Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I've finally made the move and purchased an Elan S3 SE coupe restoration project to add to my collection of Europas and a Lotus Cortina

The car has low original mileage Elan and the only modifications seem to be smaller dia. rear springs and Konis. There is a crack several inches long in the left rear quarter by the battery due to impact. No spider web cracking, rust, crash damage, welding or other repairs. Frame looks great and in original condition. The rolling chassis is completely restored and has no mileage except the engine. The engine was rebuilt prior to start of restoration and does have some unknown hours on it. All components appear to be original including body, frame, block, head and all other items.

Now to the confustion. The PO has a letter from Lotus Cars stating engine matches chassis byt that chassis number is a 45/ which denotes drop head coupe, but body is fixed head coupe. Were the records that badly kept?

I need to find a source for carpet and a headliner. The car is located in the SF Bay Area. Also I was looking to try to talk Randy Keller into refinishing the dash (there are splotches of veneer missing and the top finish needs to be reapplied).

There are missing parts consisting of inner and outer door handles, ID tag, door latches, door lower hinge castings, heater valve, steering clamp, front flasher and blinker and repeater lights, all exterior insignia, lic. plate lights, windscreen rubber, wiper arms, map light, some minor rubber gaskets.

If any members have any of the above spare parts I'd appreciate it if you can contact me offline. Otherwise I'll contact the usual suppliers and EBAY (Ridgeliven)

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

John Stice

John, The frame was probably swapped at some point. I sold the cv axles and really am not selling much elan stuff(except a spare weber head that I have) because I'm building up a couple Elans and don't know what I might need later. Congratulations on the Elan purchase. Brent

Brent do you have a weber head for sale. I am looking for one for my S4.

Francis yes I have one listed on Ebay right now. Also
listed on racecars.com. Nice condition, ported. Came
off a Cortina racing motor and looks pretty well
maintained. Exhaust side needs cleaning. Brent

John,

Probably either the body or the frame has been replaced. There may be some body numbers inside the doors and on the inside of the top, handwritten which may identify where the body came from, although they will not be the same as the chassis number. The chassis number should be the same as the frame number and that should be stamped into the top surface of the frame near the RH engine mount.

Roger

I wanted to thank everyone for their input. I'll look over both the body and the frame to see if I can locate additional ID numbers.

Thank you

John Stice

John,

My S3 Coupe' has the four digit unit number in grease pencil written on the
inside of the door. Remove the vinyl covered fiberglass surround and then
peel back the center vinyl and you should find it. If you can find the unit
number you should be able to cross reference it to the serial number.

The easiest place to look is for the data plate usually screwed to the
firewall just above the left hand foot well. If that still exists, it
should have the serial number stamped onto it in the form CHNO 36/xxxx, or
some variation thereof. Since it is of aluminum, it could be corroded, but
you should be able to decipher the number.

The person to help you with historical questions about your car is Mike
Pomfret at Lotus ***@***.***. He is the "keeper of the keys"
and is very helpful. Good luck!

Stan