Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I have owned my Elan Sprint for 4 years but it has been waiting in my garage for me to retire. I have finally got round to this and made a rookie mistake yesterday. While the carbs were off I couldn't resist trying to pull the leaking breather grommet from the cylinder head. It broke and fell inwards, fortunately it remained as a ring and i managed to skewer it, get a hooked wire through it and pulled it out through the hole intact.

I purchased a Cliveboy breather pipe ages ago which routes the breather to a catch tank. This pipe came with a hard white plastic seal which presses tightly into the the cylinder head. I also have a new black rubber type grommet, the question is do I fit the white plastic seal or black rubber grommet. Any views on which works best. Slightly worried the white plastic seal may move outwards since it seems to just be a press fit in the cylinder head hole.

Regards

Roland

I would use the black one, they go hard with age and heat but the old one probably lasted 40 years and the white one is an unkown ............just my opinion though

I used one of these VW pushrod tubes by cutting it down. https://www.jbugs.com/product/9139.html

I tapped the hole and fitted a brass nipple to take a hose to an improvised catch tank (500ml brake fluid container stuffed with Brillo pads )

Foxie wrote:I tapped the hole and fitted a brass nipple to take a hose to an improvised catch tank (500ml brake fluid container stuffed with Brillo pads )

See my version, I used a commonly available aluminium water bottle as the tank.:
viewtopic.php?t=26101&f=19&start=75#p176701



I should perhaps say, as I don't think it is in my main topic, that I used as a grommet, the original right-angled rubber grommet. that at first held the drip tube to void the wasted oil onto the road. I cut off the right-angle bit and converted it into a straight grommet. If you look carefully at the picture of my t-piece you can see that I had to narrow the copper tube where it goes into the grommet. I don't recall exactly how I did this now, possibly I faced a mole-grips with some bit of wood and then rotated this round and round the copper tube (gripped in wooden semicircles in a vice) in a rough replica of copper bowl spinning actions on a spinners lathe.

I recently replaced the rubber grommet while the head was on the bench and it didn't go as planned. 2 or 3 times it sprang into the head and needed fishing out with some long nose pliers and wire. Just be warned, with the head on its not easy to get out as you have found.

Dave