was ready. He said that some of them did need to be adjusted a little, and that the compression improved but wasn't still 100% correct. He said it should come up with a little driving. I didn't know if he was feeding me a line or not. I just wanted to start driving it. He said that in his professional opinion everything checked out, and there was no reason I couldn't just drive it as much as I wanted.

I took it on a little ride and then back home. It was another wicked hot day. I parked it in the yard and washed it up nice. After I took a dip in the pond I went to start it to pull it into it's shed. It didn't want to seem to start, and I had another bad feeling. I popped the hatch, and the mother fucker was on fire AGAIN!!! At least this time I had a fire extinguisher at the ready, and I had the flames out right away. Somehow it was still smoldering at the front left corner of the engine. You know, right where my brand new timing belt was. I got the fire out entirely, and as before, took another dip in the pond. I was starting to get tired of this.

And as before I waited until the next day I had off from work before I dug into things. The first thing I did was let the fuel pump run a while and see if gasoline was gushing out of anywhere. It wasn't. Except for one little tube that ran between the carbs, something I'd had to replace after the first fire, there didn't appear to be any damage. I replaced that tube, and holding my breath, started it up again. It seemed to be running fine.

I let it run in place for a while, making sure that nothing blew up. Everything seemed okay. So I decided to take it out for a quick ride. I left the engine cover off so I could keep an eye on it. Things were going okay, but then all of a sudden the engine compartment flooded with smoke. I pulled over, leapt out, and slammed the door. The drivers window shattered and sent broken glass everywhere. At that point I was just about ready to let the damn thing burn. But when I opened the hatch I didn't see any flames anywhere. I was a little stumped. My theory was that some oil had dripped onto the exhaust and created all the smoke. I fired it up and it was running fine. No smoke, no fire. So I sat down on all the broken glass and drove it back home again.

I cleaned up all the broken glass. To get to all the stuff inside the door I had to figure out how to remove the door panel. All these various incidents were indeed getting me more experienced with various maintenance points on the car. I got all the glass cleaned up and the door panel back on. I took it out for a couple more drives. The engine compartment filled with smoke a couple more times, usually after hard braking, but still no flames. I decided it was okay to be driving it.

I set aside Sunday afternoon to take it on a nice, long, shakedown cruise. I was going to just drive it for a good, long distance. I had my cell phone and my AAA card, so I wasn't going to worry about anything. I went out to the car, and the damn thing wouldn't start. It just turned over all day, but wouldn't catch. This was unusual. Typically it would either start up or catch fire right away. This was the first time since I'd owned it that it wouldn't start at all.

After a little waiting and a little fiddling, the engine would fire up again. It was apparently typical English electrical gremlins. The fuel pump was also affected. Sometimes it would come on. Other times it wouldn't. All this wasn't much compared to the engine catching on fire, but it was enough to question its reliability, and think twice before I drove it anywhere. What I took to doing was to only take it on pleasure drives. I would leave my house, zoom through the local winding roads over rolling hills, and take it back home and park it. That way there would be no getting stranded anywhere if it didn't start, and no warm starts to make it catch on fire.

That strategy actually worked pretty well. It was truly a wonderful way to enjoy the car. Rather than push myself to use it for everyday situations as if it were an everyday car, I would use it solely for pleasure and recreation. I was gradually beginning to let my guard down, and could appreciate the car without thinking of it as something that might catch fire at any minute.

Letting my guard down could perhaps explain why I didn't think twice about doing a warm start one day. I just got in, turned the key, and got a little miffed when I couldn't get it to start. But then instance and experience came in. "I bet it's on fire," I said aloud. I calmly got out, extinguisher in hand, opened the hatch, removed the engine cover, and put out the flames. It was becoming routine.

I let the car sit for a week or two before I bothered to inspect it for fire damage. There didn't appear to be anything significant. I did try to start it, but to no avail. By now it was early Autumn. Frankly, I'd had enough of the car for the time being. It was going to sit for the Winter and cool off.

Chapter 4 - Getting It Right

I had the whole Winter to think about the car. The whole long, dark, cold, bleak Winter. I wasn't willing to give up on it just yet. This was a childhood dream. I couldn't get that close to making it come true, and then give up on it. I had to keep trying. What was truly maddening was that the car didn't really need much of anything. Everything was there. It just needed someone who knew what he was doing to take his time with it, go over the entire engine compartment, and set things to the way they were supposed to be.

