Thanks, Steve. Good luck on today’s drive. Sound grand.
Tim
A little late here as this trip certainly wasn’t taken “today’“, but earlier in the summer my better half and myself had planned a trip around North Wales in my baby Elan for a week.
Unfortunately running issues with the baby Elan ruled it out and I ended up being lent my dad’s +2 as a stand in form the trip (very kind of him…). My other half was quite happy with this solution as it meant she could pack even more into the boot and back seats!
All in all we had a fantastic trip with just one day of rain where the baby Elan would have been a bit soggy…the car ran faultlessly and made for a very pleasant touring companion.
3 Likes
Day 2 of the LOG44 trip complete. 449 miles from Poplar Bluff, MO to Cincinnati, OH. 491 miles per my odometer, your mileage may vary.
What’s to say about SE Mezzo and souther IL? Flat. Some of the best farmland on the planet. Soybeans as far as the eye can see. Straight, flat roads, also as far as the eye can see. Unless you select ‘Avoid Freeways’ in Google, in which case you meander all over to cross the Mississippi at Cairo, on a 2 lane step girder bridge built in maybe 1880.
Once into southern Indiana you start to see some curves and elevation changes, but nothing dramatic. If you like pretty farmland, southern Indiana is for you.
We gave up on that ‘Avoid Freeways’ idea when we were 45 miles out of Cincy and Google said it would take us 1.5 hours. So we hopped on the freeway and got home in 45 minutes.
Car ran great, again today. I did take the bonnet off at lunch, when it wouldn’t idle below 2k. Some sort of binding in the throttle shafts or union. I forced it closed, and the problem didn’t reoccur.
Does anybody else hear things and go to the worst possible scenario? Again, shortly before lunch, with the 2000 rpm idle, I heard a noise from the engine that my imagination assumed was a water pump failing. On startup after lunch, it was gone, and didn’t reappear.
I’ve been tracking fuel mileage since the rebuild. So far it’s in the mid 30’s. I can live with that, it’s about what my wife’s 530i gets with a 2L turbo hauling 3500 lbs. Pretty amazing how far automotive tech has advanced in 60 or so years.
I’m also tracking oil consumption. Before the rebuild it was about 1 QT every 400 miles. I was hoping for dramatic improvement there, but it looks like it’s a QT every, at most, 700 miles. Hmm, maybe it will get a bit better with more miles?
So we made a quick stop at O’Reilly’s for another qt. One of the counter guys followed me out and asked if he could take some picture of the car. Had heard of an Elan, but never had seen one, etc.. Not the first time something like that’s happened. One of the aspects of driving a museum piece.
One more day to go, this one without my navigator. She’s staying in Cincinnati to attend her 50th HS reunion, I’ll pick her up on the way back from LOG.
4 Likes
Hi,
What a beauty that +2 is…. I’d also take the Allegro too.
great pics
cheers
Mark
1 Like
Thanks, Steve and keep at it!
Since I have had my engine rebuilt in 2023, I have done 7,500 miles. I have yet to top up the oil between annual oil/filter changes.
Tim
It looks like I’m going to fall far short of your standard. Oh well, oil isn’t that expensive…
Day 3 of the trek to Pittsburgh for LOG44. Cincinnati, OH to Pittsburgh, PA.
A bit over 280 miles, all backroads. Beautiful farm country, mostly. With the periodic small town, most with plaques noting their founding, several in the late 18th century. For you Brits, that’s old over here, especially west of the Allegheny Mtns.
When you’re within 60 miles or so of Pittsburgh you get elevation changes on OH route 150, which is a pretty decent Elan road. That route to Pittsburgh also has you cross the Ohio (a pretty impressive river, even this far upstream) into West Virginia, adding another state accounted for to get from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, for a total of 8.
Car ran great again today. I did have a bit of excitement to begin with - first thing this morning, which for me was 5:00 AM, I checked the oil to see how much I had burned on the previous day’s almost 500 miles. What I found was that when I had added the last of the first qt, about 150 miles out of Cincinnati, I had not put the oil filler cap back on. So there was a good coating of oil on most of the left side of the engine. Miraculously the cap had fallen into the spark plug valley, so thank you God for that.
