The Veg

The Elan +2 packs so much punch in terms of Lotus Design! Everywhere I drive this car it gets compliments for being everything from cute to sexy, and every time I look at it I feel a strong surge of admiration. It's stunning from every angle and it's an evocative shape, one that conveys both aggressive speed and refined poise. Ron Hickman's talents really shine in this car: he penned a masterpiece, and he achieved greatness with it because it's both beautiful and functional. The fact that he achieved all this while working within the constraints of a tight budget and the incorporation of so many bits from other cars makes it even more amazing, definitely greater than the sum of its parts. It has real style, but it also has great aerodynamics- I've read that even though no wind-tunnel was used in the design, it was later measured at a Cd of .30, and I can drop the windows at 80 mph without any discomfort- no hard buffeting in the cabin, no loud wind noise. It's a fantastic design, truly effective and worthy of so much more recognition than it usually gets.

Problem solved. The big flat ring is a reservoir-cap gasket, and the smaller mystery-bit is not used as the kit was not specific to this one application.

H'lo gents, long time no see! I'm rebuilding the clutch master cylinder and there are more rubber bits in the kit than in the clylinder. Specifically, there are two items in the kit that don't have counterparts in what I've taken apart. They are indicated with red question-marks in this picture: The larger one is just a flat ring, doesn't fit anything on the M/C and it doesn't seem to go anywhere. I'm not worried about that. The smaller one has a tapered outer diametre and I want to know if it is supposed to go somewhere. No such part came out of the cylinder, but that doesn't mean that the original part might not have completely dis-intergrated, although given how much of the other bits is left I'm not sure of that either. Anybody know where this part goes, or if it's needed at all?

Anybody know what else might use these lower joints? I already know that the uppers are Spitfire bits.

I've just found this thread too. I've seen the JPS car in Atlanta owned by this James chap, even met him a time or two. I don't know specifics, but I've heard some mumblings that he's perpetrating a fraud and that it isn't really Andretti's car. So what ever happened with the car Barryj was after?

Hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder if this explains the mysterious oil-drip I have? I recently did a whole bunch of gaskets and cleaned the living daylights out of the engine...and a big drip keeps coming down the front-right corner of the pan and I've been going nuts trying to find the source. Will have to look into this.

Between the too-skinny-for-the-rim tread and the angle of the rear wheels it almost looks like a Yank teenager's 'tuned' Civic. Beautiful otherwise; congratulations on the win and it's good to see our cars get some well-deserved recognition.

I don't think that there was any particular vehicle. The auto-parts store simple had a display of lots and lots of struts, arranged by size/type. There may have been a book to determine what goes on what vehicle but I don't remember. I just brought my old strut in and compared until I found a close-enough match. I do remember that it was at an Advance Auto Parts store though. If I remember to, I can look and see if there's any identifying marks on the strut itself that will help you.

If it was my car I'd either leave them all silver or do gold centres like my original wheels...but more likely all silver, brilliant natural metal colour rather than silver paint.

My '86 has two different threaded pieces of metal inside the knob- one anchored in the wood, the other merely inside the wood but not attached. This second piece seems to serve as a locknut, and in fact has a slot across it so that a g-wrench or similar tool could probably manipulate it. I'm with Luc on this one; get a really good grip with something soft, and put some good torque on it.

Jonathan- no, mine aren't threaded on like that. Luc- it wound up not being as bad a job as I'd expected. I popped loose the end that attaches to the hatch, and managed to hold the hatch higher than it usually opens with one hand and re-assemble the strut with the other hand. That said, the brackets to which the struts attach on the firewall are looking a bit tired and have bent a bit from years of stress. Might have to make up something fresher at some point, but it's not urgent.

*SO* tempting -as if I didn't already spend enough on this car- but just not in the budget unless some sort of miracle occurs.

I have a Federal '86 and it has the gas-strut, but it doesn't have the threaded ends like Jonathan's car. It has a ball-joint on either end, and when I bought the car the strut was knackered and would not hold the bonnet open. I took it to the auto-parts shop and compared to what was in stock and found one the right length with the right ball-joint sockets on either end. The thing works really well, and while I have to lift the bonnet initially, at about half-way up the strut takes over. The only problem I had around the mounting points was that the jacknuts in the bonnet were loose in their holes, making it impossible to tighten the screws. A few drops of cyano-acrylate cement cured that. Now one of today's projects is to re-mount a rear hatch strut that has popped loose from the bottom end...LOTS of pressure in the thing and it wants to be longer than the distance it must span. Gonna be fun.

