Plus 2 wheel options and sources in the UK

[Higs]

Hi everyone,

I am getting close to seeing a time when my 1968 Plus 2 will be back on the road after 20+ years in the garage (don't ask...).

I have two option on the wheels - refurbish the steel ones or buy new alloys. The former will depend on how true they are.

As for the latter, what are my options for either 13" or 14" alloys - either in the old Lotus pattern or in the Minilite style. The car has standard springs etc. and I do not want the hassle of worrying about offset etc so fit and forget is important. Identifying the right suppliers to talk to would be very helpful.

Thanks

Richard

[Plus 2]

Hi Richard,

I had the same decision to make about 20 years ago as I just could not get rid of vibrations and found it was due to out of true steel wheels.

It is not just the trueness though you also have to look at the stud holes if you have KO's as these oval and can cause a movement on acceleration and braking.

I don't think the original direct chrome on the wheels rims either was very good idea for longeavity and mine had been painted over and separate chrome rims fitted.

I bought my Dunlop alloys from Paul Matty's in the UK. I believe he bought up the tooling and the rights to reproduce. At the time Matty's also supplied the Minilite replicas which I believe were made by the KN company in Telford now bought out by Specialist Car Products/Parts (SCP) who still make original Mag Minilites at a cost but most wheels are from China and just refinished in the UK.

I think your choices may be a lot more if you have bolt ons possibly but I do wish now I had bought the minilites as the laquered alloy on my Dunlops quickly got water damage under the laquer. Not sure if photo shows it but they are not very nice.

My MGB has the anthracite diamond turned Minators by KN and these still look good as the alloy is not laquered but does require a regular quick polish. I think these styles would look nice on the Lotus too

I believe Spydercars have been tied up with SCP(KN) for sometime now and have produced for them a 14 inch Minilite Bolt on or Knock on, but in an alloy as in magnesium alloy they work out very expensive.

I am thinking of buying these as they are silver painted or diamond turned so no laquer so maybe easier to look after.

Still I too would be interested what other have to say, but I would not fit anything other than the Dunlop/Minilite or the steel and chrome...........never liked the 'revolution' style ones.

So for short answer....Matty's for Dunlop style and Spydercars for Minilite style and yes it is important to be careful with offset and tyre size as the inner wall is very close to the rear spring support strut and I have seen many tyres marked when even bearings have worn..

Regards

Steve

[el-saturn]

....... I suppose all of these 2nd market parts are worthy of dispute, but these new minilites look awful with that more than meaty chome and bot job - colin wud've killed the f................ just MY own personal opinion 36/4982 waiting for the sun sandy

[stugilmour]

Richard, my Minilites (purchased 2008) are part number MA1355P. Believe the P indicates peg drive, rather than B for bolt on shown on the web site. They are stock Plus 2 size of 5.5 x 13. Not sure of the offset, but when I ordered them through the US dealer they were able to supply in the stock Plus 2 offset, and they fit fine. Here is their web site with contact info.

http://www.minilite.co.uk/products.htm

Spyder offers 14" x 6J Minilite style wheels here:

http://www.spydercars.co.uk/lotus-elan-2-steering/

I see both Paul Matty and Spyder are listed as Minilite dealers, along with a bunch of other shops.

The other common option is/was Panasports. You can see these on Ray's site at http://www.rdent.com/ Click on Plus 2 parts and scroll about a quarter the way down. Unfortunately I notice Ray has recently posted the Panasports are not presently available. Not sure of what the availability is/was your side of the pond. The Panasports only come in 5.0" width rather than Plus 2 standard 5 1/2".

We kicked around Panasports and Minilites pretty extensively in this thread. The concern was the profile of the hub.

lotus-suspension-f42/minilites-panasports-t25995.html

HTH

Stu

.

[Plus 2]

....... I suppose all of these 2nd market parts are worthy of dispute, but these new minilites look awful with that more than meaty chome and bot job - colin wud've killed the f................ just MY own personal opinion 36/4982 waiting for the sun sandy

The Minators (minilte lookalikes) I pictured are actually the MGB ones with the heavy centre chrome boss. I was trying to show the difference between the diamond turned uncoated/no laquer against what had happened after 6 months to my Dunlop laquered ones.

This metal centre boss is because the wheels are splined and not pegged so alloy on the splines would probably not work.

Actually the Lotus minilites which I don't have a photo of, but all they require like the Dunlop alloys is a metal centre ring plate for the spinner to clamp up to so are much neater as it can hardly be seen .

The B Minators however are very popular but I do agree the boss looks bulky, problem is too much time and effort keeping wires clean so not much other options.

It is as you say personal opinion obviously always regarding how wheels look on a car. The Dunlop alloy ones I have fitted on the +2 were obviously an OE later option. Maybe someone can load up a picture of a Lotus fitted with minilites.

Some excellent previous links there Stu BTW.......never seen the Panasport here in UK but I would not drop to 5 inch or reduce number of peg locations so they would be out for me IMHO

Regards

Steve

[stugilmour]

Steve, Jeff recently added a gallery feature to the site. I hadn't used it much before. The link is right at the top next to the Forum link...

http://www.lotuselan.net/gallery/

I typed Minilite in the 'Filter by Title' box and a bunch of nice pics came up. A couple of tips; changed to 400 pictures per page and typed the filter sloooowly as it seems to filter on each typed letter. Four pics of my red Plus 2 show up at the bottom of the page with the Minilites. Jono's blue Plus 2 looks lovely with black Minilites.

Stu

[Plus 2]

Thanks Stu, you are a diamond for helping a newbie get round the site putting the links in the post.

I don't think Matty's do actually sell the Minilites now as I complained about the laquer problem on my Dunlop's in less than a year after I bought them hoping they may do a deal on a set of minilite replacements and they said they did not stock them anymore.

They certainly don't show up on their spares web page catalogue.

Yours look great........just wish I had gone for Minilites in the first place as they had both choices in stock when I originally purchased........

Regards

Steve

[Higs]

Thanks everyone - I will follow up these leads.

Richard

[theelanman]

erm.....

the Lotus 10 spoke alloys are very hard to find.....
all the after market suppliers like PM, S&J, MM, South West Lotus etc all got them from the same place and unfortunately they've broken the tooling.......and, according to the above list, itd cost about ?25k to set up again....
as the demand is so small they doubt they'll do them again.....