Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

It’s a beauty, Mark !

I has a day-out in my Elan S3 Coupe on Sunday, because it was the last day on which I could get a 'free' trip.

Though the Elan itself as a Historic Vehicle is exempt from the ULEZ charge, I cant get the Elan out of my garage without first moving my diesel 7-seater MPV out of the way, so i expect that 'they' would catch it on camera and charge me £12.50 for 'driving in London', even though I only go a few hundred yard to park it out-of-the-way. I live just about 300 yards inside the new ULEZ and the diesel is a 2002 model and it would cost too much to replace it with a modern one. No-one seems to make one like the Renault Grande Espace any more anyway.

There are no deductions/exceptions for residents!!!

Feel your pain for sure.

Great Khan isn't he.

He's be better off trying to stop all the knife crime.... but hey, thats another "benifit" of MC.

Hopefully addressed gearbox (5 speed) a suspected leak from reverse light switch.

Very glad I planned ahead when I had the box out of the car and added bent washers to the mount to stop the bolts spinning with out a spanner on top. Meant I could easily remove the support and mount in situate, even with exhaust still in place.

mbell wrote:Hopefully addressed gearbox (5 speed) a suspected leak from reverse light switch.

Very glad I planned ahead when I had the box out of the car and added bent washers to the mount to stop the bolts spinning with out a spanner on top. Meant I could easily remove the support and mount in situate, even with exhaust still in place.

Nice solution.
I use a hex socket headed bolt in that location so I can reach in with an Allen hex key to hold it, but you do need to clean out the socket head with a spray degreaser can when you want to undo it, as road grit fills it up over time

cheers
Rohan

rgh0 wrote:I use a hex socket headed bolt in that location so I can reach in with an Allen hex key to hold it,

Also a nice solution, bit more hassle to get the tool in the bolt head but extra control of the bolt once the tool in might be worth the trade given how tight it is down one side of the gearbox.

I've done a couple of upgrades lately.

I'm running the 26R radiator and fan kit from DBE. The fan is a 10 incher, and fairly light, which makes we doubt the amount of air it's pushing. Back in mid-September we were stuck in traffic, and the car was idling at 2k rpm for some reason, and the temp gauge kept climbing.

I went to Summit Racing and ordered a Mishimoto 10 inch fan. rated at 1710 cfm. This is a much larger (in depth) and heavier fan than the one that came from DBE with the radiator. I'm guessing that it's got 50% or more air flow from the beefier motor and larger blades. In any event, it's probably the largest I can fit. Ideallly I'd fit two of them, but there's only room for 1. That and a carb adjustment to get the idle down may be the best I can do.

The second project was converting to LED headlights. I've never been happy with the amount of light from the stock sealed beam units, and the hi-beams weren't appreciably brighter than the low beams. I got Uni-Shine units from Amazon. Sealed beams, 6000 deg (white light).

After installing, I tested them out. Lo-beams, good. Hi-beams - blown fuse! Huh? LEDs should draw less power, not more. So I took them out, and retested. Lo-beams, ok, Hi-beams, blown fuse. WHAT?

Eventually I realized that the bulbs weren't the problem. I've rewired my car, and have a dedicated power line to the bulb relays that wasn't blowing. What was blowing was the signal circuit to the hi-beam relay. I figured I must have made a mistake in my last rewiring project, where I converted the dash wiring to Mate-n-Lok connectors, maybe not mirroring a connector pair properly, linking the hi-beam relay signal to a ground wire.

But I checked my wiring notes, and the hi-beam relay signal isn't in a connector with a ground wire. Hmmm.

Then I realized that during my rewiring project, I had broken the original column headlight switch stalk (out of stupidity - I had the column out, standing on end leaning against my workbench, and it fell on the headlight stalk). So I had ordered another one from DBE.

In the rewiring, I had joined the hi-beam signal from that switch with the flash signal. But that flash signal was actually grounded. Thus the short.