Over the winter my air intake plenum box arrived. Lyn had noticed it missing on mine. I was talking to some parts house about something, and they said they had a rare opportunity to fabricate one for me from molds made from a specimen they had in their shop at the time. It went months and months with nothing delivered. Just when I contacted them to cancel the order they said they had it almost done. A couple weeks later and it arrived. But I had to wait until Spring to put it in. I was very proud of myself that I figured out where it went, and was able to install it properly.

Back to the mechanic search, finding someone who met all my criteria was a real challenge. It had to be someone who had the skills to work on this vintage of technology, who had the inclination to take on the job, and the availability and wherewithal to actually get the work done. Everyone I had been dealing with so far had lacked one or more of those qualities.

As Spring slowly approached, I started asking around and doing some research. Someone referred me to one of the many local Volvo specialists, based on the fact that they had a Lotus 7 on display in their lobby. Their service manager gave me a one-word response: "No." There was a local foreign auto shop, but I had some trust issues with the establishment, and I knew they would charge me a million dollars. I found Ragtops & Roadsters, a redundantly named restoration shop advertised in the Lotus car club newsletter. I talked to them on the phone and quickly developed a confident repoir with them, but I also knew they'd charge me a hundred million dollars. By this time I was willing to pay it, but was choking on transportation costs.

Eventually I got a couple of recommendations from my eye doctor, of all people. He was a car guy, and we always chatted cars when I went in for a checkup. He told me about a small, independent foreign car shop, and an off-the-beaten-path hot rod speed shop.

I went out to investigate the foreign shop first. When I pulled up I saw an 80's vintage Porsche 911 out front. That was a good sign. I went in and saw a Jaguar E-Type up on the lift. That told me that he could handle dual carbs. I found the proprietor. He was a nice guy, probably around my age, in good shape, easy on the eyes, and someone who "got it." He said he was willing to take on the work, and although he couldn't guarantee that he would know how to handle everything the car needed, he did assure me that he'd be the first one to admit he was in over his head rather than improvising a solution that could make matters worse. I left feeling pretty good about him.

Next I went to the speed shop. From the outside you would think it was a tractor repair outfit. But onside I saw a lot of tuner cars and muscle cars. It seemed like a rather relaxed operation. It took quite a while for anyone to find the guy who was in charge. I told him what I had and what I wanted. Like the Volvo guy, he gave me a one-word response. But his was "Yep."

I hesitated. "Yes, you'll work on the car?" I confirmed.

"Yep," he said.

"You're not worried about an exotic, 70's British car?" I asked.

"Nope."

I think I was able to beat another couple of words out of him, but it had to be the strangest exchange I'd ever had with a prospective mechanic. I left there quite bewildered. Something inside me said he might be the guy, but I just couldn't embark on a project like this with someone whose communication skills were so minimalistic. It didn't take much thought before I decided to go with the foreign auto guy.

It took a little arranging to come up with a date I could have it dropped off. By now it was mid-May, already well into the early driving season. I called AAA. It was actually the first time I'd had to have it towed anywhere since the clutch hose failed way back in the early days. They sent a guy with a flatbed who really knew what he was doing. When he head the make and model, he brought one of the youngsters from his shop to mentor him in the proper way to load a car like this. As they put it on the truck, and I took a couple pictures, I had the overwhelming feeling that I wasn't going to be seeing this car back at my home for a very long time.

When I stopped up the next day to see that the car had arrived, the proprietor wasn't there, but a very sexy young butch mechanic boy was there to greet me. He said the guy would be back next week, but he'd already started poking around on it. The next week I popped in again. This was no small affair, mind you. This guy wasn't on the way home like my other mechanic. He was way up in the winding mountain roads the opposite side of town from my home. I got up there and this time the guy was there. He showed me how they had installed a modern fuel pump, but they were having trouble tracking down the gremlin that would make it not start.

I left there feeling pretty good. Things were starting to move. But just as quickly things stopped. A couple weeks went by with no progress. And to make the experience worse, the guy proved tough to get on the phone. I thought he'd be more personable, but it would be tough to keep tabs on him by phone. I really didn't want to make that drive all the time, and had the time when I did he wasn't in town, so I gave him some space and left him alone. But that was really tough to do, because I just wasn't getting any indication that anything was happening at all with this car. If a guy is working on the car, and he's not making much progress, or if there are long waits for parts, I can live with that. But if nothing is being done on the car simply because it's not, well then what the fuck's up with that???

