1968 Lotus Elan S4

[UNICORN]

Hello
I recently bought a Lotus Elan, while driving it i noticed a rubbing noise come from the rear passenger side,
the tire was rubbing against the body of the car ? if you look from the rear of the car you can see the rear passenger tire is outside the body of the car, looking at the drivers rear wheel you can hardly see the tire, ive taken both wheels of but cant figure out the reason for the problem. any help would be really helpful.

Regards to all

Norman Evans (A brit living near Nashville in the U S A)

[rgh0]

Hi Norman and Welcome to the Forum.

A small amount of difference side to side is normal but it sound like you have much more than normal

It sounds like the body is not sitting square on the chassis at the rear or there has been some previous repairs that have distorted the well arch locations versus the overall body location.

Taking the wheels off and measuring up what's centralised on the chassis and what's not, should enable diagnosis of where the problem is.

cheers
Rohan

[UNICORN]

Hi Rohan

Thanks for replying, ive put the Lotus in the local garage to check it out, they deal mainly with European cars, will let you know what the say

Regards

Norm

[SENC]

Welcome, Norman. Does the car have standard driveshafts and donuts, or a u-joint or cv joint replacement?

There are bound to be some Elan owners in the Nashville area - before having anything major done (if your shop doesn't have old Lotus experience), I'd seek out one to eyeball it with you. It may save some unnecessary expense or a bodge.

[UNICORN]

Hello Henry

Thanks for reply, the Lotus doesn't have donuts, I'm not sure what you would call the drive system its a solid axle with universal joints ? i have taken loads of pictures which i could upload to this site if I knew how to do it ? OK i found the way to upload photos but it says the file is to large ? ill have to ask my son to sort it for me, at 73 I'm not that savvy when it comes to computers etc.

Regards

Norm

[SENC]

Norm - Yes, there are size limitations - 2mb/picture, as I recall - so you'll have to use the photo editor on your phone or computer to resize them. Some applications make that very simple, others are too confusing for me, too, so I get the problem. But with pictures, I suspect you'll get some good guidance from the many highly knowledgeable Elan owners here.

[patrics]

Hi,
You could also check that the rear hubs are the same side to side - Plus 2 ones are different but still fit

Regards
Steve

[Quart Meg Miles]

've taken loads of pictures which i could upload to this site if I knew how to do it ? OK i found the way to upload photos but it says the file is to large
Norm

Welcome!
This is clumsy and you can only add one picture at a time. So for each picture:

1 Click Upload attachment;
2 Click Browse;
3 Select your picture in the usual Explorer way and click Open;
4 Click Add the file. This takes ages but eventually a panel appears labelled Posted attachments;
5 Optionally, type in the box a title to print if it would help the viewer;
6 Click, in your message text, where you want the picture to appear below, default is the start of your text;
7 Click Place inline. You will only see a text, not the picture, so make sure it's the right picture;
8 Use Preview to see how it looks and optionally add or delete spacing to suit your aesthetic sense.

You can, in fact, do 1 to 4 or 5 for all the pictures first and then do the insertions, easy to get confused though!

It works for me, hope it works for you!