this car is parked up looking very sorry for itself ( a possible project) but I cannot find the owner
does anyone know the car/owner or any info on it?
according to dvla it is MOT’d until september 2015
Hi racy7,
Another member pointed out your post.
You must have been in Tunbridge Wells to see it parked up.
I’ve owned this car since 1976, over 200,000 miles on the clock, still standard size journals on the crank, 2sets of shells though. Most of the mileage was done driving between Kent and Rome, probably a few more than 50 round trips, across Belgium from Dunkirque to Autobahn, Basel, various Alp passes and only twice through a tunnel, St.Bernard, Autostrada to Roma. Always got 38-42MPG average round trip moving at 90-110mph on the Bahn and Strada. Almost never took more than 20hours except when severe weather in Switzerland. Once did the trip with a 911, had to stop for gasoline three or sometimes four times for every once in the +2, 15-20mins a stop. Very tired by time got to Como, expensive overnight stay and 36hours later got to Roma. Horses for courses? Now days it takes me to just North of Lisbon. No more four star gas so MPG suffers a bit.
This machine is anything but ‘‘sorry for itself’’. It just lives outside all its life under trees that are so acidic a Ferrari would have dissolved 35 years ago.
Not only is it MoT’d till 2016 now but it has a gold account for the Dartford crossing. Modified solid drive shafts,
space frame chassis, unleaded head, bronze valve guides, timing set with a dial gauge, ported and gas flowed head and a 5speed box etc. etc. make this thing a travelling device as opposed to a posing prop. It just happens to look like s–t.
You can’t imagine the taste of honey by looking at the bee.
Old LOTUS never dies, but the finance companies fade away.
Regards
Satyr Icon
What a great way to have used your car! As intended and better than a Porker, too. My congratulations.
Tim
excellent.
A well used car still running well and appreciated for it rather than being a show car!
I live in Tunbridge Wells and know where this car lives, it has been there for many years as stated by the owner, I realised long ago that it wasn’t a project as it moves it’s parking position regularly and I have seen it on the roads once or twice.
It makes me ashamed to polish mine so much when I realise I could have been enjoying all those thousands of road miles instead
Thanks for sharing the story about your car Satyr Icon.
Alan
Thanks for all replies,
Happy that some of you agree with my ‘use it or lose it’ approach. After all, you only live once and every time I used the +2 for long distance European runs it turned into an adventure, sometimes scary. Twice a month for about 17 years in various vehicles from vans to a 911 Porkster the +2 was the most fun.
Only two breakdowns out of all those runs, one I fixed at the side of the road and the other was related to those horrible rubber drive couplings. I have since had bad high mileage experience with the TT solid drive shafts but I may have found a fix for these.
Like Spyder fan, I too used to polish what was once an immaculate car until I was forced to use it for the ROME run. If any of you have experienced the total insanity of traffic in Paris and Rome it will have become apparent that polishing is an exercise in futility. In those arenas the inhabitants regard their cars as ‘weapons’. The more battered and unloved your ‘weapon’ looks, the more they keep their distance.
Suits me fine.
I’m glad nobody has posted a pic. of this old Lotus but a short description would be ’ looks like it caught fire at some time and was later colonized by green moss '. The junk that falls out of the trees even rots the rubber in the windscreen wiper blades every four months. A cover is not the solution, it just traps the damp and propagates a lethal looking fungus all over the interior.
Underneath all the ‘crud’ this thing is a real survivor.
It would be nice to see more Elans being used but I fully appreciate how costly bumpers and sidelamp units are, the first casualties in day to day parking.
Quick regret here. I had an opportunity to buy about 60 Anglia front bumpers from the main Post Office here in T/Wells, brand new but painted in silver instead of chrome. I think they used Anglia vans for deliveries in those days.
Oh! the torture of hindsight.
Satyr Icon
Nine years on…
Just a quick note to say that Satyr Icon and myself exchanged waves on the A26 Eridge Road Tunbridge Wells midday today.
I was in my highly polished Blue +2 
Brilliant thread… just wish I could be like that instead of OCD
Hi Alan and Mark. Totally amazed to hear anybody is still reading this post after 9 years.
The site won’t let me log in as Satyr Icon for some reason so have had to develop this new AKA.
