Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Just a minute, you only just bought that![/quote]

True enough Jon, but the leaking water pump lead to some erhh interesting finds with the cams & bearings....



While the head was off for further checks it seemed prudent to give everything else a good rinse out and the ubiquitous grey paint treatment

baileyman wrote:

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Took delivery of the blue bit.

Beautiful!!

Sploder90 wrote:True enough Jon, but the leaking water pump lead to some erhh interesting finds with the cams & bearings....

While the head was off for further checks it seemed prudent to give everything else a good rinse out and the ubiquitous grey paint treatment

Yikes! Good job you spotted it now. I've just pulled my engine and box - both degreased, waiting for some disassembly. Although there are no symptoms of malaise other than oil leaks everywhere, I'm feeling some trepidation. So far checked the valve timing marks on the cam gears, which are spot on. Then put the cover back on to keep it clean while I muck about elsewhere. Got to be careful, don't want to turn this into a full on restoration. You know, "while I'm there".

Mine is getting in danger of slipping that way Jon as I uncover various different issues.
Still hopeful of getting some mileage in with it this year though... as a whole car rather than moving the individual parts..

The initial diagnoses of the slightly lumpy running being mainly down to the dizzy being that worn that the rotor was machining the cap contacts away, but it transpires this may have only been part of the problem.. oddly it still pulled pretty well. Turns out the leaky pump may have saved a bigger bill.
Seems these twin cams are actually more robust than some people give them credit..

Best of luck with the strip and rebuild, hope I can make mine less prone to leakage when I get it back together,
but then again, with most older British cars surely the oil thrown around is a design feature & there as a preservative??
I have had any number of land rovers over the years that the ecomentalists love to have a go at, but it turns out the folk in Solihull were green all along as the greatest part of them naturally decompose due to the inbuilt bio-degradable chassis ..

Ha!

All I want to do is cure the many oil leaks my engine suffers from. I'm not going for a full on strip / rebuild as the engine is already quite strong, performing well with no unpleasant noises or clouds of oil. Despite being rebuilt about 50,000 miles ago (by QED no less) it seems good. Has ~200 psi compression on all cylinders. The only thing I will do for sure is check the valve clearances as it is a tiny bit "tappety". But that's all!

Undressed Kermit in a pub car park and exposed his engine!

Alan,

That sounds familiar.

Cheers

Rob

Spyder fan wrote:Undressed Kermit in a pub car park and exposed his engine!

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Blimey Al, exposing your injectors in a public car park again. Thought you got a caution for that last time!

Went to LOG 39 with subframe on trailer, the only thing I can show right now.

All the other subframes were buried from view in completed cars, so this one attracted attention.

Here's the field at LOG 39.


Some guys found some interference issues, so now I am working on those and preparing to fit the shell.

John

Very nice John.

Took the easy option and dropped the Elan off at Bridge Classic Cars here in Suffolk (very impressed with their facilities). Hopefully they can sort a few problems out without hitting the wallet too much.

Rewiring completed (mostly)....

I drove my '72 Elan Sprint for the longest (only?) trip of it's life with me back in early June, to the British car show in Carthage, MO, USA. Took home "Best of Show" (they don't get many (any) Elan's there - everybody's heard of the Elan, a lot had never seen one). Anyway, the trip showed that the mechanicals are mostly sorted, now for the electricals.

I had them mostly working, of course, and by 'mostly' I mean all the legally required stuff, and whatever was necessary for motivation. But there were a lot of little problems.

My goals for the project:
- Fix all the indicator and warning lights - most didn't work.
- Fix the courtesy light.
- Install a manual override switch for the radiator fan.
- Convert the tach to voltage sensing
- Get the speedo calibrated
- Fuse everything that could reasonably be fused, and reduce the fuse 'sharing'
- Replace burnt wires, remove redundant wiring
- Wire in a new JVC media player
- Make it easier to remove the dash in the future

It took me a couple of months, working in a mostly 100 deg F garage in an Oklahoma summer, but it's done and I'll be taking it on a trip to another Brit car show this weekend. Some hilights:

- I used several Mate-N-Lok connectors in the harness, to simplify future removal
- I welded on the nuts to the lower steering column support to simplify removal/installation
- I rewrapped the harness in the bay and dash, using black non-adhesive wrap similar if not identical to stock in the bay, and a modern 'cloth-like' wrap for the dash.
- I added a six-port ATM fuse box. I now have separate fuses for 1) headlights and horn; 2) radiator fan; 3) tail lights/marker lamps; 4) green and 5) purple circuits; and the 6) accessory key position circuit.
- I rewired my window motors with 14 gauge wires - they now zip up and down. I used to have to help the passenger window up the last couple of inches with my hand.

- I missed perfection by a bit. 1) I neglected to isolate the panel light switch from the headlight switch, so whenever it's on the headlights and marker lamps come on as well. I've got a blocking diode that I'll add to fix that. 2) The parking brake warning light works, or doesn't, intermittently. Not sure what's up with that. I ordered a new one from RDE, which was supposed to be correct for my Sprint, but it doesn't fit. I tried to repair my original, but apparently need to take another run at it. 3) I wanted to add some footwell lamps to augment the courtesy light, but forgot/ran out of time. I'll add them when I fix the panel light problem. 4) I'm getting distortion from the media player when the engine's running. I'm using resistor plugs, so maybe my hi-tension leads are bad. New ones are on the way.

- But other than that, everything works!

While I was add it, I converted to a gear-reduction starter from RDE. I was having trouble starting the car when hot - it ran great once it started, but it would fire once, throw the inertia starter off, and die. It would take several minutes to get it running. I did some searches and found several reports of the problem, but no solution other than go with a more modern starter. Now, with the new starter, you just keep cranking till it's truly running. Problem solved.

Made and installed a new rear shelf.

Went out for some lunch

Fitted a wind deflector, still playing about with the brackets and the height of the deflector but initial test seems positive???.wind in the hair days are long gone (along with the hair )