Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I'll be refurbing the wheels and changing the tyres before spring, as well as servicing, so want the car up on 4 stands.

Have had some advice on this in the past, but can someone PLEASE give me a simple solution which doesn't include making wooden frames/jigs etc., as I'm too lazy....

I've got a Spyder spaceframe.

Cheers.

Hi,

Mine's a Sprint with a Spyder chassis, and it's up in the air at the moment!
Here's the advice I followed:

Lift the front via a jack placed in the centre of the tubular crossmember, then either place an axle stand at each end of the crossmember, or use ramps under the front wheels (I chose the latter).

Lift the rear via a 6 x 6 x 2 inch thick timber spreader on a jack, placed
centrally under the chassis, 6-9 inches in front of the diff. Lift it as high as you need. Then place large timber blocks under the chassis (between the jack and the front of the diff). You now need a piece of say 6 x 3 which is just longer than the width of the car. This is placed equally on top of the blocks. Then finally another 6 x 6 x 2 inch timber plate on top, up against the underside of the chassis.

The long bearer should now be poking out under, and at the rear of the cill. It should be vertically under the front of the rear wheel arch. Now pack between the bearer and the underside of the cill with several thicknesses of old carpet, curtain etc. Both cills!

Now gently lower the jack, checking all the wooden blocks settle squarely.

The rear bearing point for the central blocks is the part of the chassis spine immediately before it forks.

This set up is surprisingly stable, with the cill blocks giving additional rigidity.

On the other hand, you could service/change wheels etc, one axle off the ground, at any one time.

Regards.

The generic combined Workshop Manual everyone gets these days has lots of info stripped out of it. The original version for the S1 & S2 baby Elans had instructions and an illustration showing how to 'Jack the Vehicle', section B5. You've done it the approved Lotus way.

On reading my post, I ought to add the following:

The method I followed, assumed the exhaust intermediate pipe was already removed. It sits centrally under the car ..... exactly on the line where you need to jack in front of the diff.

You do not have to remove the exhaust ..... simply make a "U" shaped
timber cradle to straddle the pipe.

Hope that makes sense, and apologies for the omission.

Regards.

Hello Thor, Elans and +2's are old high performance low ground clearance metal chassis/fiberglass bodied Lotuses. (Say Hallelujah.) There is no simple way, if you're lazy, sell the Lotus and buy a Lexus.