I remember waving to Alan’s sparkling electric blue +2 on a roundabout. First +2 of any kind I have seen on the road for years. Very elevating experience considering the simplicity of recognition. Nine years on, the number of people who recognize the make and model on the continent is virtually nil. I’ve only been back two weeks from 3,000+ mile drive to Portugal (Poole,St. Malo, Bordeux, Irun, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Valladolid, Vilar Formoso, Arganil), partly to test a 5-speed g/box I had Just rebuilt, a final mod of TTsolid drive shafts, new ignition advance curve and a reasonable alternative to re-chroming steel wheels.
At Vilar Fomoso on the Spanish/Portuguese frontier, a Port. policeman stood staring at NBW 190 M for a good ten minutes before I finally gave in and asked him if something was wrong. Very dramatic because nearly everybody at the petrol station was watching him to see what he was going to do. Once I started talking to him he told me it took him three years to add a Match Box example of the +2 to his collection and how much better it looked in the flesh than in photos or as a toy. Conversation went on for at least an hour, literally, from Alfa Romeos to the Classic Car market in Portugal etc. etc.
A few people seemed to be just hanging around to see the outcome of this ‘confrontation’. Finally this policeman in his mid thirties suddenly came out of his daze, remembered he was a cop and informed me that the A-25 was a toll road, operated on number plate cameras and that the cams. won’t see the front plate so I will have to buy a 10Euro permit at a petrol station where I exit.
The surprise here is that even the scabbiest Elan can make a grown man forget he is a cop and turn him into a 15 year old boy again for over an hour in front of a whole load of possible offenders. I liked this cop, he has got to be one of us.
To Mark I have to confess I did the OCD thing for years and enjoyed it while I still had the juice of youth. My present condition has been imposed on me by a TPO (tree preservation order) and a Conservation area restriction. Upshot is if I even trim the arboreal stuff dropping acidic liquid on my +2, I risk a £20,000 fine. I had to learn to like driving the machine free of worries about scratches and paintwork imperfections. The whole concept of the Elan was based on FUN, not investment and volunteered slavery but even the OCD has some interesting points.
I’m just running out of time so priorities have changed.
I think I really ought to share the info I have accumulated during the seventies, when I had the Lotus dealership at James Barrington up to my most recent drive to Portugal, with this forum. Some topics seem clouded in mystery and sometimes error and omissions. Just don’t know where to start.
Regards,
Satyr Icon
“I’ve only been back two weeks from 3,000+ mile drive to Portugal (Poole,St. Malo, Bordeux, Irun, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Valladolid, Vilar Formoso, Arganil), partly to test a 5-speed g/box I had Just rebuilt, a final mod of TTsolid drive shafts, new ignition advance curve and a reasonable alternative to re-chroming steel wheels.”
Most of us take a test drive around our local country lanes for an hour or so, Satyr!
Tim
What a guy… I am so impressed and full of admiration.
I’ve just done 2700 miles around the Alps, but in an Elise.
I have fitted a 5 speed to my Sprint to do an Alps trip, but I’m not overly impressed with it. Yes the low rpms are good, but the change is poor compared to the 4 speed, reminds me of the “Europa Gear Bag”. Plus I have had loads of grief with the boxes themselves which has probably clouded my opinion…… oh for a local expert.
I’d be really interested in stories past, that’s what a forum is for.
Cheers
Mark
Hi
Great thread. For me its also all about the driving experience. I really do not like cleaning cars, and I will park anywhere so a few dings and dongs are to be welcomed as another one is never such a big deal.
It reminds me of my first plus 2 which was quite a scabby car what with the yellow paint that would slowly remove itself after every jet wash. I used to drive that car to the station (about 5 -7 mins) all year round. It ran so badly in the winter that I fitted a “Webasto Hi Top” petrol water heater in the nose cone. That really helped and also meant some immediate heat in the cabin. In fact the memory of winters in that car has spurred me to fit an electric element (from Fiesta mk7) in the heater of my current +2 project.
All the best
Berni
Hi Tim,
I did test run the 5 speed box a few times before doing the long run but they were only 30mi. and one 50mi., not really long enough to make a proper judgement. The box was initially a bit of a disappointment, the sound it made was not what I was hoping for.
The rest of the machine is 90% reliable, including the TT solid drive shafts which had 4 new universal joints, Japanese made instead of the original Land Rover joints.
This +2 has been doing the same run to Portugal since 2002, six or seven times, so not such a risky run after all. The box was the only real worry.
