Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I've posted the next video in my Elan S2 assembly. This time featuring the rear lights, dashboard and steering column. Warning: it's a bit of an epic so I've divided it into two parts.

First part
https://youtu.be/Q1feM8DP390

Second part
https://youtu.be/fSxNnmdGAh0

Hi Paul

I was very pleased to see both episodes and there were a lot of new things to pick up on. I'm particularly pleased to see that you carefully avoid the very obvious and focus on the much less obvious.

I will watch the reassembly of the steering column again to check I have understood the alignment of the crimped clip. The close up parts on this and the electrics (such as the highly mysterious (to me at least) panel light rheostat are very useful.

Andrew

Brilliant Paul.
I loved your genuine excitement when the big switch on was taking place. I get the same with my builds.
I also very much enjoyed the background noise cameo from your chicken.

With your boot rubbers, is the round squashy section ( more rectangular in your case if memory serves) on the inside of the attaching profile or on the outside? My new rubbers have just arrived from R Dent who ,in my view, make the most accurate reproduction and I've dry fitted them with the round profile outwards.

661 wrote:With your boot rubbers, is the round squashy section ( more rectangular in your case if memory serves) on the inside of the attaching profile or on the outside? My new rubbers have just arrived from R Dent who ,in my view, make the most accurate reproduction and I've dry fitted them with the round profile outwards.

Glad you like the video. Imagine how exited I might be when I finally fire up the engine

I fitted the boot seal with the squashy section to the inside. I didn't consider fitting it the other way because I was following how the old seal had been fitted. I got a comment on youtube suggesting that I'd be better fitting it the other way so the lock would clear it. I have tried it the other way and in principle it looks like it should work better with the squashy section to the outside, however it was putting quite a lot of force on the boot lid pushing it up so much that it was out of alignment with the bodywork. Maybe it would have been possible to put a weight on top of the boot lid to squash the seal down over time. Also now that I've cut it to fit on the inside it's too short to fit the other way around, so for those two reasons I'm stuck with it on the inside. It'll be interesting to know if the round seal works OK on the outside. My original seal was definitely more round than square.

Paul

PaulH wrote:

661 wrote:With your boot rubbers, is the round squashy section ( more rectangular in your case if memory serves) on the inside of the attaching profile or on the outside? My new rubbers have just arrived from R Dent who ,in my view, make the most accurate reproduction and I've dry fitted them with the round profile outwards.

Glad you like the video. Imagine how exited I might be when I finally fire up the engine

I fitted the boot seal with the squashy section to the inside. I didn't consider fitting it the other way because I was following how the old seal had been fitted. I got a comment on youtube suggesting that I'd be better fitting it the other way so the lock would clear it. I have tried it the other way and in principle it looks like it should work better with the squashy section to the outside, however it was putting quite a lot of force on the boot lid pushing it up so much that it was out of alignment with the bodywork. Maybe it would have been possible to put a weight on top of the boot lid to squash the seal down over time. Also now that I've cut it to fit on the inside it's too short to fit the other way around, so for those two reasons I'm stuck with it on the inside. It'll be interesting to know if the round seal works OK on the outside. My original seal was definitely more round than square.

Paul

The R Dent seal is very much like the original, round and not too proud of the fixing part. To my eye, putting the squashy bit to the inside would seem to compress it against the boot contour and not allow the boot to sit as low. I appreciate your feedback from the comments you had. It shows that there are at least 2 ways of skinning this cat. I'm still at an early stage of fiddling.