Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

HI..I'M NEW TO THE GROUP. I HOPE THIS MESSAGE GOES THROUGH.

I'M NOT SHOUTING, I'M TYPING CHALLENGED.



I HAVE A 66 ELAN WITH 68 RUNNING GEAR. I'M THINKING

ABOUT GETTING SOME NON STOCK SEATS. I WANT BETTER SUPPORT AS I LIKE TO SIT
PRETTY STRAIGHT UP.



ANY IDEAS??



THANKS



JOHN KENNER

66 OR 68 ??

John,
Welcome to the group. I have a crook back and find that the basic Elan
seat gives little (no!) lumbar support, so for a while I've been looking
for something to replace it with. the problem is that every seat I have
looked at is too wide to fit in the Elan; I think that a seat from the
AH Sprite (the bug/frog-eye original) may fit but it looks to have even
less lumbar support.
If you just want to make the backrest more vertical, maybe you could
block the rear?
I am looking for a spare seat which I will dismantle and fit a lumbar
pad to, maybe even cut the frame and re-weld back at a different angle.
I'll be interested to see what responses you get.

Cheers,
Pete.

You do realize that the seat can be mounted both in front of the hold down bolt or behind it. I'm sure the main intent of this is to provide a longer for/aft adjustment, but since the incremental adjuster on the front leg of the seat is adjusted through an arc, moving the seat say to the in front ofthe bolt position and then adjusting the seat to near it's farthest back position (or either end of the adjustment arc) would lower the front edge ofthe seat and tilt the back forward. Not a big change, but this may make itsomewhat more to your liking. And yes, you could block up the rear rest points of the seat. Probably wouldn't take much and would be easily undone bythe next owner.

You might also have the seats reupholtered or at leat new padding installed. Elan seats were never plush, but the foam is pretty much 40 years old now.

Roger

Fiat X19 seats fit in the +2, which has the same basic seats, but I don't know if they would fit in the Elan

John

Look at a Sparco catalog. They have classic looking bucket seats that
will work in an Elan and are comfortable with modern construction (think
safety). I've been thinking about them myself.

John

66 Elan S3

One of my friends has seats from a Lotus Elise in his Baby Elan. Of course
you will need to fiddle with the mounting brackets, but you will be able
to get good and modern seats with headrest. They are sometimes offered on
eBay.
/leo

If you are in the UK, europa specialist spares, http://www.europaspares.com/
stock a range to seats which will fit.

David

Some one mentioned once that the Mazda MX5 seats fit. (or Mazda Miata Eunos
etc)
Clive