26-4879 will be finding a new home in Southern California, and will be getting a new lease on life. I don’t have the whole story of this car, but it appears to have come from Philadelphia, there’s a plate in the trunk with a ‘76 tab, it seems it was owned by Jeff Robinson of JAE who sold it in 1997 to the (deceased) gent I’m buying it from. I have photos of it being picked up in ‘97 and it looked the same as it does now, so I think it’s reasonable to conclude that it hasn’t been driven since then. The ‘76 Philly plate might suggest that it’s not run since then! This is either very good news or very bad news! Why would a 10 year old car be taken off the road? I guess I may know in a couple of weeks.
It shows 40K miles on the odometer, which might be real, but also might not be.
The body is the original body, but I don’t know yet for sure if the frame and engine are, but I think they probably are. If it turns out that they are, I will be compelled to restore the car to as near original as possible.
The car needs everything! I’ll be taking it down to the last nut and bolt, the engine will be rebuilt, and the body taken back to the fiberglass. I’m fortunate in that I have acquired many of the needed skills and have a great network of friends who have skills I’ll need, including a couple of ex-Cosworth guys!
First of all it’s going to get a good clean, shovel out the rat-crap and nuts from the squirrels.
I’ll post something when it finally arrives and update the group on my progress. No doubt there will be many questions along the way that the collective wisdom here will be able to help with.
I’ve never seen those vents, I’m assuming that’s what the are, either. Fortunately it comes with another cover.
A fire is an interesting theory! The one carb on the car looks very much worse for wear, but the other, stored off the car, looks to be in great condition!
I’ll definitely find out soon.
A small fire might not be too bad as for as restoration goes.
Early radiators were Marstons and unique to the Elan I think, rather than the later Stanpart Triumph items. I also believe they were a lot more effective !
Yes it looks a great little project, it would be nice to see photos of your effort as I imagine there’ll be some tears especially from your bank manager, would it be too rude to ask how much you paid
Some of the numbers I’m being quoted are super high. I’m told figures in the region of $60K is being spent by some for a full restoration. I assume that is paying for others to do major amounts of the work. My plan is to do most of the work myself, that’s sort-of the point for me, so I’m hoping the figure doesn’t get that high. Having said that I’ve bought two items, a set of steel knock-off wheels and a hard top, and already I’ve blown $1000!
I’m in San Clemente and you’d be very welcome to come and check it out. I will probably take it to the SC Cars & Coffee before I do anything just to show it in ‘Barn Find’ condition.
Re: The red on the valve cover, vs stock cast manifold. Either could have been changed, both fairly easy. It’s most likely a standard model S2, not the SE. The S/E came along at chassis #5282. Some people fitted the later S/E or Sprint cams when rebuilding the engine or just when they replaced the water pump since they had to re-time the cams anyway.
The original valve cover color would have been likely “hammerite green” which is a textured/mottled enamel finish. Many people liked to paint the valve covers back in the day either to match the exterior paint or have a contrasting color. That included me. Mine had been painted black and I stripped that off and painted it in wrinkle finish red when I rebuilt the engine in 1982.
Hi,
The photograph above shows some Blue underneath the Red on the Cam Cover. I’m an Ex-Brit so I know Hammerite as a product very well! Good stuff.
Do you think green is correct color or would it have been blue?
The unit No is 4879 and the chassis (if it’s still the original chassis) is 879. Shipped in July 1965 so I’m fairly sure it’s not an SE. I’ll find out soon what’s inside very soon . .
Ian, I just dug out my copy of Miles Wilkins’ “Lotus Twin-Cam Engine” that is much more specific on cam cover colors on pages 181-182:
Based on Serial prefix -
C Standard Weber from 1963-on was Dark Blue
D S/E Weber was Green
It’s a big project, early-ish S2s are precious and deserve to be resurrected.
Sounds like you’re planning to go with KOs with steel wheels. Should you decide to go with the Panasports, you’ll find a bit of background info here - gglotus.org/ggtech/elan-pan … anwhls.htm
I have a spare cam cover with no less than three similar vents added to it. I have removed them and will be welding up the holes.
Reasonable looking base for your total restoration, and well worth rescuing (well, other than the blood, sweat, tears and cash outlay, but that’s standard practice).
That will be the star of the show if you take it as is to a car meet.
Lovely project ahead of you.
It is possible to do most things yourself, or at least the preparatory work