Cleaning the oil out also involved pulling the plugs to get to the oil that had pooled at their seats. The good news is that the plugs looked the picture of what a “good” plug should look like. Off-white and clean, after 800 miles or so.
Weather was perfect, even a bit chilly in the AM, but kept the top down - a windbreaker and the heater kept me comfortable. But fall is definitely in the air.
In the elevator heading to my room was another LOG participant. Hi, what’s your car? An Elan, but I didn’t drive it. Oh, hi Greg! Small world.
4 Likes
Yes, I regret not having my Elan here, at this event 
No excuses, but there is a ‘next time’
Well I drove from Long Island to Pittsburg, 425 miles! All but 100 of those miles were in Pennsylvania, it’s a very wide state!
2 Likes
Steve, we’ve all done it at some stage in our lives!
Glad you’ve all made it and have fun!
Tim
Day 1 of the return trip, Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. Leaving a day earlier than planned, due to a mini family emergency.
Google said almost 8 hours by backroads, and about 4 by interstate, so interstate it is. Weather was perfect, partly sunny, puffy clouds and 72 degrees F. Generally ran the speed limit, 65 or 70, but could run it up to 85 if need be to get around a truck or avoid trouble. That’s with the top down, any faster and the wind starts to get intolerable. The car wasn’t made for this kind of travel, but it can do it, especially with the 5 speed. Thank you, Alan Voigt.
Continue to see 36’ish MPG, actually 35 on this leg. That might be a bit high, depending on the accuracy of my odometer, which I wouldn’t swear to.
So far, again according to my odometer, I’ve run 1660 miles, putting in 1.5 pts of oil, and the dipstick is showing full. That would indicate about 1100 mi/qt, which I could certainly live with. But it doesn’t seem like a linear usage, so I’ll keep checking it every before every leg.
3 Likes
Drove back from LOG in Pittsburgh back to Long Island NY, 440 miles in 7 hours 20 minutes that’s better than 60 mph average & includes going through NYC
Not many Lotii get to see the NYC skyline, especially a 53 year old one.
Apart from a flashing charging light, the trip was perfect 
, though the wife says I am deafer than usual…
6 Likes
And how is the back, Phil? Did you add any padding to the seat?!
On Thursday I’m off up the A1 to Newark to play cars with a pal of mine. Its 115 miles 2 hours. Should be fine. Once there, we are off for a blast in his Honda S2000 supercharged, then back to his house for him to drive the Elan and me to drive his MX5 turbocharged. His neighbour also has a cooking MX5 and we shall charge around the B roads down to Stamford for refreshments, before I return home.
All good fun.
Tim
Day 2 of the LOG44 return. Cincinnati to Poplar Bluff, MO.
Beautiful weather, but in the 40’s starting out. Back roads the whole way, just short of 500 miles. Not the most scenic 500 miles in the country, but US 50 through the Martin State Forest in Indiana is decent. And in Illinois, Rt 214 is empty, well paved, with lots of sharp corners as it meanders between ag fields.
So, nice day, and trouble free, until…
And Phil, if you’re reading this, prepare to laugh. You, too, Greg. For the rest of you, Phil and Greg spent of bit of time after the concours, before Phil could leave, fixing his headlight lift mechanism after the pivot bolt that goes from the right side pod into the actuating rod had backed out far enough for the rod to drop out. So no lifty, and no right side headlight.
Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in Poplar Bluff, and went out to a nice dinner. Coming out of the restaurant, it was dark. So the headlights went on. And one of them, for me the left one, stayed down. Guess what - the pivot bolt had backed out.
So out came the tools, on came my headlamp, and with the help of my lovely assistant, we got it fixed in about 30 minutes.
OK, people. Why is this happening and how do we prevent it?
3 Likes
That is a bizarre coincidence! Personally I believe someone was going around the car park backing out the pivot bolt & disconnecting the light bar. Must have been someone from the UK jealous of our failsafe mechanisms, Richard Parramint?
2 Likes
Day 3 of the LOG44 return.
391 miles from Poplar Bluff, MO (“Gateway to the Ozarks”, as they will tell you…) to Tulsa, OK.
