Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi all.

I am rebuilding a Elan +2 this car was taken off the road in 1978, stripped to literally the last nut and bolt put into boxes and left. I am now on the cylinder head. The only parts missing from the box containing the head and cams etc were the cam followers, the head is mint, no cracks, never been skimmed, perfect. As you would expect for a car that has only done 28,000 miles. Now comes the problem, I ordered a set of followers from Burtons, steel ones they don't fit, phoned Burtons to check if in error they have sent oversize ones. No they are the standard ones, guy at Burtons says "no mate they are all the same size" so how come I have the only non standard head in the world. If I measure sleeves with vernier they all come out at 1.368 but the Burton followers are 1.374. So the question is are there different size followers?

Bob

QED supply oversize cam followers in a +005" oversize but I have not heard of under size followers, I dont know if when fitting new sleeves they are supplied if they are under size and need boring out to the standard size ???? .......if that is the case then it could explain why your followers are missing, maybe the PO had new sleeves fitted and never got round to having them bored to the standard size?..... any idea why the engine was stripped at 28,000 miles?

Hi, that makes sense, as the valve sleeves have been changed as well, looks like it was never finished. As far as I can find out, car was taken down to the South of France and engine blown up on way back. When I went through all the bits all I had for the engine I had a 701M block, the head, a scrap condition 4 bolt crank, a 6 bolt flywheel, 3 rods, sump, covers, pair sprint cams. The block number did not match logbook, so looks like one of the owners was collecting engine bits. Looking now at getting sleeves machined.
Bob

bobchaplin wrote: <Snip> Looking now at getting sleeves machined.
Bob

Phil Price http://www.connaughtengines.co.uk/ did a very good job replacing my cam follower sleeves in 2014