My first really long trip in my Elan
Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:47 am
My original plan was to get the car ready this year to go to LOG in Salt Lake City - about 2500 miles total. Once that fell through, I still wanted a long road trip just for the adventure, to get out of the house, and to uncover any other problems the car might have. So the wife and I packed up and took off, with plenty of masks and hand sanitizer.
The trip: From Tulsa, to Memphis to see my sister, then to Nashville, to visit my brother, then follow the Natchez Trace Parkway (440 miles) to Natchez, MS, with a side trip to Vicksburg, then back to Tulsa. The entire trip ended up being 1876 miles over 8 days, with the longest leg being the last one at just over 500 miles. All on secondary roads, except for a short sprint (groan) on I-40 to get a across the river at Memphis.
Long story short, the car ran great. My plan is to take the car apart and do some body repairs and a color change this winter/spring, so this was a chance to uncover additional issues to address. And I found a few...
- The wipers don't park consistently at the same spot. Something is slipping in the mechanism - either the blade to gear box connection, or the cable to gear, or whatever. So that will need to be checked out when the dash comes out.
- The car needs a dead pedal for my left foot. I'm thinking to make up something out of wood that I can then fiberglass.
- We drove through some rain, and had some leaks - two of which were conveniently over my right and left legs. Another thing to get special attention when the car comes apart.
- Luggage wise we had the car filled to the gills, but room for everything we needed. A longer trip to SLC for LOG in 21 will require a laundrymat stop. But the car was more loaded than we'd ever had it, and it resulted in a few scrapes of the back end of the tail pipe, mostly focused on the clamp at the muffler. Probably because the DCO installed the clamp with the tightening bolt sticking a bit down below pipe. To the extent that it tore the clamp off the car. This was discovered in Vicksburg, where you apparently can't buy the fancy wide/smooth clamp that I got from DBE with the muffler. So I tried putting on a u-bolt style clamp. Which dragged even worse, and also got torn off, but before we even left Vicksburg. Luckily no other damage. Once we got back, I ordered a new clamp, and when I was installing it I found that my muffler had sagged a bit on the hangers. So with a combination of raising the muffler up a bit on the hangers and installing the clamp with the bolt above the bottom of the pipe, we should have a bit more clearance. And when I take the car apart I'll put in adjustable spring mounts so I can tune the rear ride height like I can currently on the front.
- I had no issues with hot starts. I credit that mostly to the pre-engagement gear reduction starter from RDE, but I think leaner needles on the Strombergs and a new coil may have helped too. Sometimes I had to crank it a bit longer when hot, but it always started fairly quickly.
- The 5-speed was a definite pleasure to have along, no issues at all, nice smooth shifts and calm cruising.
The car got plenty of comments, a couple of the usual guesses that it's an MG. One Spitfire guess. At least 3 SUV's took our picture on the road, and at a fuel stop in Mena, Arkansas, a guy ran over from his Ferrari (no lie - a Ferrari in Mena!) saying he thought we might be an Elan, he had heard of them but never actually seen one. Cool car, he said. I told him he had a cool car, too.
The trip: From Tulsa, to Memphis to see my sister, then to Nashville, to visit my brother, then follow the Natchez Trace Parkway (440 miles) to Natchez, MS, with a side trip to Vicksburg, then back to Tulsa. The entire trip ended up being 1876 miles over 8 days, with the longest leg being the last one at just over 500 miles. All on secondary roads, except for a short sprint (groan) on I-40 to get a across the river at Memphis.
Long story short, the car ran great. My plan is to take the car apart and do some body repairs and a color change this winter/spring, so this was a chance to uncover additional issues to address. And I found a few...
- The wipers don't park consistently at the same spot. Something is slipping in the mechanism - either the blade to gear box connection, or the cable to gear, or whatever. So that will need to be checked out when the dash comes out.
- The car needs a dead pedal for my left foot. I'm thinking to make up something out of wood that I can then fiberglass.
- We drove through some rain, and had some leaks - two of which were conveniently over my right and left legs. Another thing to get special attention when the car comes apart.
- Luggage wise we had the car filled to the gills, but room for everything we needed. A longer trip to SLC for LOG in 21 will require a laundrymat stop. But the car was more loaded than we'd ever had it, and it resulted in a few scrapes of the back end of the tail pipe, mostly focused on the clamp at the muffler. Probably because the DCO installed the clamp with the tightening bolt sticking a bit down below pipe. To the extent that it tore the clamp off the car. This was discovered in Vicksburg, where you apparently can't buy the fancy wide/smooth clamp that I got from DBE with the muffler. So I tried putting on a u-bolt style clamp. Which dragged even worse, and also got torn off, but before we even left Vicksburg. Luckily no other damage. Once we got back, I ordered a new clamp, and when I was installing it I found that my muffler had sagged a bit on the hangers. So with a combination of raising the muffler up a bit on the hangers and installing the clamp with the bolt above the bottom of the pipe, we should have a bit more clearance. And when I take the car apart I'll put in adjustable spring mounts so I can tune the rear ride height like I can currently on the front.
- I had no issues with hot starts. I credit that mostly to the pre-engagement gear reduction starter from RDE, but I think leaner needles on the Strombergs and a new coil may have helped too. Sometimes I had to crank it a bit longer when hot, but it always started fairly quickly.
- The 5-speed was a definite pleasure to have along, no issues at all, nice smooth shifts and calm cruising.
The car got plenty of comments, a couple of the usual guesses that it's an MG. One Spitfire guess. At least 3 SUV's took our picture on the road, and at a fuel stop in Mena, Arkansas, a guy ran over from his Ferrari (no lie - a Ferrari in Mena!) saying he thought we might be an Elan, he had heard of them but never actually seen one. Cool car, he said. I told him he had a cool car, too.