Det

Hi, everyone, here are pictures of the driveshafts I took when I inspected the Europa today:

Thank you, John, do you mean these (output shaft oil seals)? There are different types for 336 and 352/365 gearboxes.

Thanks to everybody for the helpful hints. @madwolf: Thanks for inviting me to see your Europa in the Frankfurt area. I'm from Northern Germany, so it's quite far away. Nevertheless I appreciate your offer and will contact you if I ever get a chance to go down to Frankfurt. I inspected a Lotus Europa S2 (Federal) today in the Netherlands. This car had been totally restaured a short time ago. I was disappointed about all the issues I found. Main problem to me seemed the loss of gearbox oil at the driveshaft bearings. The oil spot on the ground had the size of a piece of copy paper. Shouldn't be normal after not being moved for just three weeks, should it? The petrol pump also failed to work (car wouldn't start), so we had to use a vacuum pump to get it running. The state of the new headlining was also bad, is it so difficult to get that fixed correctly? And so on... I would be glad to get some hints especially regarding the driveshaft bearings. By the way: I was surprised to get replies even from Australia!

Hi, I'm Det from Germany. I'm seriously interested in buying a Lotus Europa (classic), but I don't have any practical experiences with this car. I'm owner of an MG Midget (for 16 years now) and a Morgan 4/4, but those are totally different cars. As the Lotus Europa isn't that popular over here in Germany, it's quite difficult to get recommandations or detailled hints about buying an Europa. For example from Classic Car Magazines. I know quite a lot about the Lotus Europa's history (English literature) and the main technical aspects but I'm missing helpful informations about buying one. For example, I don't know if I'd prefer an S2 or a Twincam. As far as I know, the Renault engine might be more reliable and easier to maintain; on the other hand it's somehow missing the spirit of a typical lotus engine. Which are the typical issues of the S2 and Twincam? I'll appreciate any useful hints from experienced Europa owners. Det