If your drive keeps popping out, I wonder if it isn't being retained by the bolt. If yours is like mine, getting the bolt out far enough will require removing the muffler (silencer for UK folk reading along), which is not a difficult job. Behind the transmission there is a plate upon which the muffler attaches, and there is a hole in that plate that allows clearance for the bolt to come out. Back the bolt all the way out and remove the drive unit. Take care at this point, as the driven-gear isn't secured to the drive unit and may fall back into the hole. If that happens there is no need to panic; just keep calm and use a magnet-wand to fish it out. At this point you may wish to refresh the o-ring that is supposed to seal the unit in the hole (it can weep though since oil is splashed up toward the unit due to the transmission turning 'backward' to the direction it went in the original Citroen SM application). It's a weird size; I had to have the guys at the auto-store bring out every box of O-rings and we finally found a compatible size among the green ones meant for aircon use. I also found an additional groove in the plastic drive-guide and put an O-ring in this groove even though one was never specified there. So far so good as far as nipping the oil-weeps. Now when you re-assemble, apply some good thick grease to the driven-gear's shaft before inserting it into the drive unit; this will help keep it from falling out and dropping into the hole while you're inserting the drive unit. Once the drive unit is in place the gear can't escape. When you've got the drive-unit seated, run the bolt back in and re-assemble the muffler. Done.

BRAVO Charlie! Your car is looking really delicious! :clap:

I'm pretty sure that the factory recommend using new bolts, but I don't have my manual handy to check this. In any case, JAE carry a nice set of bolts made by ARP which are great because they have a smaller head than the original bolts, making them much easier to get tools onto in close proximity to the cam-lobes. I found that they made the re-assembly job a bit easier.

Yep, did the O-rings at the same time that I did the gaskets.

For the sake of comparison, by 1986 things were a bit different. On my car the alternator belt comes off first, THANK GOODNESS because I have to remove the alternator to do so many other jobs. I'm pretty sure that I remember the water-pump belt coming off next, which would be easy except that it is tensioned by the vacuum-pump, and the fastener on the vac-pump is almost impossible to reach up on top of the pump behind the pulley and I need a filed-down allen wrench to get it (don't get me started about the whole process with the vac-pump!), then the aircon belt, which won't come off unless I completely remove its tensioner-pulley.

Not sure if there's any difference between your '81 and my '86, but no, the tanks are not visible through the holes. Each speaker has its own 'socket' behind the plywood.

Have you tried RD Enterprises or Dave bean? If neither of them can help you, try SJ over in UK.

Rick, here's his info: http://www.joellevinecompany.com/

I can vouch that LCU don't really know much about the special dip-stick. It was a mystery in a friend's car for a while. Where is the oil level light located?

The button on top of the relay box is the inertia switch, which shuts fuel off after a crash to prevent fires. If the car runs at all then the switch is in the proper position. In addition to everything else already suggested (a HEARTY +1 on verifying the cam timing, even though that shouldn't cause the stated symptom), have you ensured that the wastegate is free to move? I've heard of them getting stuck. Also make sure that the 'gate is properly plumbed: a metal tube running from just downstream of the turbo to the upper half of the actuator housing. Mine was mis-plumbed by the previous owner in some cockamamie attempt to produce variable boost and it caused a symptom similar to what you're experiencing. You can eliminate the overboost switch by unplugging it, putting a jumper across the two wires, then carefully revving above 3000 with one eye on the boost gauge. As dumb as it sounds, make sure that the ignition timing is correct. This may have been disturbed during the cambelt-change, since the distributor shaft is turned by the cambelt. The US-spec is 15 BTDC, but many cars run much better around 21-22 (mine for example, which feels 'asleep' and stumbles badly around 4500 when set to 15). Also make sure that all the small-diameter plumbing is intact, especially the two that connect to the distributor's advance diaphragm. You may also want to check that there are no intake leaks. Some of my car's stumbles disappeared after I changed all the intake gaskets, and I do know that I had some leaks from the gasket between the manifold and head as well as from some of the eight gaskets on either side of the throttle bodies. Good luck and keep us posted...

What year is your car? On mine the drive is retained by one of the rear-cover bolts.

BTW my Blaupunkt rear grilles (just like the one in Mike's picture) are now available. They're in great shape. Anybody who wants them PM me.