Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

For those attending LOG Las Vegas. Firday evening after the Welcome Reception. Two rooms have been reserved (Siena room) for an open forum discussion. Bring Lotus problems, ideas, solutions or? Kind of the old academic free disussion. If all goes well, there should be two groups, the new late model group and the classic group. Saturday afternoon for "tech" talks. Steven Duchene will present on electronic fuel injection and crank triggered ignition, Keith Franck on tuning Weber carburetors and more! Curious what parts and services are available and not available or new in the Lotus world. Of course, Lotus will be presenting. My plan it to as much Lotus as possible, I can party, sleep and eat when I get home. Looking forward to LOG! Steve V.

Thanks for organizing and posting Steve. I'm on the road now, having travelled about 1,200 miles so far to central Utah. Planning a swing thru Bryce and Zion to St George today. Car working well, although had a wheel nut loosen which was a bit of a moment Snugged it up and all good.

See you all on Friday.

Quick post to say enjoyed LOG 31 very much. Still on the return trip. In Northern Cali heading up to Oregon on the coast today. Not too many disasters, although needed a weld job on the exhaust in Redding and we are now push starting the car at all stops. Probably about 1000 miles left to go!

Cheers!

Stu,

Well I hope the final push home goes without failure. So I thought you had a starter upgrade?? or maybe need one.
Please take the time to post your thoughts on LOG once you get settled in at home. Would love to hear about everything and I would like to hear if you had your +2 judged or not and any comments you might have.

Cheers
Mark

Took way to long to remember to post a link and a few pics of our return drive from LOG31.

My travel partner for the return trip, 'Elmer Hill', is developing a web site for Vancouver Island motor touring. He did up a brief write-up of our trip from Las Vegas to Vancouver BC to try out the site software with embedded picture links, maps, routes taken, etc. Idea is to get folks to develop trip itineraries & blogs, popular trips, etc.

Here is our trip on his new site:

http://elmhill.ca/routes/Stu-Plus-2

The trip from Vancouver to Calgary was fantastic, other than working out how to push start the car alone. I got pretty good at flagging down help and parking on hills. I hadn't taken the Trans Canada Highway 1 through the Fraser Canyon in years as there are now quicker routes. It really is a great road now with minimal traffic and terrific scenery. I hit snow in the Rockies, but not sticking on the roads. Sure wish the Lotus had intermittent wipers; gotta figure out that mod over the winter.

I know its been said here before, but the Plus 2 is a fantastic vintage tourer. If I can cut the road noise a bit with the sound deadening paint over the winter it will be even better. I couldn't believe how much room we had in this car for luggage; they guy next to us in the hotel lot with the Esprit was having trouble loading luggage for one, and we just kept stuffing bags in the trunk. Just the camera and one ever night bag in the back seats.

All in all I think about 6000 km. Two gallons of oil about $60. Two tires in Wells Nevada about $500. Memories, accomplishment, and meeting new friends, priceless! Remember, just drive 'em!

A nice trip and you have a nice car. It was good to see it at LOG. Kenny & Dee also had a big trip in a +2 driving from NYC.

We hit some of the same places that you did. We visited the maritime museum in Astoria, Rockaway Beach & the Tillamook air museum. We were driving our M100 Elan on a road trip from VA to Las Vegas and back. I hope you can make it to Orlando next year.

Stu,
Thanks for the follow up post and the link to the nice article! You are certainly right about a great touring car and the storage space. When my son drove his +2 to Aspen Log and we drove the Elise he got to pack all the bags.

Mark

DeanG wrote:A nice trip and you have a nice car. It was good to see it at LOG. Kenny & Dee also had a big trip in a +2 driving from NYC.

We hit some of the same places that you did. We visited the maritime museum in Astoria, Rockaway Beach & the Tillamook air museum. We were driving our M100 Elan on a road trip from VA to Las Vegas and back. I hope you can make it to Orlando next year.

It was great meeting Kenny and Dee for the first time. I think Dee processed my check in. Kenny was telling me he restored his beautiful Plus 2 in the car park in downtown Manhattan, which has got to rate an award for perseverance and pluck!

The white Plus 2 was a great job as well; may be mistaken but think it took the popular voting in class? Can't recall the owners name, but when we were leaving the hotel they had a trophy in hand and joked there was one trophy left over and I should just take it as my car looked good!

What with Steve's recently completed Plus 2 in a beautiful blue we may have come close to out numbering the Elans.

The Brit that MC'd the events (sorry, can't recall the name) was a great guy. He commented on all the Plus 2's having better panel fit than when they were originally assembling them in the 60's.

I enjoyed myself at my first LOG so much I am definitely going to try to make Orlando. Tentative plan is to have my wife fly in this time and do some after LOG Florida touring to Key West as I have never been to the region. Google Maps makes it 4,400 km one way with the most boring direct route thru St Louis, so the trip is a big deal logistically. I might have to jam out and consider a towing strategy.

Would be an unbelievable jaunt, Stu, any way you took it. The touring around southern Florida and the Keys would be beautiful, too.

The "Jay Leno" crew would simply arrange for trailering there and back. I suspect you're not entirely among that class . . . but the stories you'd have if you drove it both ways . . .

In any case, very happy for you that you made the Vegas trek this year. What was the camber issue you had to deal with: breakage, bad or creeping adjustment, front or rear?

Hope to see you again this May at Van Dusen All British (if you're not all driven out by the big events down south!) . . .

Randy

Sea Ranch wrote:.... What was the camber issue you had to deal with: breakage, bad or creeping adjustment, front or rear?

....Hope to see you again this May at Van Dusen All British (if you're not all driven out by the big events down south!) . . .

Randy

The front suspension never got set correctly after my rebuild. When I noticed the uneven tire wear I had the same shop re-do it and it is much better. What was drastically out was the front ride height when measuring from the front frame member to the ground, which is adjustable on my Spyder shock / wishbone set-up. Added benefit is the exhaust drags a lot less. I became aware of the problem when I took the car to an exhaust specialist, and he noticed the front ride height was causing the wishbones to go upward on the outside ends, which I suppose would induce incorrect camber at rest?

Will have to get spousal approval for the Field Meet trip, but hoping to make it again this year. Just got a registration email from Joan Stewart yesterday.

Hey Stu,

Or should I call you the intrepid Mr. Gilmour? It was great to see your wonderful car at LOG 31 and the other Plus 2 turnout as well. It was indeed a super looking group of very special cars and all different colors (colours to you). I was delighted to put a face with a name I knew from here. I have been lucky to do that with quite a few of the contributors here. It is a small band of brothers indeed.

What a great write up of a special trip. As you know I too am a big advocate of using these old Elans as they were meant to be used, so if you want to collaborate on a trip to Florida for LOG 32 just get to Denver and we can go the rest of the way together.

I loved the photos and the commentary from your friend and, as you note, there are costs but the memory is priceless. Let's make another one this year

Thanks for the info, Stu. Glad you've got it sorted. And the starter, too, I expect?

Loved the pix on the road trip website (perhaps my fav is the interior shot of you and navigator while driving; very nice!). And I see you've discovered our favourite little piece of Oregon coastline: Seaside (actually a beautifully long crescent beach, no?). It's six hours from the Can/US border so we go yearly. That will be a trip I'll look forward to in the Plus 2

Randy