Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Changed a flat tire. On my way to a club event and the sidewall developed a small leak a mile from my house. Limped back home and changed the spare in short order.

My s2 arrived today. It is a full resto so needed pushing down the driveway. Once we got it down, we set off straight away to get it sorted. In three hours we had managed to remove the engine and ancillaries (not bad for ammeters).
The car is now sitting snuggly next to the s3 and we await until next weekend to carry on or work.
Best regards, P

Determined after much head scratching and wooden mockup modeling that neutral bumpsteer for a TTR setup was with the steering rod sloping 11 degrees down. Just under 1/2" of spacers under the rack would give that figure. Not having that, the full half inch gave nearly the same result. Then, thinking what the tire patch is doing in bump is more important than in droop, I moved the neutral point up another 1/8" of spacers, 10 degrees down. On measuring toe through full bump, it seems pretty flat in the range. So this will be my initial setting.

baileyman wrote:Determined after much head scratching and wooden mockup modeling that neutral bumpsteer for a TTR setup was with the steering rod sloping 11 degrees down. Just under 1/2" of spacers under the rack would give that figure. Not having that, the full half inch gave nearly the same result. Then, thinking what the tire patch is doing in bump is more important than in droop, I moved the neutral point up another 1/8" of spacers, 10 degrees down. On measuring toe through full bump, it seems pretty flat in the range. So this will be my initial setting.

sounds quite a bit, I recall for my S4 it was less than 1/4" (possibly even closer to 1/8") but all cars are a bit different on a sensitive issue like that steering rack holder plate I guess... I checked the actual bump steer using a laser pointer attached to the hub which I would take up and down around the operating point by a hydraulic jack, and I recall the sensitivity of shim thickness was quite high (had to make specific thickness shims combination to get to the sweet spot, which was within a few tenth of a mm), but was very pleased with the outcome.

I finally fixed my leaking twin cam engine cover for good!

Here's the video that shows how to do it. Please feel free to share - I'm sure it will help a lot of twin cam owners!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXf0CB ... 0hTp-kYKYF

Out of storage for another season's enjoyment:

originalsprint wrote:I finally fixed my leaking twin cam engine cover for good!

Here's the video that shows how to do it. Please feel free to share - I'm sure it will help a lot of twin cam owners!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXf0CB ... 0hTp-kYKYF

That looks like a nice modern approach. Who did the routing for you?

pharriso wrote:Out of storage for another season's enjoyment:

IMG_0714.JPG

Lucky man! It's freezing here and it's rained for most of the day. That said with the peculiarities of English weather I was out in the Sprint with the roof down in February.

JonB wrote:

originalsprint wrote:I finally fixed my leaking twin cam engine cover for good!

Here's the video that shows how to do it. Please feel free to share - I'm sure it will help a lot of twin cam owners!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXf0CB ... 0hTp-kYKYF

That looks like a nice modern approach. Who did the routing for you?

Colin Denyer - a great chap!

Can you tell us how to get hold of him?

rcfurse wrote:Can you tell us how to get hold of him?

He's retired now - this was his last job! However, I'll get back in touch with him and see if he wants to do some odd machining jobs here and there. Best.

Is the machining-data for that groove available as a file that can be shared?

No the machining data isn't available as of this post date. If I can get it I'll let you know. However, there are differences in each engine cover especially early to later ones so it almost needs a bespoke service every time. Having said that, if there's a machine shop out there that would like to take on this task as an ongoing project then that would benefit a lot of people...

Went to a restoration shop open house. Big turn out due to glorious weather in NJ/PA.

Cut a disc of rubber sheet and fitted it to the fuel filler cap.



Looks pretty crappy, right? But I have no more leaks.