Early r4l left to right hand drive conversion

[Lambretta150]

Good morning. I am a new member and this is my first post and I don't yet own an R4.

What I am seeking to do is to recreate a car that my mother had in the late 1960's. When she died in 1970, my cousin took the car on and it is no more of this earth. It was a light blue, small mouth, 4L with basic "pipeframe" seat in it, I think from 1962 or earlier.

There seem to be several vehicles to use as a good basis advertised relatively cheaply in France. However, the obvious difficulty in any recreation is that they are left hand drive.

Therefore, my questions are:

Is it possible to convert from left to right-hand drive?
​

Has anybody done it?​

Did the result pass an MOT?​

Are parts such as steering rack useable in either case?
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Any insights (or offers of an early Right hand drive R4L that is not a basket case which would save me a conversion exercise) very gratefully received.

Please contact initially via this forum thread.

 

[Rutger-peer]

I'd suggest typing in "right hand drive conversion" in the search option and it'll give you some hints. And here's your one-of-a-kind conversion kit in the Netherlands: http://www.windclassics.nl/nl/parts/49

 

[alewis]

Might be easier to get a newer RHD gtl and recreate the older look ?

 

[benchseat]

This question comes up occasionally, and generally the reply from the experts is "don't bother". There are many left hand drive R4s on the Continent, RHD spares are more difficult to come by for obvious reasons, steering racks are not interchangeable, you'd probably have to replace or extensively weld the entire bulkhead, etc. etc.

Using a LHD car in this country is no difficulty as long as you are a reasonably competent driver. Visibility for overtaking is not so good, but as the R4's comfortable top speed is only about 60mph, it is generally a question of everyone else overtaking you.

My current R4 is LHD and I have so far done 101000 miles in it with no driving problems. It is now coming to the end of its career (total mileage 153000 miles) and I've just bought another LHD to replace it.