Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Ey John, I have just remembered, my late lamented Volvo D5 estate had the battery in the boot.
So there!
Eric

Nick,

Thanks for the valuable tip on the Ebay source for semi-custom battery cables. Can anyone tell me what length positive cable I need?

My negative cable currently (bad pun intended?) attaches to a bolt in the floor of my spare tire compartment (I believe this is the standard negative attachment point). I'm planning to supplement that with a second cable attaching to my left-hand shock tower. Any tips or recommendations on this?

Much appreciated!

-John

Indeed, if anyone has a photo of the correct layout of the battery ground cable, it would help a lot.

#4 is a very adequate battery cable size for the power requirements of an Elan. You might want to check out welding cable, as it's a high wire count for a given size, and as a result is very flexible. More expensive than battery cable, but you only need 15' or so.

Here's a photo of my adopted standard for ground cable termination in my last 4 Elans. It's a stainless stud and spacer that raises the termination point above the fiberglass. Being threaded into the chassis is a much more reliable connection than the bolt through the bobbin and chassis at the bottom of the trunk. Threading into the upright as you mentioned is also good, perhaps less tidy to do.

When I redid the battery cable in the Plus2, I visited a electronics shop that sold stereo/boombox system for cars. They had large gauge, high quantity, multi strand cable in red, signifying a positive lead. Apparently, some of the new sound systems require lots of amps. For the ground/earth near the battery, I bridged the two rear chassis bolts with the ground cable.