This went straight through June and into July. By the time we hit August, I was ready to blow a gasket. The guy had done zero on this car. Zero. This was the worst response time of any mechanic I'd ever had, and I've had some bad ones in my cay. One week into August and I stormed up there to give him an ultimatum. I've always had the approach that you get more from a mechanic with sugar than with vinegar, so while I might be a little pesky, I'm always polite and contrite. But not this time. I was up there to tell him to do his fucking job or forget all about it.

So I blow into his shop with my heart pounding. He said, "Yeah, here's the deal. I'm moving to New Hampshire, so you gotta get the car out of here anyway."

Just like that. He was apologetic that things didn't work out, but showed no remorse that he'd basically wasted the entire Summer with nothing to show for it but the after-market fuel pump he put on the first day. He did, however, say that he wouldn't charge me a thing for the little time he did spend on it (although he swapped back in the old, broken fuel pump). That was really no consolation, but it was enough to keep me from tearing him limb from limb.

But this did put me back in the situation of having no one else to turn to. I was still unwilling to entrust this car to the monosyllabic hot rod guy. What I did was to wind the clock back to the very beginning. Way back, 32 years before, I used to take my MGB to a British car guy outside my old home town. I looked him up on the internet, and it appeared he was still in business. I called him on the phone, and he answered right away. He did say he would take on the job, but he referred me to some guys in Syracuse if I wanted to try someone a little closer to where I was. I took the information, thanked him, and said I'd be calling back if things didn't work out.

I called them up on the phone. The conversation went well enough. The guy I spoke to said they could handle the car. But I decided to drive up there, check out their operation, and talk to him face to face before committing.

When I looked up their location, it appeared to be in a sketchy part of town. I didn't know Syracuse all that well, at least not this section, but that's because it was the part of town I didn't particularly care to go into. I drove there, and it looked as sketchy as I was would have believed. The shop itself, and old brick building, tucked in amongst a sea of derelict cars, looked more like a scrapyard. But upon closer inspection I could see that the scrap cars were interesting foreign things of a telling vintage. That told me from the onset that there was more here than met the eye.

I went in and talked to the guy I'd spoken to on the phone. He was friendly, folksy even, but not terribly sophisticated. He was saying all the right things, but I had to question if the guy could back up his talk, or if he just liked to collect old foreign cars and let them rot. But he said his brother had a Lotus Elan that they all worked on. We chatted about that, and it bolstered my confidence.

I came to learn that the business was actually a band of brothers who were all mechanics together. The one who would take on my car was named Mike, but he wasn't on site at the moment. The guy in front of me called him on his cell phone and confirmed that my project was a go. He then turned to me and just said to get it transported whenever I could, and they'd start working on it.

I wasn't really sure what to make of the situation. This operation was not what I would have expected, but my gut told me that if they did work out, they would work out really well. The fact that the guy from back home recommended them also said volumes. So I decided to go for it.

Now I had to arrange transportation. Technically I couldn't use AAA, because they won't tow twice for the same problem. It was a stretch to use them in the first place, and while my gold membership would probably cover the distance to Syracuse, I decided to go legit and pay out of my own pocket. I was able to find the exact same guy that AAA had sent the previous time, because I knew he knew how to treat the car. I placed an order wihtout even asking about the price. Within just a few days, it had arrived in Syracuse. But when I got the bill I was a little flabberghasted. That one little trip cost 60% of what it took to get the car from Tucson in the first place!

So here I was in a new relationship. I drove up to meet Mike in the flesh, since I hadn't even spoken to him on the phone yet. He, like his brother, was folksy and unsophisticated, but hearing him talk I could tell he really knew his cars. More importantly, he knew cars of this vintage and idiom. He told me about all the work he had planned. This was EXACTLY what I'd been looking for. He had the skills. He had the willingness. It was only to be seen if he had the wherewithal to get through the work.

Things started off well. He took care of the fuel pump right away. He swapped out all the fuel lines and the cross-over tube between the tanks. Not only did this make the car ethanol-friendkly, that was first on the list for my fire-prevention plan.

