Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Here's the picture:

Hi Tom,
If it is any reassurance the seat back in my car, a '71 +2 S 130, is pop riveted to the body at the base exactly the same as yours is in your pic. Maybe something to do with having a folding seat back, unsure if all +2's have this feature?
I have not yet removed my tank although I am sure the day will come so finding this thread interesting.

Alan

Thanks for the pic, I never saw this arrangement before, where the seat bottoms are separate. In my May 1970 +2S, the back seats are fitted to one complete fibreglass base unit, which lifts out when the securing screws to the rear cross brace are removed. The upper sections of the seat backs can fold forward to create a lower parcel shelf.

FWIW, my rear seat is the same as Foxie's (Jan 1970 +2S). Tipping it as a unit over the front seats gave enough room to rotate the tank and get it out the boot without removing the boot brace.

They are interesting pictures. Very different to my +2S130...

I suspect Tom car has the full removable seat set up, as per Foxie, hence the pop rivets. Is it possible to remove the parcel shelf with the seat rear just folded forward?

For what it worth I agree the manual instructions are a bit hopeful. Personally I didn't have to remove the rear brace but it was tight enough that probably more down to luck that anything else

mbell wrote:They are interesting pictures. Very different to my +2S130...

I suspect Tom car has the full removable seat set up, as per Foxie, hence the pop rivets. Is it possible to remove the parcel shelf with the seat rear just folded forward?

Yes. I did this when I replaced the rusted radio speakers.

mbell wrote:I suspect Tom car has the full removable seat set up, as per Foxie, hence the pop rivets.

I agree, but the pop rivets only fix the trim to the seat box.They don't affix the removable fiberglass seat unit.

In the case of my March 1970 +2S, the bottom cushions are removable as per Tom's photo. The plastic push rivet that I referred to goes through the fiberglass of the removable bottom cushion, through the fiberglass seat box (the hole is visible in Tom's photo) and into a matching hole in the vertical portion of the car's floor. Everything else is as Foxie's pictures show. My interior is still out so I can't take any photos at this point.

Early 1970 must have been a transition period as far as the interior trim is concerned as all of our cars mentioned seem to have come from this period.

If of interest, I just removed my tank by undoing the straps, lifting the front of the tank a couple of inches from inside the car (i.e. tilting towards the back of the car) after which I was able to slide it under the brace and extract from the boot. Requires removal of the fuel union of course.