Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

struth!
was planning a late 100pound bid on this to secure it. Thought that was a large amount! but no!
how many people even need one of these!?

how many people even need one of these!?

Not many, is the answer, but those that do are obviously willing to pay whatever it takes! It went for ?149 in the end - that's pounds not dollars!

TroonSprint wrote:

how many people even need one of these!?

Not many, is the answer, but those that do are obviously willing to pay whatever it takes! It went for ?149 in the end - that's pounds not dollars!

Think you'd be surprised (seems a common subject on here), there a daft design on the 2 seater and after breaking mine i had been looking for one for over a year (only saw two go in that time and both where well over ?100) so i had to drill,tap and ultimately weld a new stud into the end of the selector to get it to work.

There are of course some new selectors out there but they are ?200 + (http://www.kelsport.net/parts/product_d ... ctionID=27)so imho ?150 for an assembly is still on the cheap side.

Yes I did look up some "normal" shifters and think about the price of those.
I'm at the disadvantage of adding shipping also.

stupid Australia.

Frankly i'm a little surprised none of the normal suspects have had a copy made up, its not exactly a complicated thing.

Seems the main reason they snap is the Anti sizzle bush starts to fail (rubber comes away from the securing tube) so the selector can be turned in the bush, to fix this many just over tighten the selector and Snap....... I manager to break mine because it had been smacked on the floor and bent when the body came off. That must have fractured the threaded part because when i gently bent it back and fitted the upper section it wouldn't tighten (failed before i could stop the upper selector from turning).

I'm not a great fan of the rubber bush in the gear stick. I think it is detrimental to the nice mechanical feel of the gearbox. Is it strictly necessary? I have considered getting rid of the rubber and manufacturing a solid mounting. Has anyone done this? Is there any downside?

Mike

you wanna swap Mike?

mine goes straight in

lotus-gearbox-f37/knob-too-short-t31795.html

HOLD ON HOLD ON,
I'm 6612!

TroonSprint wrote:I'm not a great fan of the rubber bush in the gear stick. I think it is detrimental to the nice mechanical feel of the gearbox. Is it strictly necessary? I have considered getting rid of the rubber and manufacturing a solid mounting. Has anyone done this? Is there any downside?

Mike

Thing is the gear change on my +2 is absolutely spot on, i think the Bush just takes enough of the notchyness out of the change (just as long as the bush is in good order and hasn't gone soft) my +2 was the main reason i just didn't buy a solid selector from Kelvedon.

On my +2 there is next to no movement in the bush, now if it was old/soft/coming apart i'd imagine it would feel dodgy.

I've tried the straight in stick on my Sprint and believe me, it really needs the anti sizzle stick.

My guess is the occasional breakage problem is caused by over exuberant application of force on the shift lever, and the failure occurs at a cut thread rather than a rolled thread. When/if the shifter departs in my Plus2, I will use a rolled threaded bolt for the upper portion, deeply bore the lower part, tap the bore with a bottoming tap, then carefully counter bore the top threads out of the newly threaded area. Then cut the corresponding threads on the unthreaded portion of the rolled thread bolt, leaving a short section of the bolt unthreaded. This unthreaded area will tightly fit the counter bore and take up most of the thrust, rather than having the cut thread area take the strain. The collard nut will be on the rolled section and have less of a chance of shearing the bolt. If, by chance, some ham-fisted shifting is employed, the new repair can easily be removed and another solution can be tried.

Rob, It's not as much of a problem with the +2 version as they tweaked the design (the 2 seater design is a bit soft)

On the +2 the lever assembly is a much better design (lotus-gearbox-f37/got-car-need-cosmetic-advice-regarding-gear-knob-t16473.html third picture down is a +2 lever, note the lower part has a roll pin locking it)

The 2 seater lever can be tightened or loosened with side to side force as its not locked, so what you get is a senario where the nut in the center has to be tight or the upper turns on the lower either loosing or tightening some more depending on which way you go (if that makes sense) not the best design imho.


So ideally fitting a +2 selector would fix the problem IF they weren't even rarer then 2 seaters.