Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I bought my Elan in 2014. Since then it's been a rolling restoration, focused mainly on reliability and driveability. Things like cv joints, an alternator, setting the tune to non-Federal specs for carbs and distributor advance, etc. Plus a Voigt 5-speed since in Tulsa, OK I have to drive some boring straight roads to get to the curvy Elan roads.

With the above, and more (see the link in my sig), we've been able to drive the car to the last two LOGS, so it has definitely been proven that it came make long trips reliably.

Now it's time to address the cosmetic issues (fixing cracks and de-warping the doors), plus a few more maintenance tasks (rear strut inserts), plus converting to Webbers (just because), and fixing anything else I come across along the way.

I've posted some of the above in various places. But I got some feedback that these should be in one thread, so here it is. Here's the content so far:

1) I covered fixing a crack in the nose in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=51822
2) that also included posts on "de-warping" the doors:
3) here are the posts about pulling the body and stripping the chassis: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=43054&p=382802#p382802


A comment on lifting the body. I used an engine hoist. I made a 4-pt bridle out of dacron line. The rear lift pts were the outside seat belt mount points, and the fwd pts were the outside seat clamps. What I learned was that I didn't have the bridle far enough fwd to match the body center of gravity. As a result, the rear lifted first. My quick fix was to put a screw eye in a ceiling joist, and run a line from it to the front of the car, using the headlight vacuum mount pt as the attachment pt, and used that line to level at the car. So it wasn't pretty, but it worked. I'll want something more stable when I put the body back on the chassis, maybe just call in some more hands.

Getting the diff out of the chassis was the biggest challenge in the chassis strip. In order to get it out the left side, I had to trim some material off the lower right mount lug, and a bit off the upper left mount lug. Not enough to matter, but there just wasn't any way it was coming out without doing that. I know it obviously went in as-is 52 years ago, but I presume the chassis changed shape a bit along the way.

So now it's off to the blaster. These places also do powder coating, and are trying to talk me into it. I was thinking epoxy prime with paint over, but I'm starting to rethink that. Powder coating would be quick - they could do it all, it wouldn't be expensive - about the same cost as the materials to prime/paint, and they claim that it would be more durable and simple to touch up as necessary. But what color? Try to match the red oxide, or just go with black. Any thoughts?

Why Webbers? Because: 1) they look cool, 2) that's what ACBC intended, obviously, he just switched to Strombergs to save expense, not because they're better, 3) I can get rid of the bonnet bump, again, as ACBC intended the car to look, 4) to get a bit smoother idle, quicker response, and cooler intake sound. So I found a head for $1k, sent it off to PHP Racengines for a rebuild, and just got it back. So more coming on that.

So, more to come for anyone who's interested.

Looking forward to more progress. Thanks for combining threads.

Hi

Thank you for posting this information.

When I had my chassis powder coated, it was first blasted then all welded seams coated with Zinga (96% zinc) paint, then coated in a zinc rich powder coat. It might have even been primed in between the Zinga and powder I cannot remember.

This was a Spyder spaceframe chassis by the way. In fact I had 2 of them done.

Whatever you decide, I hope it goes well!

Berni

Today was mostly logistics. I put in a big parts order to DBE. I ordered 2 carbs from Carbs Unlimited. I cleaned up the garage and bagged parts.

The actual ‘hands on the car’ work was cleaning. The chassis got a light cleaning. And I spent some time removing 52 years of grime from the diff. It isn’t polished, but at least you can read ‘Lotus’ again. Sorry, no before pic. But trust me, it was bad.

Steve,

There is an interesting video of Col Croucher from elan trick bits installing and removing a differential. He makes it look so easy using only one hand!

I had similar difficulty to you, but as I needed a new chassis I cut the old chassis to get it out. Based on the belief that it must be possible I struggled for ages. My solution was to use a polyethylene bag as a dry lubricant to wrap the diff in, whilst I wrestled it into place. I think being a strong man is real answer.

Richard Hawkins

Today I dropped the frame off at the blaster/powder coater. I’m going with matte black. I might have to go get it after the blasting if that shows up any problems, fix them, and take it back for coating.

More parts cleaning today.

And I fixed a problem I created during disassembly. I broke the handbrake light switch. In particular, it separated from its mount, and the plunger head broke off, and tonight I lost the remains of it - long story. To replace the plunger, I carved a piece of wood about the size of a matchstick the correct diameter and length. It needed a head at the switch end to keep it from falling too far into the handbrake tube. To make the head I used CA glue and baking soda. I made up a form out if masking tape wrapped around the stick, filled it with baking soda, then added a few drops of glue. After a bit more carving and sanding, it worked great. Then I glued the switch back onto the mount. Job done.

RichardHawkins wrote:Steve,

There is an interesting video of Col Croucher from elan trick bits installing and removing a differential. He makes it look so easy using only one hand!

I had similar difficulty to you, but as I needed a new chassis I cut the old chassis to get it out. Based on the belief that it must be possible I struggled for ages. My solution was to use a polyethylene bag as a dry lubricant to wrap the diff in, whilst I wrestled it into place. I think being a strong man is real answer.

Richard Hawkins

Thanks Richard - I've been wondering how I'm going to get it back in the chassis without scratching everything up. I like the bag idea!

steve lyle wrote:To replace the plunger, I carved a piece of wood about the size of a matchstick the correct diameter and length. It needed a head at the switch end to keep it from falling too far into the handbrake tube. To make the head I used CA glue and baking soda. I made up a form out if masking tape wrapped around the stick, filled it with baking soda, then added a few drops of glue. After a bit more carving and sanding, it worked great. Then I glued the switch back onto the mount. Job done.

That deserves a Blue Peter badge!

pharriso wrote:That deserves a Blue Peter badge!

For anyone else who had/has no idea what a Blue Peter badge is:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peter_badge

In danger of going totally off topic, but I'm guessing that given Elan ownership demographics, 80% of us know what a Blue Peter badge is!

Even here in the States, a lot of us are expat Brits of a certain age...

pharriso wrote:In danger of going totally off topic, but I'm guessing that given Elan ownership demographics, 80% of us know what a Blue Peter badge is!

Even here in the States, a lot of us are expat Brits of a certain age...

And some of us Yanks just dig stuff from over there! :me green:

Spent some time stripping the engine bay, and of course cleaning parts.

Also got the chassis back from the blasters. I need to make a couple of rust repairs (the biggest pictured) then it goes back to them for powder coating. Wasn’t expecting rust there, but whatever.

You weren't expecting rust there? That is one of the first areas that rust attacks, due to the saddle felt becoming saturated with water. The felt should not be fitted any lower than the seat belt mounting bolt hole. It does not do anything lower than the bolt hole anyway, other than suck up water.

Leslie

yeah, they all tend to go there but repair is possible!

Yes indeed.