Upper seat belt mounting plates

[richard sprint]

This refers to the plate that is normally fitted to the rear suspension between the upper strut and the lotocones.

The story is that I'm building up a new lotus chassis and decided to weld strengthening plates either side of the shock tower, thing is this has made it impossible to refit the standard plates as the strengthening plates closeness will not allow it.

Have others come across this and if so how have they got around this issue?

Richard

[alexblack13]

Any pic's of the problem Richard? I take it that the belt mount plates are now 'fouling' your additions to the uprights? If so 2 options I think.

Remove metal from the strengthening plates you fitted. Enough to fit the belt mounts. Is this possible? OR.... modify the belt mount. to fit around your mods to the uprights. It sounds like a matter of reducing the width of the mountplates to allow them to slide between the welded on mods. ??

I would like to see a picture to further advise.

Alex B....

[richard sprint]

Alex

I do have some pics but do not know how to load them via the forum - I could send some if I have your email address.

Thanks for the interest

Richard

[Elanintheforest]

Richard
You're likely to get into all sorts of trouble doing mods like this to an Elan chassis. Generally, the fit is very tight on most components...and that includes chassis to body mountings. Even when you think something is OK, later on when you come to fit other components on, you'll find something somewhere won't fit anymore.

This is probably why I'm a gread advocate of keeping as many things as standard as possible...it's just easier that way. Many of the issues that come up on this forum are with folks who, with all the best intentions, have tried to improve things...but have got stuck in the process. They were a very switched-on group of engineers at Lotus in the 60s, and got it pretty well right.


Get the angle grinder out and remove your mods! Carefully!! And don't do it again!!!
Mark

[saildrive2001]

I did the same mod as you & encountered the same problem with fitting the seat belt anchor brackets. I had to cut the rear flange off the seat belt bracket to clear the tower reinforcement. Only cut away as much as you need & make sure that the corner is radiused & not square. I did post a notice to the group warning about this mod but I know if you go back into the history files you will find many references to doing the chassis mod. I think that the racers used to do it & most probably had a different seat belt mounting arrangement than the standard car.