Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

TBG wrote:"In my case:

The water pump. (Of course.)"

Totally unnecessary if you fit the twin pulley system I have!!

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TBG wrote:"If you guys stopped over tightening your fan belts you'd also have as few problems... "

Absolutely correct!! Also if you have two belts you don't have to!!

prezoom wrote:The closest I ever became to being stranded in a Lotus, was on a 1500 mile tour, titled a Drive to the Center of the Earth, as Death Valley was included. Driving on Hwy 395 between Bishop and Lone Pine, I suddenly smelled the sweet smell of coolant hitting a hot surface, the exhaust, and immediately hit the clutch, shifted to neutral, and turned off the engine. For those not familiar with the area, it is half way between Nowhere and No Civilization. The rubber diaphragm in the heater valve had ruptured. In a stroke of luck, I was near a running stream, and with a pocket knife and a close to proper sized branch, I was able to carve a plug for both the hose and the valve. The knife proved useful along with the knock off hammer to destroy the rivet holding the valve together, which allowed me to disassemble the valve to insert another plug into the valve. A bit of barbed wire fence was used to secure the plug in the valve. A water bottle provided the means to make several trips to the stream for water. The plugs lasted for the rest of the tour, about 500 miles, and got me home safely. After getting home and looking for another valve assembly, I found that all of the valves of a similar type have the same internal guts, so any of the valves can be used to repair the old one. This is handy because you do not have to remove the main body of the valve from the cylinder head to make the repair. More bits have now been added to the repair kit in the trunk/boot.

MrBonus wrote:

prezoom wrote:The closest I ever became to being stranded in a Lotus, was on a 1500 mile tour, titled a Drive to the Center of the Earth, as Death Valley was included. Driving on Hwy 395 between Bishop and Lone Pine, I suddenly smelled the sweet smell of coolant hitting a hot surface, the exhaust, and immediately hit the clutch, shifted to neutral, and turned off the engine. For those not familiar with the area, it is half way between Nowhere and No Civilization. The rubber diaphragm in the heater valve had ruptured. In a stroke of luck, I was near a running stream, and with a pocket knife and a close to proper sized branch, I was able to carve a plug for both the hose and the valve. The knife proved useful along with the knock off hammer to destroy the rivet holding the valve together, which allowed me to disassemble the valve to insert another plug into the valve. A bit of barbed wire fence was used to secure the plug in the valve. A water bottle provided the means to make several trips to the stream for water. The plugs lasted for the rest of the tour, about 500 miles, and got me home safely. After getting home and looking for another valve assembly, I found that all of the valves of a similar type have the same internal guts, so any of the valves can be used to repair the old one. This is handy because you do not have to remove the main body of the valve from the cylinder head to make the repair. More bits have now been added to the repair kit in the trunk/boot.

Well this story definitely trumps mine! That's great ingenuity.