Hi, I’m Nicolas, 44, from Marseille (FR).
(please excuse my unacademic “frenglish”)
I inherited from my dad a few cars among which a partially disassembled 1968 Elan S4 (SE model ?).
My dad used to be a classic British car mechanics for a large part of his life :
He always loved British cars and ended up making that passion his job for a (large) while.
Possibly some of you may have met him when he was the co-owner of “GB Collection” workshop near Aix-en-Provence.
Back to the Elan : before he passed away, my dad dropped the engine and gearbox off the car, and completely disassembled the T/C engine, since he was planning a complete rebuild …
… which now lets me with a few boxes of parts, and no specific personal knowledge.
(the boxes are actually at one of my dad’s friend’s place, who was supposed to help him and kindly offered me his help)
My plan is to try and rebuild the Elan and maybe one or two additional cars, and most likely to sell the others …
A few “webxplorations” later, here I am on this forum (which was recommended to me by Sue at Mick Miller’s) with a few questions and most likely a ton more to come
I will post them in separate threads and maybe just put a link here, but let me know if that’s not an appropriate way of doing.
This is a great site with many helpful and knowledgeable people. If you don’t have the official workshop and parts manuals definitely get them. I also recommend Brian Buckland’s book, “Rebuilding a Lotus Elan.”
Welcome Nicolas,
you have reached the best place for all related to Elans, many questions you might have, most likely have been answered before, but for searching do not use the search function of this site, use Google instead, with " site:lotuselan.net" added.
In case you do have questions, in most cases it is much better asking with pictures. Many people also use one thread for showing progress on one particular car. Even if it takes years …
if you need to use an online translator, I suggest you use Deepl instead of Google, that way we might understand you
I think I downloaded a copy of the Workshop Manual but was kind of surprised not to find many illustrations inside, hence looking for some book to complete …
Concerning the Parts Manual, I’m not sure what I should look for from my investigations on the net. Has anyone a link to the real deal to share ?
Welcome Nicolas
The books I have that I find useful are:-
Lotus factory workshop manual
Lotus Factory Parts list manual
Miles Wilkins Lotus twin Cam engine
The original Lotus Elan by Robinshaw and Ross.
The rebuilding of a Lotus Elan by Brian Buckland.
bonjour Nicolas
il serait judicieux de te rapprocher du club Lotus France ou tu pourras ensuite acquérir les manuels d’atelier en Français
bon courage sur ta restauration mais n’oublie pas de faire des photos
geni
Bonjour Nicolas,
Bon courage à toi pour le remontage de la Lotus Elan.
Comme écrit dans les précédents commentaires, le livre de Brian Buckland "Rebuilding a Lotus Elan pourrait t’être utile, car il y a beaucoup d’illustrations des différentes pièces de Lotus Elan. Je ne sais par contre pas si ça pourra t’aider pour le remontage du moteur.
Si un jour tu es bloqué et que tu as besoin d’un garage, j’en connais un qui a l’habitude de travailler sur les Lotus Elan: l’atelier Rufils à Villefranche sur Saône (Rhône). Ils ont remontés mon moteur, lui-même refait par un motoriste qui est juste à côté, changé les amortisseurs et fait quelques bricoles sur mon Elan.
Hi Nicolas,
Good luck with the Lotus Elan.
As written in the previous reviews, Brian Buckland’s book "Rebuilding a Lotus Elan could be useful to you, because there are many illustrations of the different parts of Lotus Elan. I don’t know if it can help you for the engine.
If one day you are stuck and you need a garage, I know one who is used to working on the Lotus Elan: the Rufils workshop in Villefranche sur Saône (Rhône). They reassembled my engine, which was rebuilt by a “nearby engine rebuilder”, changed the shock absorbers and did a few things on my Elan.
Along the Elan, I inherited a MGC, two Midgets, a T&J Hornet (Lotus seven replica), a (undetermined) XJ jaguar from the 80’s (I need to check more on that one) and also a completely disassembled Healey Sprite . All of them need to be worked on …
I’d like to restore the Elan and maybe the Sprite (was my mom’s car, sentimental reasons) and get rid of the others …