One thing I have to admit is, the +2 is not really the right car for the terrain I have to cover. The Spanish side of the Portuguese frontier has several long very steep climbs and once into Portugal, the climbs get steeper, longer and more frequent.
Bottom line here is, the +2 body is just a little too heavy for a 1.5L. engine like the Twin Cam. The bore/stroke ratio prevents the TC from developing the torque required for some of the rural twisty and very steep climbs in my area. Second and third gear jobs over and over again, very tedious. I have a small diesel van in Port. which is a relief to drive after the +2. I call it ‘‘The Goat’’.
For all other driving conditions, except city traffic, the +2 can equal a lot of the more recent contraptions on the road, ( and look a lot prettier doing it ).
The Elans are perfectly capable of being as reliable as a Rover etc., there are just a few secrets to be learned and mods to be done and even the mods. have secrets to be learned. My opinion is Elan owners could afford to have at least a bit more confidence in their machines than is apparent in some some of the posts I have been reading on this site.
Remember, an old Lotus never dies but the finance companies fade away.
Regards
Satyr Icon
Hi Mark,
Thanks for all that.
An S2 Elise is on my bucket list. I’d really like to swap info.
You are right about the 5 speed. It was never a nice chunky shift like the 4 but the more you drive it, the more you will probably get used to it. Try not to compare these to a modern laser/robot assembled box, the accuracy and machining and 50 years of design experiment and failures have been of great benefit to the new 5 and 6 boxes. Only disappointment is in the comparison but there are a few things you can try to make the 5 box better depending on the particular trait you don’t like.
The wandering around the desert lookin for the cucumbers can’t be fixed without a re-design but I’ve noticed quite a few references to engaging and disengaging 5 and Reverse in this Forum. It seems to be accepted as normal. It isn’t. When I owned a Lotus dealership in the 70s I must have dismantled 30 or 35 of the 5 boxes, mostly in +2/5 cars but some were Elites and Eclat. The +2s were both high and low mileage and the others were low and NO mileage cars (strait from the factory and still under warranty) , a few of each group had the same problem and the same solution, a bit technical and can only be fixed with a complete strip down to get at a mechanism in the bottom of the box. The oft quoted packing out of the big D-dent spring retainer nut on the bottom of the box is not a FIX, nor is shortening the the D-dent spring to relieve some of the drag on the 5th/Reverse selector shaft. This is too big a subject for this reply but I have made a bit of a video, pics and a detailed explanation of the fix, maybe post later. I noticed the very well laid out PDF. authored by a Swedish engineer, which can be found on this Forum, does not mention the fault. My data could be a useful addendum to that excellent production.
If what you don’t like about the 5 box is the effort to engage the four other gears, you can try pushing the g/lever deeper into the box against the spring loading. We found this to make the shifting more normal in almost every case but have never been authorized to complete a modification. The fault seems to be associated with the leverage designed into the box.
The cogs and most of the bearings are standard Austin Maxi as are the baulk rings and synchro hubs. Maxi box changes nice and easy but has a gear lever about twice as long as the Lotus ergo half the engagement effort. Moving the synch hubs in the Lotus box is no more difficult than the same in the Maxi box or any other box including the Ford 4 box. What ‘is’ wrong is a slight miscalculation of the leverage imposed by linkage geometry. This can probably be vastly improved and you may not need to take the box out of the car, just the gear lever but an engineer would have to do the mod.
Another thing I have noticed is even the engineer PDF. recommends HiPress 80 oil in the box.
We might want to take into account the fact that Lotus specify ordinary engine oil, 20-50 viscosity in the day.
The Maxi box bearings, cogs and more importantly, the baulk rings, were designed to share the same 20-50 oil as the engine since the crank is spinning around directly above it. The combustion heat transfer from the bottom of the pistons raises the oil temp much higher than you would find in a g/box that does not share its oil with combustion contact metal. Basically, the Maxi gears are designed to run, and the baulk rings designed to run, in lower viscosity and hotter oil than it will experience 24 inches or so behind the engine and no contact with combustion temp metal.
The higher viscosity of HiPress 80 will interfere with the correct braking effect of the baulk rings on the conical surfaces of the cogs and make it more difficult to cleanly engage the sych hub (=cr-p shift).
Many people don’t realise there is much more churning of fluid in gear boxes and diffs than in the engine itself.