But after that, not much happened. Mike also proved to be difficult to get on the phone, although not impossible. I'd get in touch with him every couple weeks. He'd assure me that he'd been busy working on it, but was short on details, and would reprise the same list of work he had planned. I had essentially given up any hope of driving the car that season anyway. It had been over a year since I'd driven it last. And before long the season was over.

As I set in for another long, dark, cold, bleak Winter, I tried to chill out my expectations. I reduced my calls to once a month, if that. During the darkest, bleakest months I just left him alone altogether. But all the while I was strategizing on how to inspire him to start working in earnest. I figured money talks. If I could find whoever signs his paycheck, I could point out that they'd all be getting a big payday as soon as I could get this car back in my hands again. But it was just such a helpless, powerless situation to have this work out there, work I desperately wanted to get done, work I was willing to pay handsomely for, and to have people simply just not doing the work that they were supposedly in business to do.

There was one major development over the Winter. The Lotus Owners' Gathering (LOG), which had been held in Las Vegas and Orlando the two previous years, was going to be in Watkins Glen this year. That was right in my own back yard! There was no way I was going to let this event pass by without having my Lotus there. I had attended Las Vegas, and the best I could do was wear a t-shirt with a picture of my car on the front. I was going to move heaven and earth to get this car ready in time, or give up for good.

So finally Spring rolled around, and rather than call I decided to show up in person. I learned a few things on that trip. First of all, when I went into the shop, they told me he was in "his" shop. He didn't operate out of the scrapyard-looking shop. He rented space in a smaller shop just around behind. Someone walked me over there, and there he was. As we caught up, he told me he'd been out on disability for the better part of the Winter with back problems. He wouldn't have been able to work on my car even if he wanted to. I also learend that he worked independently. There was no one signing his paycheck. He'd take on whatever work he wanted and charge money for whatever work he did. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, and answer to no one. In fact this wasn't even his primary job. He had a day job with the city, and he'd work at his shop evenings and weekends.

I wasn't sure what to make of all this. I was still confident in his skills, but I hadn't planned on entrusting my dreams to a guy who worked evenings and weekends. I told him about the LOG in Watkins Glen in early August, and that I HAD to have my car ready in time. He guaranteed me that I would. He said whatever happened in-between, however we got there, the car would be ready in time. What I really wanted was to have the car ready well beforehand. Not only to shake out the bugs and get it prepped, but just because I wanted to drive it! I had missed the entire previous season. The weather was starting to turn nice, and I wanted to start enjoying the car again.

Mike didn't give me any specifics, other than it would be ready in time for LOG. As time crawled on I did my best to encourage him to start working. Based on what he was saying over the phone, I really couldn't tell if he was doing anything or not. So before long I made the drive up there to chat face-to-face again. To his credit, he didn't seem to be perturbed by these visits. In fact on this occasion he was glad to see me, because he had made a decision. He said that to do the work properly the engine had to come out of the car. This was something that had been in the back of my mind for some time, but I didn't dare say it aloud. But now that he brought it up, we started talking about all the work that could or should be done with the engine out. We decided that, assuming it passed a new compression test, we leave the engine buttoned up, but basically do everything on the outside of it. I left him to have at it.

From this point on I decided that I was simply going to have to start making a lot of road trips up to Syracuse. I always got the best results when I visted him face-to-face. I found that if I left the office a little early and drove right up, I'd get there when he was starting to get craking on his evening shift. I would buzz up there every 2 or 3 weeks. It was effective in terms of keeping abreast of the status, but not so much in terms of getting the work to move along. Things were still progressing at a snail's pace. And now the power dynamic had moved far away from my side. The first time I saw the engine out of the car, I knew the game had changed. If I decided I'd had enough of Mike, the car wasn't going to go anywhere until it was back in one piece again. And the only one who could do that was Mike himself. I was in his hands, like it or not. And by the way, he didn't seem to take the term "bench time" literally. The engine was lying out on the floor.

This went on for several more weeks. The engine was still out, he was still working on it, but there was no end in sight. But on one visit, I felt like he had turned a corner. I don't know if it was because on the previous visit I had reminded him he had a big payday coming, or if competing work had cleared up, or if he just finally taken an interest in my project. At the very least he had a plan now. There was a finite number of things that needed to happen in order to put the engine back in. We decided that I would go ahead and order parts, pay for them myself, and simply have them delivered to his shop. The problem was that as soon as one part came in, he'd find that he needed another one.

After having been away for a few weeks, I made another visit.

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