Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I have been annoyed by vibrations in my front end, and blamed the tires. I got a sixth wheel restored and put a new tire on to have some interchangability to find a combo that works. When I removed the wheel I decided to inspect the suspension. First I found most bolts to be torqued quite loosely allowing play in the whole assembly when shook by hand - most likely the cause of my vibrations..... As I was to torque this up, I found that my lower front left wishbone is bent, and the bushing had worked itself out of its hole. See picture. I have two questions:

1. What are the torque settings for the various bolts in the suspension? (Either that page of my original shop manual is missing or it was never there)
2. Should there be large washers under the nuts of wishbone bushing bolts/nuts to create a "fail safe" design? See picture

I am quite happy to have found this, as I was planning on doing a track day in the car quite soon.... That could have become too interesting.....

There are photo's of such large washers in Gordon Lund's book "Lotus Elan Restoration Guide".

I asked about them on here a long, long time ago, as they were not present on my S3. IIRC not many others had them either, and some felt they weren't necessary!

Can't find the response in the archive, but perhaps Gordon could give more detail.

Cheers - Richard

Brian Buckland's book shows big washers - my car has always had them.

My +2 has never had them and they are not shown in either the Elan parts list or the +2 workshop manual.
If you want to fit them thats fine by me.
Cheers
John

Interesting.

Have the washers ever appeared in Lotus publications? Workshop manual? Parts List?

Cheers - Richard

ardee_selby wrote:Interesting.

Have the washers ever appeared in Lotus publications? Workshop manual? Parts List?

Cheers - Richard

The exploded view in the workshop manual does not show washers. But it would be very bad practice not to have washers.

The type 26 parts list does show washers but they are listed as Washer - 1/2" dia so I don't think they're the large failsafe type.

Paddy

Hi Leif,
When you've decided whether or not to use washers - here are the torque figures from the workshop manual........

paddy wrote:The type 26 parts list does show washers but they are listed as Washer - 1/2" dia so I don't think they're the large failsafe type.

Paddy

The service parts list shows a large washer, but only on the trunnion end of the arm. I'm not seeing the washer that Paddy mentions in the Type 26 Parts List.

Roger, thanks a lot for the torque page. This has somehow gone missing from my manual. Is there any chance you can scan the whole page (and the next, since my manual is made up of double pages inside plastic "pockets", so if that page is missing, so is the next)

you can send it to reserbil(at)gmail(dot)com

many thanks and have a great weekend.

No problem Leif, I'll do it as soon as I can. Do you have any other pages missing ?

summerinmaine wrote:I'm not seeing the washer that Paddy mentions in the Type 26 Parts List.

Just to be clear, I'm looking at a book which says "Master Parts list for Lotus Elan Series 1, Series 2 and Coupe". Page 8 (Sheet CA) labelled part number 50.

Paddy

paddy wrote:

summerinmaine wrote:I'm not seeing the washer that Paddy mentions in the Type 26 Parts List.

Just to be clear, I'm looking at a book which says "Master Parts list for Lotus Elan Series 1, Series 2 and Coupe". Page 8 (Sheet CA) labelled part number 50.

Paddy

Thanks Paddy. The one I was referencing is quite a bit older, is titled "Parts List for Lotus Elan," and probably only covers the S1 & S2. It was printed before Lotus made the move to Hethel. The plates are numbered, rather than lettered and it only has 21 plates total. I like it because it identifies the proprietary part numbers where Lotus sourced from outside.

I also have one published much later, that is more like yours.

Hello,

Hoping to resurrect this old topic. Had a couple questions on this topic.

My service manual does not indicate washers on the inside arm bolt, but my car (prior to disassembly) had them.

Assuming they should be there, which seems to make sense, what about the inside of the bolt? Seems like if the washer would serve the same cautionary purpose on the inside as well?

Secondly, when I tighten this bolt to the recommended tension, my arms are very still to move. As in barely move under hand pressure. This is ok?

Thx, DJS

yes, the rubber bushings are a bit stiff, which is why one should torque them to specs the car horizontal and normally loaded, so that they should operate around that point and not under a preload (in operation they do not rotate all that much, and they last reasonably if torqued in the proper position).