Hi all
I’ve owned my Plus 2 chassis number 50/0143 since 1977 and am the second owner of the car. I took it off the road in 1985 when I moved to Aberdeen as the dreaded rust had weakened the front cross member on the chassis. I stripped the car and ordered a Spyder refurbished chassis and started to rebuild it, reconditioning parts as I went. Then I changed job and moved house so the car was partly assembled and moved to a barn on my in laws farm for about 10 years. It finally joined me in Lincolnshire in the mid 1990’s and was eventually sent to a local specialist to have the rebuild completed due to lack of time on my part. This all went wrong and the car was returned, partially completed with many parts off the car and in a variety of boxes and bags. Again it sat untouched for some years, until I had some time around 2002 and I sent the body for a bare fibreglass respray and rebuilt the suspension a second time as the bushes had deteriorated and rust had appeared on some parts. Then my job moved to Aberdeen, but I didn’t relocate, just commuted every week for over 8 years so again, nothing got done on the Lotus. I finally retired last summer so after a few holidays and essential jobs around the house I decided that it was time for one final push to finish the Lotus. First job was the garage, it was full of “stuff” and needed a good clear out. Then it was clean and paint the garage, fully rewire it with new sockets and lots of new lights, set up my lathe, milling machine, compressor, grit blaster, welder, bench grinder etc. Finally I was ready to actually start on the car! A second set of axle stands were purchased and the car jacked up, put on them ready to work on at a reasonable height. Next job was to go through all the boxes of bits and see what I had and what condition the bits were in. I forgot to mention that in 2007, the garage was flooded and all the Lotus parts were at that time in cardboard boxes on the garage floor! After the flood everything was washed down with many cans of WD40 and put into plastic storage boxes and there they stayed till early this year when I started the restoration.
As I have progressed I have found that somewhere sometime in the 30 years the car has been off the road, some vital bits have gone missing, mainly, the brake servo and the complete pedal box, plus some smaller brackets and bits, but eBay has come to the rescue for some parts and others I have been able to make in my workshop section of the garage. So, where am I now? The chassis engine, gearbox, suspension is all complete, the resprayed body is on the chassis and I’m gradually refurbishing all the engine ancillaries or replacing/upgrading them, and replacing all the underbonnet wiring with my own custom harness incorporating the relays and fuses that were absent on the early cars. I’ve managed to buy a genuine Lotus workshop manual so have reasonable documentation, but some bits aren’t covered in enough detail, so a google search for images has proved useful.
I’ve bought some after market replacement parts and although they are generally good, there has been some small problems with all of them. The new alloy fuel tank doesn’t have the two small recesses in the bottom to clear the diff top mounting bolts, hence the need to put the bolts in upside down with the bolt heads on the top and the nut underneath to get the clearance, not a major problem unless you want to remove the diff at a later date. The alternator fitting bracket and kit had the wrong length bolts supplied, you can only get a replacement pedal box of the later type so more work to machine up an adaptor plate, and so it goes on, slowly but surely I’m getting there.
The car will be 50 years old in early November this year, and it’s our 40th wedding anniversary at the end of October so my goal is to drive to our anniversary do in the Lotus, wish me luck!
Hi Babb,
That’s quite a story and full marks for sticking with the car and finally making it happen.
Best of luck. You’ll get some great help from the folks on here…in return, we do love lots of pics
First of all, congratulations on your retirement!
It’s obvious that you’ve lost no interest or determination to continue yet again on the rebuild.
(and it’ll soon take shape as you have the skills and machines to manufacture or modify similar parts to fit)
As Kev said, we love lots of pics!
Best of luck with the November deadline!
Welcome aboard, its good to have a new recruit form Lincolnshire. Great story and I wish you every success meeting your deadline, anything you need help or support with then this is the right place to ask. There isn’t anything that this crew do not know about Lotus Elan’s !
Thanks for the welcome and good wishes. A few photos attached, showing the car in March just as I got started on it and a few pictures of the engine bay as it is now with the carbs and pedal box trial assembled before I remove them again, overhaul the carbs, set the timing, install the air filter housing and complete the fuel lines and wiring.
Thought I’d add a few pictures of the car as it was earlier in the restoration process.
The body was stripped to bare fibre glass and a temporary transport frame made for while it was away for respraying. The respray was done by a small local company and I’m very pleased with the results.
One more picture of the first time it went off to be renovated, this was last century and it came back unfinished about a year later when the garage doing the work closed down. This was when I think parts such as the servo and brake pedal box etc. went missing.
Behind schedule! Snook off to the Isle of Man to watch the TT for a week, so need to put in more hours to catch up! Waiting for parts to arrive so plan to strip and overhaul both carbs as I have the kits for this and then fit the new clutch slave cylinder. Also noticed offside front wheel is tight to turn, so need to remove and check out the bearings before I fit the calliper and pads.
i think u have a point there john! Engine mounting on RHS is possibly at fault
looks to me like there might be very little clearance between the inner wing and the airbox?
I had the same problem after my rebuild and replaced the engine mounting with a beefed up one which solved the problem … and made it sooo much easier to access the weber bolts etc
Great story and your restoration is looking good! Keep the faith, your close to being back on the road. I know the feeling of driving a car you have personally restored, it is extremely satisfying and will add a new dimension to every drive.
I’d like to compliment John Clegg on his eyesight. I’ve double checked and the engine is indeed not level. This became more obvious once I had the carbs and airbox finally fitted and found minimal clearance between the airbox outlet and the inner wing. The car is level on axle stands so the attached pictures of the spirit level show how far it is out. New engine mounts on order, might as well do both as they are the same age. Question though, what clearance have people typically got between a standard airbox and the inner wing.
In general work is progressing well, if a little slower than anticipated!
Progress update. Good day today, diff dropped out, diff brace fitted and all reinstated, just over two hours. It went easily, bearing in mind the car was already up on stands and all bolts were new and nicely coated in copper slip. To ensure the diff was at the right height I milled approx 1.5mm off the bottom end of the sleeve in the frustacone to compensate for the additional thickness of the brace. These sleeves were originally 41mm and only one washer was originally installed, which I reinstated. Fitted the new alloy tank having slid heat shrink over the tank securing straps to ensure they didn’t mark it. I’ve asked elsewhere which way the filler cap should go, hinge to the front or the rear? Only downside was that while hand turning the drive shafts to get clearance to drop the bolts down through the frustacone, the donuts made a tearing sound and started to come unbounded in places, but they had been sat near full droop for a considerable time and are around 20 years old although they have never driven the car in that time, so they’ll be out soon and replaced with cv joint shafts - more expense! Need a few small parts too, washers for the tank banjo fitting and I’m going to fit an earth braid strap to the tank.
Also adjusted the front wheel bearings and fitted the calipers and new pads and pins. Rear calipers look sad so will be looking to exchange them for a reconditioned set. Rear bumper and roof gutters should be back from Derby Plating soon so I can fit them and other bits of trim when they arrive. Target completion of November is looking unlikely now as there is still all the interior trimming to do.
I?m with you re target completion date/s not being achieved, I?ve missed several this year, always find that much more requires to be done on each stage of the restoration.