Heat of oil in the diff often reaches in excess of 100C despite the very slippery nature of EP 90 oil. If this temp was entirely generated by metal to metal friction of the crown wheel and pinon, your diff would not last long. A lot of the heat is generated by the mechanical agitation of the molecular structure of thick oil. EP 80-90 restricts metal to metal friction, not heat.
I would hazard a guess that gear oil in the 5 box is an error.
Sorry about the heavy stuff above.
The 5 box should be really nice in a Sprint. 200Kg makes a lot of difference to performance of the package. Just imagine having two and a half heavy dudes in the Sprint with you, (200Kg). 16 valves and cam and ignition timing that is suitable for the alcohol/guzzlene mix we have now days would be greater still. The standard 23D4 advance curve is suitable for 5 Star Guzzlene, totally inappropriate for the slower flame rate of alcohol mixes. Believe it or not, the right ratio diff and the advance curve play off against each other. I have a 3.5:1 diff and 5 box, I managed to get nearly the same performance, possibly better, perceptions being what they are, as I had on 5 Star many years ago, by experimenting with very different ign. advance curves .
All for nothing. They must have changed the make up of petrol alcohol mix again by the time I went on latest trip. Performance was noticeably down on EU guzzlene. Supposed to be the same I thought.
Your Elise will probably be ‘chipped’ for the best compromise between the two if still standard. Re-chipping can be biased for different quality fuels, re-chip it for UK and you can get a worthwhile improvement. Too bad the same technology is not affordably available for my +2.
If you want to mod your 5 box a bit, I can give you what I know but I think it is clear the linkage geometry is a bit wrong and the law of diminishing returns kicks in if you try to change that. The gear stick trick is worth a try and only takes a minute and can’t damage anything.
Regards
Satyr Icon
Hi Berni,
Thanks for your reply as well.
Rough running has always been a regular feature of the T/Cam.
From memory, a lot was down to short journeys where the engine was in good condition. If the journeys are not long enough to get the engine stinking hot the way it was designed to run, a nasty build up of soot and oil takes place on the ‘‘sparkies’’. The more it builds up, the longer and harder you have to run it to burn off the crud. Maximum oil is getting past the rings when the engine is cold and the running temp is too low to burn it off . The fuel does not burn properly either and the spark starts to intermittently short out on the oil deposit and unburned hydrocarbon creating a vicious circle.
Sometimes, what they used to call, softer plugs could FIX, but you would have to change the plugs back to normal if you intended to use the machine with urgency or in anger.
Regards
Satyr Icon
Fantastic stuff, thanks for reviving the thread! Satyr, I’d love to see a picture or two of your car just to put an image to the description. Glad to hear that it’s seeing a long and wonderful life of use.
Interesting too about the five-speed shifting. I have one of the few five-speeds over here in the USA, which I installed about a year ago into a Plus 2 that had come with a four-speed. The four was generally okay, though I found its shifting a bit notchy- maybe it was headed toward needing a rebuild? It had about 82K miles on it.
I went with the five because of the nature of driving in this country, where if you want to get anywhere beyond your local surroundings some high-speed cruising may well be required, but even on less than full motorways I constantly found myself wanting one more gear and having only four felt like something was missing, like unfinished business. After all that I’d read about the fives shifting a tad less beautifully than the fours I figured that was acceptable, as the increased utility (not just having fifth but also the lower ratio of first) would outweigh that.
The plastic mounting threads on the Ford shift lever used with the fives are a real problem though. Mine came with threads that were so worn that screws through the metal ‘flower petal’ tabs on the base of the lever had been employed to hold it in place! I sought a new lever and found that the only choice available came from a Turkish seller on eBay…bought that and found that the plastic threads were undersized, enough so that they didn’t even pretend to engage the threads in the cover. I then turned to one of the ‘racing’ levers meant for Mk II or III Cortinas, the only compatible thing I could find. This works and has a nice straight-cut metal thread that stays secure in the cover but has two of its own problems: the first was that the lever came straight and had to be bent quite a bit if I didn’t want to punch my knuckles through the dashboard when going into the odd-numbered gears. The second problem is that this lever places the spherical bearing a bit higher than in the Ford lever, giving the short throws that racers like (and which I found to make the lateral movement in the 2-3 shift a bit tricky) but also really increasing the amount of strength required to make some of the shifts- in fact I have to give it a pretty good shove to engage first gear. I can live with it but I think a better lever would make it much more pleasant. I’ve pondered two ideas, one is having a lever made that duplicates the ‘racing’ lever in every respect except for having the bearing located about an inch lower, the other being to have a new base made for the Ford lever out of metal instead of plastic, however much of the quality in the other components of the Turkish Ford lever seems a little suspect so I lean toward the first idea. It’s not a high priority though as since I am not a machinist it’ll cost money to have someone make and my budget is a little tight these days.
