Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

The uprights for bolt-on and knock-on wheels are listed as different items by the normal sellers, why is this?

Surley it's just the axle that's different - isn't it (i.e. the uprights are common - aren't they?)
Q: how to tell them appart?

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

As I recall the bolt on wheels take a thinner stub axle and also take different bearings then the knock on wheels which use a different hub.
Also there are a couple of different uprights as used by triumph herald, spitfires (mk 1/2/3/4) GTS and vitesse.

Yes, the smaller spindle for the smaller bearings also has a smaller tapered part that goes into the upright. When I took mine apart someone had fitted the wrong upright and then ground the taper down by hand to make it fit! Later spitfires etc had a longer thread because the steering arm also fixes on via the spindle nut.

Also the Spitfires had disc brakes with a caliper mounting (I think) the Herald had drum brakes with four mounting points for the backplate.
Lotus used an adaptor on the Herald upright to mount the caliper but I cant remember if they used the later upright with the caliper mounting ......maybe on the plus two???

Thanks gents - great replies, especially the drawing, I can now check find.
Many thanks.

I'm sorry Brian, but Elans were never fitted w/ the trifurcated style uprights like you have shown in your second drawing. They always used the 4-bolt style with a caliper adapter

The smaller bolt-on type upright looks just the same as the later K-O style. The only way I've found to tell the difference is to measure the spindle to compare to the bearing size. I've never looked for a forged in number difference, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The trifurcated uprights were used on Spitfires and some Caterhams used them also.

Roger

Thanks for the replies, Gents.

Aren't the later KO uprights easily identified by a raised rounded boss cast midway between the axle spindle and the top?
Gordon