Lotus Europa S1: Competition gearbox mount

Hi everyone,

Next up, I will tell you all about the ‘competition’ style gearbox mount that I designed and built. Originally the Europa uses a slightly modified gearbox mount from the Renault 16. There are some downsides to this mount, the biggest one being that there is quite a bit of flex in the mount itself. The problem that this causes is, because the rear suspension is mounted off the gearbox, the flex makes the geometry of the rear suspension change, and this can cause some unwanted rear-steer and camber changes. Furthermore, new, original mounts are quite expensive to buy nowadays. So I bought some polyurethane bushes and started designing a new mount that will hopefully solve these problems.

This is the original gearbox mount from my Europa.

I started off by drilling out the spot-welds so I could use the original base plate as a starting point for my new mount.

I made some measurements and did some quick sketches for the new mount. I also drew it up in Google Sketchup to make some templates for me to cut the steel plate needed to fabricate it.

This is the original base plate and a selection of polyurethane bushes that I will use to make it.

I taped the templates to a section of 3mm steel sheet, so I could them out to the exact dimensions that I needed them.

Mocking everything up prior to welding.

All the seperate parts that will make up one mount.

Firstly, I tacked up the major parts.

I used a tube to make sure that both steel inserts were lined up correctly.

When everything was welded up, I used zinc-spray to protect it from rust, while I was waiting to get to painting.

I painted the mount in the same 2K semi-gloss black as the engine mounts.

Once it’s all asssembled it looks like this. I used a stainless steel spacer in the centre to lock the two bushes.

It fits on the chassis and gearbox, but I don’t have a picture of it at the moment. Hopefully this will solve some of the problems with the standard mounts.

Enjoy & Share

Serge