Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

As I have mentioned before, the Elan Sprint I am rebuilding has been off the road since 1977 following an accident. I purchased the car completely dismantled two years ago. This means that the original gearbox (a Ford 4-speed) has only travelled about 40,000 miles.

Can I assume it is fine and put it in the car, or should I give it a once over? I've not much experience with gearboxes, so could you advise what should be inspected, and which parts (if any) are likely to need attention.

Thanks for any help. These forums (fora??) are brilliantly useful.

Mike

Nothing technical here, but.....

My car was off the road from 1977 until 2001.

I had the engine, the diff and the rear uprights restored by Mick Miller.

But for some reason I didn't bother with the gearbox.

Having got the car re-registered with its original reg. number I took her out for a her first drive in 24 years.

It was only then that I remembered that changing down into second had been a problem prior to the car being laid up.

So engine out and gearbox rebuilt.

Troony,

It must make sense, before putting it back in the car, to get it rebuilt. If you do not know the history of the box for those 40k miles, anything could have happened to it. Hopefully, it will need very little doing to it, but as a minimum, I would change the bearings and seals, and carefully inspect all else.

Leslie

Mike, I have just stripped down my first gearbox, a 2000E box. I have found that these fall into two types - early and late and some early parts are like rocking horse droppings. I had to send cash to a well known dealer to raid his private stash in his garage The parts were the 3rd / 4th synchro rings.
Total for the parts came to just over ?300 which I suppose isn't too bad for complete peace of mind. It's been an interesting learning experience but I got a lot of help from the guys on this forum, what to look for and many tips.
You can read the tips I got on my thread "Gearbox tips please"
Good luck, Kevin.

Back in the day a ford vehicle with a 2000E box with 40K miles under its belt would at the very least have synchro problems on 2nd and 3rd, possibly a worn 3rd/ 4th gear selector fork from the driver resting his hand on the lever, maybe worn laygear rollers and the mainshaft pilot bearing (still cant recall the proper name for it)

Possibly in an Elan they had an easier life due to the lighter weight, maybe with the drivers heel n toeing as well I really dont know because I was too much of an oil rag/toe rag and fond of road testing for an elan owner to trust me with their vehicle!!

Thanks everyone. It looks like I shall have to take courage in both hands and take a look inside. And thanks to Kevin for pointing me at his recent thread on the same issue. I rebuilt an MG Midget once upon a time and put the gearbox in the car thinking it was fine, and it wasn't! It whined like a banshee. Don't want to make the same mistake twice.
Mike