Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi all,
I've been following various posts regarding suspension setups, primarily for the small Elan.
I've seen various posters (specifically Rohan) mention the rubber setup a few times. Is this the aeon bump stop rubber from the original setup? If so, will these fit inside a smaller spring ie the adjustable 2 1/4" springs?

I have the smaller adjustable spring perches and on assembly it was suggested I use smaller cone shape poly ones from TTR.

I'm also having (slight) rear wheel wandering/steering at (high) speed on long bends. It feels like the cars sitting on the bumps with nowhere to go so the tyres start to roll over and start to steer..... a difficult thing to explain and not an everyday occurrence.

I'm thinking of doubling up the yellow small bumpstops or changing back to aeon ones... or, changing to something from the Powerflex range (or similar).

Suggestions and opinions gratefully (maybe gratefully, depends)

The standard Aeon rubber springs will not fit inside the normal small diameter springs that most people use as as conversion. There is a VW part that people have mentioned that is of similar length and spring rate that fits though I have never tried it myself.

Removal of these rubber springs can give significant handling issues on ht limits unless you go to much higher spring rate rear springs.

cheers
Rohan

I'd check
- rear bushes
- top lotocones for condition, as these allow the top of strut to move inout affecting camber
- front and rear wheel alignment.
- check the rear wheel alignment sound slick you may have a toe issue? I had new wishbones that i fitted and found that I had to sap wishbones form side to side to get close to correct toe see to side, not sure if the issue was a chassis or wishbone issue.

Elan's are very sensitive to toe. Front static toe is affected by steering rack height so worth checking though the suspension travel and setting height accordingly.

V

This is a low percentage possibility, but I had personal experience with it about 20 years ago.

The symptoms I experienced were very similar to mine until the forward bracket failed entirely.

Very carefully examine your rear wishbone pickup points, particularly the forward ones. One of mine failed at the weld on the chassis. It was a fatigue failure at the weld to the chassis. The brackets on the chassis are much thinner than the bottom chassis section, so the brackets had enough heat, but the chassis section had barely enough. I had the brackets re-welded and some small gussets added by a very experienced chassis fabricator. No issues since.

Regards,
Dan

Whenever my car gets squirrely, it is time to change the rear struts

I traced my unhappy, wandering, handling to a small amount of wear in the steering universal.
Had all the symptoms of poor rear tyres.

Ralph.

Speaking of steering universals, mine on the Plus2 was completely trashed. Switched to a "real" universal type, but was wondering if the rubber bits in the original were available?