Elan Plus 2 Steering Lock Limiter

[gerrym]

Fig 8 Section H in the Workshop manual includes a detail sketch for the steering rack lock limiter.

On the pinion, end of the rack, it shows a washer "welded" to the tie-rod lock washer. Interestingly, there is no thickness for this washer detailed in the sketch.

Anyhow, not posessing a lock limiter for this end of the rack, I've simply machined a one piece lock limiter from scratch. Roy at Ringwood supplied me with the 1.3" AF hex (apparently that's an Whitworth standard so a little bit of Whitworth still in our 60s/70s Elans). JLS Suppliers Ltd (http://www.engineering-supplies.com) supplied me with the 13/16" UNEF Taper thread tap.

To get the required steering clearance on the bodywork, the item shown in the attached photo is deliberately over-length on the "washer" end, currently 15mm long. A trial fit to the bodywork will determine how much can be machined off.

Regards
Gerry

steering rack locknut limiter11.jpg (18.43 KiB) Viewed 756 times

[garyeanderson]

Gerry nice looking piece of work.

Is this the end of the sequel that you started back in January, 2009? lots of info there that should not be missed.

elan-plus-f13/steering-rack-questions-t17792.html

Gary

[gerrym]

Hi Gary, yes thanks for the comments. I had to make do with a Triumph rack (very foolishly gave away my Lotus rack but that is another story).

I think I've proved to myself that a +2 rack can be had by going down the Triumph route, and that gets me into the Moss spares emporium, plus now I understand how it all goes together.

That little rack limiter, I think my first post was pre lathe days so not much I could do about the missing bit then. Was the lack of a dimension on the washer thickness, fig 8, a mistake or a deliberate omission because Lotus knew that the body/chassis tolerances were pretty large? Probably not, but the idea of welding on a washer to a locknut does seem a bit home brewed. Responses on clearance / fouling on bodywork indicated some pretty large tolerances.

Anyhow, I hope with this post it gives people a few more options.

Regards
Gerry

[andyelan]

Hi Gerry

I've just been measuring the various part of the original steering rack from my Plus 2S 130/5 so the following might be of interest

The total width of nut and spacer is 9mm (the nut part is 6.8mm and the spacer 2.2mm) and it's machined from one piece. The tubular spacer at the other end of the rack, if your interested, is 43mm long.

Finally, don't put too much reliance on the drawing in the workshop manual, the dimensions given don't tie up very well with reality

Regards
Andy