Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I have a slight clutch judder when pulling away on my +2, but only when the engine has been warmed up for 15 mins or so.

The clutch is virtually new (replaced 5000 miles ago). I suspect the engine mountings, especially the one near the exhaust. This must soften as it heats up. The mounts themselves are about 2 years old.

Has anyone elso know of this effect - is there a heavy duty engine mount available?

Dave Chapman.

The transmission mount can also go bad. The entire drive train is rubber mounted if you think about it and any one bad point can cause shudder. Good luck, Roy

I should have said - the gearbox rubber mount is almost new.

I have tried cutting up some rubber and inserting it in the gap in the engine mounts - between the chassis bracket and the top of the U piece (I have a Lotus chassis). This has reduced the movement but some remains.

I can live with the judder - but it would be nice to eliminate.

Dave Chapman

I just replaced the mounts on my Elan to address a similar problem. I thought the mounts looked OK - until I took them off - rubber was delaminating - particularly from the engine side plates. The inlet side mount tends to suffer a lot too as the engine torques DOWN on it under load. Replace them - it's not a difficult job by Elan standards and they're cheap insurance.

Do you have any oil leaks? If the rear crankshaft oil seal is leaking then oil can be thrown around the clutch area and contaminate the plate, which would cause it to judder.

I have no significant oil leaks at the moment after rebuilding the engine recently.

Thanks for your replies so far,

Dave Chapman

I recently had that problem too but in my case I made one of those bad decisions in the heat of the moment. When I went to order a new clutchplate they were out of the regular spring softed hub ones and I was told a solid hub racing type 'works just fine'. Yeah, right. Luckily I was planning on yanking the engine out to install the rear main lipseal I designed and built to put onto my four-bolt crankshaft at the time. I couldn't get that piece of crap out of there quick enough. It would have broken something for sure.

- and please tell us how that "4-bolt-lipseal" looks and works (!!) Have you solved the "bl......rope-problem" ?
Tks &rgds Dag

Hi Dag,
I posted that info on this forum about a year ago. Good luck finding it! Had one hell of a time getting the front crank seal to not leak also. Turns out it was machined off center in the timing chain cover by about 1/32".