Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

The coolant hoses on my Elan are needing replacing and the price of new ones seems very expensive especially the bottom one. Do any listers know what other cars they came off or are there other alternatives. I also saw that some of the hoses are no longer available as fitted to the early Elans?
Any suggestions

Years ago, I replaced the top hose by going to a local NAPA or Big Wheel Rossi (which is now Checker) and just stared at the collection of hoses hanging on the wall until I spotted one that I thought would fit. As I recall, the Elan needs an I.D. of 1-1/2" at the thermostat housing and 1-1/4" at the radiator. I found one that was about twice as long as what I needed, but it had the correct taper. I realized that when I cut off half of it, I would be left with a single piece that would fit at both ends. It even had a kink in it to get around the cam cover. So rather than have a small hose, a metal pipe, and another small hose, I now had one hose that did the whole job. The part number for the hose I found was 41107. As I recall, it's a Ford hose. Go to any auto parts store and see if you can cross reference this number. Of course, because it was a common hose, the price was right. Please post if you find it and it fits. Thanks.

Frank Howard

mine has a lengh of pipe joined at each end with short hose lengths ed

Try EBAY item 2492651185, believe me it is a bottom hose
John

If you are in the UK I have both top and bottom hoses for an S4 looking for a new home. I was going to put them on ebay but have not got round it yet

There is another alternative. I got Samco to make me some silicon hoses for my Elan
I paid for the tooling and they did a small production run of top and bottom radiator hoses.
I still have the remaining sets left after I fitted the ones to my Elan.
They look superb in black and have the advantage of never perishing so the coolant stays cleaner and will never burst as they are several times stronger than rubber.Also if ever they look grubby you just wash them with soapy water.
I also got them to produce the short flexible hose used on the early Elans, Cortinas and Sevens the one that is unobtainable.
Cliveyboy

cliveyboy,

Do you think these Samco silicone hoses will fit my S2 Elan? If so, I'm interested in a set. Please email details to me at:

[email protected]

Thanks in advance,
Bill

The hoses I had made by Samco:- <a href='http://www.samcosport.com' target='_blank'>http://www.samcosport.com</a>
Should cover all Elans. I believe the bottom hose diameter differed very slightly on the earlier models but according to the specialists they now just use the one hose on all the models (AO26KOOO4Z).
The large top hose is a direct swop with all the Elans, +2s and Sevens that use AO26KOOO3Z.and can also be shortened to fit the Europa TC
The small flexible top hose is designed for fitting the diameter of the thermostat housing which I believe is common to all Lotus twincams and the hose used on early Elans, Cortina, Sevens and any one wanting to use the three piece top hose arrangment for adding a radiator filler cap and tank, or a temp take off etc.
Just a few points these would be no good if you were going for absolute concourse as they are much shinier and carry a logo and a part number on them although the small flexible hose can be orientated so they are not visible. The hoses were just a small prototype run so I could get some for my car and I will sell them for approximate same price as the rubber ones. If there is a call for them I would put them into production as I now own sole rights on the tooling but the price will be much more.
Cliveyboy

Cliveyboy

Do you have some photographs?

For some pictures go to:-
<a href='http://groups.msn.com/cliveyboylotus' target='_blank'>http://groups.msn.com/cliveyboylotus</a>

Clive