Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi as can be seen by pics below my bodywork has been seriously butchered in the past, in the area of the rear towers. The holes for the upper diff mount are also pretty untidy

Rather than muck around with these, I've decided to reglass both areas and recut the necessary holes properly.

My question, does anyone have their body in a state (ie off the chassis or similar) where they would be able to give me some dimensions to assist in recutting the holes? Or just a pic with a tape measure laying in an appropriate position so I'll know where to make the holes? Any assistance appreciated

Just a related matter, the pic of my transmission tunnel shows that a large inspection hole has been roughly cut to the rear of the round hole which I think was factory fitted for front universal inspection. Does this additional hole serve any purpose? If so I'll tidy it up and buy another bung. If not I'll glass it over.

Many thanks for any advice

Robert

Robert,

My S1? wouldn't help much with the most of the holes.

The front side chassis hole is for the greasing the front UJ and I reckon the other hole was put in to make it easy to grease the rear one too, avoiding the messy reach through the rear wheel arch. The chassis has 3 holes on its left side and the rear one of them might even be in a better position for a body hole though it would mean taking both seats out to grease the UJs.

Quart Meg Miles wrote:Robert,

My S1? wouldn't help much with the most of the holes.

The front side chassis hole is for the greasing the front UJ and I reckon the other hole was put in to make it easy to grease the rear one too, avoiding the messy reach through the rear wheel arch. The chassis has 3 holes on its left side and the rear one of them might even be in a better position for a body hole though it would mean taking both seats out to grease the UJs.

Thanks for that, never know what to call you...."quart"? "Meg"? "Miles"?

Anyway, had another look at the tunnel and the reassembled chassis and as per pics below the PO's additional hole doesn't really seem to align with anything really, it's about half way along the prop shaft. Think I'll just re-glass it and be done with it. But any further observations welcome.

As for the other request re dimensions, it now occurs to me that I can probably gauge these pretty accurately from the rolling chassis by measuring distance between lotocone bolts and diff top mount bolts and translating it to the shell.

Xmas being spent in a holiday house on the north coast of NSW reading Mr Buckland's superb book (my Xmas present) cover to cover. Life doesn't get much better......

Robert

If you're rich, deary, you can call me anything you want, but make the cheques out to Meg, if you don't mind.

It looks to me that you have a Spyder chassis which has different hole spacing to the Lotus, but it seems to be in an odd place so I'd fill it in too. And as you say, you can probably gauge the diff hang position from the other fixing points, body to chassis.

Good luck, Robert.

The holes for the "frustacones" are probably right so not much point in glassing them in completely.

My turret tops were the same -
When you glass them in, make sure the glass doesn't sag or it will get close to the top edge of the lotacone
Also check the clearance on the cross brace - otherwise just glass away.
To re make the holes - drill a pilot to locate the top of the damper, then use a tank cutter.