Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi, it?s necessary to be careful with the tolerances in this area

I fitted new dowel pins which I brought from Burton Engineering and when fitted with the plates there was approximately a 1 mm gap between bell housing and engine ? I had two turn the dowels down by approximately 2mm to get it all to fit.
I guess there is nothing wrong with removing plates on a racer but you must pay attention two the tolerances
Regards
Steve

ricarbo wrote:Since the hole for the unused third bolt sticks out and is close the the frame, you may want to cut that bit off.

The "ear" for the third starter bolt does foul the frame and therefore must be trimmed off. Original Lotus parts have a vestigial half hole left after they trimmed this ear back.

I have the Standard lotus chassis in my Elan and use the later 3 bolt pre engage starter from the ealry 70's ford range of cars. I just secure it with 2 bolts and leave the third one empty as no matching place on the bellhousing. It works perfectly ( you only really need 2 bolts, colin chapman did not waste money on items you did not need ) and the unused starter third bolt lug does not foul anything. I suspect a 3 bolt sandwich plate would also be ok even without removal of the the third lug, but then chassis and body tolerances are pretty loose and you may have fouling problems on some cars.

cheers
Rohan

CBUEB1771 wrote:The "ear" for the third starter bolt does foul the frame and therefore must be trimmed off.

I just fitted a three holed plate to my S3 and the lug did not foul the chassis, however it did not fit correctly across the slave cylinder as it obscured the pipe and bleed fittings.
I had to trim the plate slightly to get it in the correct place adjacent to the slave cylinder.

rgh0 wrote:I suspect a 3 bolt sandwich plate would also be ok even without removal of the the third lug, but then chassis and body tolerances are pretty loose and you may have fouling problems on some cars.

What I found was that installing the block and gearbox as an assembly, the ear for the third bolt on the steel plate won't go past the inward plunge of the aperture in the standard Lotus chassis. If you slide the gearbox in first, hang the plate off the bell housing second and then install all the block the third ear does not foul but pokes through the aperture in the chassis. I trimmed the ear to match the standard Lotus part as my preference is to install the engine and gearbox as an assembly. The photos show the plate after I trimmed the third bolt ear off. The bell housing in the photo is part of the Alan Voight T9 conversion.

Wiki?

My car now has a Lotus Replacement Chassis. I had a problem with the starter clashing with the chassis in the area shown in the picture posted by Russ above. Some time ago I was advised “never throw anything away” I went and checked my old chassis which continues to rust outside. The hole is in a different place!

Hope this helps

Richard Hawkins

RichardHawkins wrote: Some time ago I was advised “never throw anything away”

I bet this advise was not from your wife... then 'll get my coat

Quite right, not advice from my beloved, but a more experienced Lotus owner.

I know our cars are hand made, but the number of items that don’t fit never ceases to amaze me, even items that I have not replaced do not fit correctly, I suspect they never fitted correctly and I am discovering original errors.

Richard Hawkins