I dug out my old broken switch. It's flash signal wire wasn't grounded. And it turns out even after I split off the hi-beam and flash wires, curing the short and enabling hi-beams, if I pull the stalk as if I was flashing the beams, the switch grounds the low-beam signal wire.

So, bad switch. Very bad switch. I called DBE, they said take it out and send it in and they'll send me another. But there's one more drive to take this season, so I'll get around to it in December. Just don't pull the headlight stalk toward in the meantime. And carry fuses, just in case.

So, shame on me for not testing the hi-beams or flasher after finishing up the rewiring in August. I was very lucky not to have used the hi-beams or flash function during the LOG trip.

As for the LED headlights - the light is great, stronger and whiter than my old sealed beams. These bulbs are a bit heavier, and stick out farther from the pods than the original bulbs. Not a problem for some reason on the left side, but the right one fouled on the body just a bit when the pods were going up or down. The solution was to remove a bit of the bulb material (appears to be polycarbonate). Not too noticeable, and usually the bulbs are out of sight anyway.

Next up - our annual foliage viewing trip through Arkansas, this time on AR-7, through the Ozark and Ouchita National Forests. Looking fwd to it.

mbell wrote:

rgh0 wrote:I use a hex socket headed bolt in that location so I can reach in with an Allen hex key to hold it,

Also a nice solution, bit more hassle to get the tool in the bolt head but extra control of the bolt once the tool in might be worth the trade given how tight it is down one side of the gearbox.

Another option - mine - was to take a MIG welder and weld the head of the bolt to the mount.

steve lyle wrote:Another option - mine - was to take a MIG welder and weld the head of the bolt to the mount.

That is an option and was first my thought a few years back when I had the gearbox out. Luckily at that point I didn't have a welder thou. If I had done that I would have had to remove the exhaust to get clearance to remove the gearbox support bracket. With the bolts just held in place by the washer I was able to raise/remove the bolts allowing me just enough room to get the gearbox bracket off with exhaust in place and just wedged down a bit.

Welding captive nuts to the mount instead is probably the best over all solution.

TBG wrote:Does anyone have a ratio of power at the wheels versus power at the engine? I expect Rohan does! D

On the Exige it was about 13% loss from the flywheel to the hubs ( not the wheels).
It's always going to be an estimate, the only accurate way to measure flywheel torque ( and hence calculate hp) is by having the engine on the bench.
I would guess that an Elan would lose about 16% to the wheels. Happy for others to put that right.

Well today there has been heavy rain - but lovely sunshine in-between so I had a lovely blast up the A303 that is looking stunning in Autumn colours. I love driving on really wet rods as the twin plumes of spray lit by the sunlight is wonderous to behold. The car has been having a bit of a fluff of late - the No 1 cylinder being off colour so I went to my great mate who has a high power airline and we blew through all the orifices and low and behold all is now very well indeed. D

In the garden this morning. Damn - I cannot get it upright!!

Who finds the mistake? One is called Mini....

I've just finished grinding my exhaust valves as I have the head off.

The combustion chambers held white spirit with no leakage, but there was no way I was going to at least have a look at the exhaust valves. Sure enough one of two valves had a black section on the seat, and burning was about to take place (if not started already)!

Out came the Gunsons valve lapper and my Dad's old fine grinding paste. Sticking the suction cup to the valve was an issue, but super glue works well, and you can break the bond and re-glue as required!

It took about 5 mins work on each valve to get a nice grey ring all around. I've heard that you are done if you get at least 1mm of grey ring, but I went a bit further than that.

I had a look at one of the inlet valves, and as usual, nice shiny seats and no pitting!

Dave Chapman.

david.g.chapman wrote: I've heard that you are done if you get at least 1mm of grey ring, but I went a bit further than that.

actually, the wider the contact area the lower the surface pressure, which in turn gives a lesser sealing surface, so one do not want to go too wide (plus over time the contact area will tend to widen) - if the ring is of constant width and smooth all around, I stop (also not wanting to sink valves into their seat prematurely). We're not considering exhaust valve cooling here on a street engine.

Yes.... Something else to think about.

Dave Chapman.