Transaxle

Lotus used Renault transaxles in all of the street-going Europa's, and 4153R is no different.  It has the 365-07 5-speed, which, like most everything else on the car, has been slightly modified.

The transaxle wasn't always as nice as it looks in the pictures.  When doing suspension work, I found that the drive shaft yoke was frozen to the output shaft on the right hand side.  This required lots of head scratching, many dead-ends, and a little machining to remove.  The output seals were also replaced in the process, and the whole unit was cleaned up.

The modifications are small, but significant to the performance of the car.  The external 5th gear/reverse detent is a poorly designed factory addition to the 365-07 transaxle.  I installed Renault's internal 5th gear detent, allowing for the reverse detent to be optimized.  Along with a special center pivot in the shift linkage, finding the gears is easy - actually, its great.  You'll always hear about Europa's shifting badly, but when optimized, Europa's shift like a dream.

The special shift linkage pivot was needed to help the linkage clear the exhaust header.  It uses spherical bearings to minimize slop.  An unfortunate side effect is that the solid bearings transmit a ton of engine vibration into the cabin, and causes the shift knob to make your hand numb if rested on it.