Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

John,
Yes, sorry I meant the bell housing but I'm old school and have always lumped that in with the gearbox as they come together. On the 5 speed the two mounting holes for the starter are on the bell housing not the block.
Mick

I see what you mean John,
I have only had Elans and +2s with 4 speed boxes. With the 4 speed boxes the sandwich plate is the full size of the bellhousing and locates the machined shoulder on the starter flange precisely. The machined shoulder is a close fit in the sandwich plate and positions the starter motor accurately
Alan

Iain, Dan - thanks for the link/info

Robbie

Mick

Couple of snaps that may help?

I am still tempted to form a third lug on the bell housing and use the vacant hole on the Ford mounting plate. The starter fitted to my car already had the Ford style three lugs. Must be a valid solution to help minimise/eliminate the starter deflection under load?

Gary

The addtion of a lug for the third bolt cant hurt. Ford must have added it for a reason as their accountants did not spend money on an extra bolt just for fun

However I have used the 3 bolt later Ford / Bosch preengage starter for 30 years in my 5 speed plus 2 with just the 2 bolts on the alloy bell housing without a problem so the third bolt is certainly not critical.

cheers
Rohan

You could always fit the engine with something like the Aldon Amethyst mapped ignition system? Not really expensive, can be hidden out of sight and you can set your timing as you wish? Might even get a tuned engine to run better with a bit of time tweaking the map? You can certainly back the advance down for starting!

Quick question re this thread, sorry to hijack a little...
I have been having a few issues where my starter motor, either the original Lucas or a Brise hits the flywheel in-between the teeth, not always but sometimes. This has been observed by removing the botton gearbox cover plate and watching the engagement or lack of it. If I just rock the car in gear hey presto the starter motor engages and I'm away.

This never used to happen, and only started after I had the engine out to have the head gas flowed and fitted with QED 420 cams. I'm wondering if the sandwich plate got a bit bent when re-installing the engine (as one of the starter motor bolts was a little harder to get in), but it did engage on the dowels OK. So, would/could the sandwich plate affect the alighment of the starter motor such that it would hit in between the ring gears teeth? And if so why would the starter motor engage when I rocked the car past the compression stroke?

I know I can replace the sandwich plate in situ, but if anyone has an explanation I would be grateful.

thanks
Mark

Mark
If you can see the engagement ( and you can ) ,are both chamfers ( ring gear and starter pinion ) aligned with each other...ie have you got the ring gear on the right way..

John

Hi,
Yes the ring gear is on the correct way. It does not matter which starter motor I use, same issue, it sometimes hits between the teeth.

thanks