But other than the issues with the lever I do like the five-speed!
]Hi Veg,
I also have had to resort to 2 X 1/8in screws between the 'petals ’ of the metal Daisy to keep the threaded plastic cup in the threaded alloy plate and to stop it from unscrewing. Managed to get the cup to screw in tightly by winding PTFE plumbing tape around the threads of the cup. It took several trials to get the number of windings just right so that a special tool was needed to get the Daisy ‘petals’ flush with the plate and very tight.
The PTFE tape needs to be the heat resistant plumbing type for compression joints in things like central heating pipes, not the PTFE for gas thread.
This fixed the problem for about 15 years. I think you are looking for a more elegant and original fix.
You may be able to resource a good stick and pivot cup with functional thread here on this site. The ones I have seen on the ‘‘Bay’’ were invariably overpriced.
The box I have rebuilt and used for my recent trip to Portugal was from the ‘‘Bay’’, I paid £137 for it, the seller was kind enough to declare it had a tight spot in every gear when turned by hand but it had a perfect condition lever and pivot cup. I have not used the lever or cup, I prefer the modification I have devised most recently and has proved successful over the latest trip at least. The Ebay box is from a 1979 Eclat, possibly 77 in my opinion. The Elite also had a lever identical to the +2. If you resource a good assembly from these options, don’t be put off by the plastic saddle fitted to the hardened fork, it just pulls off and the fork is same as +2.
I wish I could offer you the gear lever but I intend to rebuild my original box and keep it as a spare or sell it. It would probably be more marketable with lever included.
If you get really stuck and can compromise a bit, I can take a photo of my latest mod. Essentially two curved metal plates that match the circumference of the ‘Daisy’ and are secured by the two nearest bolts. I still have the PTFE to keep the oil in and the two small screws between the ‘petals’.
As for the shifting, I think the fork at the bottom of the lever needs to make deeper contact into the brass shuttle. This would improve the advantage it has against the ball on the end of the selector shaft.
The lever is spring loaded toward the roof of the car. If you overcome this spring loading by pushing the lever deeper into the box when shifting, you may find the shift a lot easier. Not all the boxes benefited from this for some reason. If yours does, you could try removing the circlip securing the spring material to the shaft of the lever. Chances are the shaft is seized to what should be a sliding collar and removing the circlip will have no effect. If the shaft is loose in the spring, it will drop slightly deeper into the box without having to force it in deeper. The lever will feel a bit strange without the spring loading but if the shifting is noticeably easier this would be proof positive Lotus messed up on the shift leverage calculations.
Where you go from there is an engineering problem. You could try shimming the lever with a spacer between the back of the fork and the ball in the plastic cup but this would increase the spring load pressure.
If you ever have a new cup machined, get rid of the Daisy and make the threaded surface half an inch longer so the whole assembly goes that much deeper into the box.
If you have the time and know how to play with this problem you could wind up solving one of the major complaints against the 5 Sped Box. After all, these same cogs, shafts and bearings work fine in the Maxi, the only real difference is the shift leverage.
Incidentally, I opted for the S130/5 for the same reasons you did but I also changed to a 3.5: 1 diff.
When I wanted to play boy racer I had a fabulous XR 2 for the short journeys.
I’m a Yankee ‘‘outa NY’’ myself so I know what those long straight roads can be like. A lot of people here in ‘‘Jolly Old’’ don’t quite realize that driving across the US is like driving from Brighton to Newcastle 7 or 8 times.
Will try to post some photos when I find out how to do it. Be prepared for a shock. There is at least one other member who will testify to this.
Regards,
Satyr Icon
Thanks Satyr, very interesting, good stuff to chew on and contemplate!
I think a lot of the slop in the shift is in the ball assembly. I think replacing that with a spherical bearing, ideally with some height adjustment for the bearing and stick would allow removing a lot of the slack and adjusting effort/throw. Probably not take it to 4 speed level but much better.
I have a design in my head for that but an international move has taken me away from from my easy source of getting the parts made. That and been busy means I’ve not progressed it, more than first cad drawing.