Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I'm currently building up my chassis (plus 2) and after finally wrestling in the diff I'm wondering how tight to dog up the torque rods.

Do you bottom out the nylocs or is there are 'setting'? It's hanging from the new upper mounts but the more you tighten the torque rods and they crush the rubber bushes the more the diff tends to adopt a slightly nose down attitude.

Do you just tighten until the diff is 'level' or is there a technique I'm missing here? The rods are definately on their correct side BTW.

I'm using good NOS rubbers and would imagine modern poly bushes would be less prone to crush and therefore give a more adjustable 'set' to the diff position before the nylocs bottom out. I'm wondering if they might be a better choice.

...perhaps I'm just over thinking it

The workshop manual says torque the nuts to 22-27 lbs.ft
It's a while ago since I did mine but I seem to remember that the outer washer will bottom out on the shoulder at the end of the thread before that torque is reached so that sets the preload of the rubber bushes and you can't overdo it. Same applies to the front damper to rollbar bushes I think. I could be wrong though so happy to be corrected.

I’m with oldelanman, that’s how I remember mine.

Thanks guys, now you confirm it that's also how I recall it when I last did it over 10 years ago now - failing memory