Lifting and supporting the Elan plus 2

[TonyA]

We all know the Elan's fibreglass body, backbone chassis (with exhaust down
the middle) and fragile jacking points make it awkward to lift and support the car to work on, especially at the rear.

I have spent a lot of time on the forum archives on how/where and with what to lift and support the car. A lot of the debate is predicated on the difficulty of supporting the narrow backbone at the rear, wether where and how to lift and support on the fibreglass, and there are many conflicting views on 2 post lifts, Quickjack, Eazilift , specially made woodembeams and others. At the front, lifting and supporting the car is easier, the difficulties are the low clearance to get a jack under, and the ease of denting the relatively thin steel thickness.

Here are my solutions

At the front, I cut a "plank" of wood, same size as the Crossmember, with two features to help locate the jack, first, an locating block under the plank with a hole the diameter of the jack pad, second a lip at the front if the plank to stop it being pushed backwards as the jack is engaged..The jack I bought is Halfords 2 tonne Low Profile, which has plenty of lift, length and low entry: fantastic value.
Once lifted up to desired height, I use conventional axle stands to support but with the saddles, which seem always to be " u" sharped, modified to be flat: this stops them digging into the wood plank. Diagram with dimensions and photo below

At the back, I made a saddle for the jack from 1/4 inch steel plate, angle iron and oak blocks: set just far enough apart to fit in the chassis, and inside distance apart and hight enough to avoid the exhaust pipe .See diagram, with dimensions and photo

To support the backbone chassis at the back for doing work eg fitting CV joints, I duscovered and bought a square based stand with screw saddle, used for holding up static caravans: they come in different sizes, mine has a 12 inch square base and min height 9 inches and a saddle wider than the width of the backbone chassis.
I converted the saddle to take a pair of oak blocks and angle iron . Very strong, very adjustable, very stable. I use the oak block chassis jacking aid to lift the car close to the rear body attachment bolts and once lifted, support the car with the modified caravan stand on the backbone chassis under the diff between the rear wishbone arm chassis mounting points. See photo.

Hope this helps..Cheers..Tony

[Johnny America]

Thank you for sharing Tony, was planning on doing the same for the front of my +2.