This was the fun leg, it’s got more roads that this car was built for. Even so, I was ready to get the trip over, so we didn’t wander around to hit all those roads, and took a more direct path once we were within 150 miles or so of home. That put us on the US412 freeway in Oklahoma, speed limit 80 mph. With the top down, we did 70 mph or so, stayed in the right lane and watched SUV’s whiz by at 90.
The final tally for the whole trip, per the car’s odometer, which I guess is legally what matters.
2416 total miles
2,449 miles from the gas fill just before the trip, to the last one before getting home
68.152 total gallons of gas used for the above
35.94 mpg, mostly highway miles, driven like I don’t really care about efficiency
2.33 qts of oil used for the 2449 miles, from a full dipstick when we left to filling when we arrived
1,037 mi/qt of oil
plugs look great, light tan electrodes
coolant full when we left, full when we got back
no observable oil leaks around the engine
So I’m very happy with my rebuilt TC. The car ran great, and I think calling it a ‘Sprint’ is appropriate.
I’ll check the valve lash in the next couple of weeks and adjust as necessary, but I’m going to call the engine part of this project done.
Otherwise, I need to figure out how to keep the headlight pod/rod pivot bolts from backing out - at this point that’s the only known reliability issue I have left to go after.
I do need to get the seats re-foamed. At least the driver’s - I felt like I was sitting on steel rods, even with some extra padding I brought along. So maybe the interior is the next project.
1 Like
congratulations on your trip. I think I put a jam nut by the head of the bolt and jammed it against the headlight bucket. I had one back out too but not since this fix. Maybe locktite on the bucket area so it can still pivot on the body threads or maybe drill the end of the bolt for a castle nut and cotter pin. The jam nut has worked for me. Maybe see you in Salt Lake City again. Gary
Thanks, Gary. The jam nut seems the way to go. Maybe I’ll add a few drops of Locktite red for suspenders to go with the belt.
SLC sounds good. We had a blast driving through Colorada in ‘21, might be time for a reprise.
A wet and soggy visit to friends in Newark. I set off early to beat the commuter traffic. Usually this would be a two hour, 120 mile drive up the M11 and A1 for me. But I was in the Sprint and so I did most of the journey off dual carriageway/motorway.
So up to Cambridge on a favourite back road, then a quick blast up M11 & A1 to just south of Peterborough, on to Uppingham, Oakham, Melton Mowbray and Grantham, before re-joining the A1 for a final blat to just north of Newark.
There were just the three of us for this drive out. Jerry had two cars to be tested, a Honda S2000 and a MX5 Mk I with a BBR turbo. Nigel had a special Gleneagles edition MX5 and a lovely old 1938 Daimler landaulet with bodywork by Sampson. Jerry and I had arranged with our insurers to be able to drive each others cars.
First up I drove the Honda for a couple of hours along some of Lincolnshire’s finest back roads, whilst Nigel drove the turbo Mazda. The Honda was an accomplished car with a peppy engine, delivering its power smoothly and well. The handling was very impressive.
We returned to base for lunch and I had the opportunity to look at Nigel’s garage, including one of his Daimlers (he has another older one), his Moggy Minor Traveller and Convertible. Back on the road
Jerry took my Sprint whilst I drove the turbo MX5. Nigel was in his car. This was when the rain, which had threatened all morning, finally came pelting down. We headed south with the aim of getting a cup of tea at Burghley House. We drove some really nice roads, got badly held up in Stamford and arrived just in time for that cuppa.
The turbo MX5 was different. It had not only been retrofitted with the BBR turbocharger, but had its entire suspension and driveline beefed up, as well as the chassis having extra stiffening added. It put out 230 odd bhp. In the rain it paid to apply a gentle throttle foot. I did manage wheelspin in third … The handling was not too bad, but I was happy to regain my Sprint’s driving seat!
The return journey was a bit of a slog, this time all but the final 20 odd miles via the A1 and M11, through more biblical rain, the Sprint behaving itself manfully.
Tim
4 Likes
Tim,
A very nice write up of a no doubt enjoyable day out, despite the typical late summer early autumn English weather.
Really good to see that original Elans can hold their own against much more recent machinery.
I always wave to Mazda owners, mostly out of sympathy, Honda owners as well…….
1 Like