Sorting cars that haven’t been driven much in the past 20 years can be interesting. This is especially true when the car happens to be a Lotus Europa.
One of the first jobs I performed when I purchased my Europa 3 months ago was to change all the fuel lines. The old ones were cracked, there were a few leaks and of course… I didn’t want my Lotus Europa becoming another mid-engine casualty. This is really sad.
It’s amazing where gas can leak from and I had to double up some of the hose clamps to completely stop most of the leaks. The problem area seems to be the fuel tank fittings, especially the return line about half way up the tank. I expect a good cleaning of these fitting in the spring will help.
I’m still not positive I have the upper fuel return line sealed well but the easy solution at this point was to take the Lotus for a long spirited drive so the tank is only half full with the fuel level below this return fitting. The Europa has now quit leaking gas in the garage which didn’t smell very good. Of course this also saves weight, Colin would be happy!
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