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Living with an Elan, the first 34 years....
I bought the S4 I have now in December 1968 after finding out that the secondhand S3 I had owned for three weeks was a crashed
rebuild with a well worn engine (later found to be untrue). Although the S3 was the first Lotus I owned, my experiences with
Elans go back to 1963 when a close friend bought the first 1600 Elan to arrive at the local dealers. He was friendly with
the owners of a local service station and they allowed him to use their equipment to assemble the car as he did not have a
garage of his own. When the car was few months old he answered a knock on the front door to a policeman who had walked past
the car outside his house and noticed that the digits of the front and rear number plates were not in the same sequence! In
rearranging the front ones some of the retaining clips broke so the plate was changed to the stuck-on plastic digits type.
For many years the original mesh grille hung on my garage wall although stove enamelled it now adorns the front of my car.
I travelled thousands of miles in his car, which at one time we fitted with a Shorrocks supercharger with a 2¼” SU carburettor,
but that’s another story... Over the next year or so we made many visits to the Cheshunt factory mostly for warranty work
and in spite of all his Lotus owning problems aspired to have my own one day. My friend then bought an S2 that had been converted
into a ‘GT’ car by the addition of aluminium fastback bodywork. He then had it repainted and re-trimmed, fitted with electric
windows and other luxury enhancements by the Radford coachbuilding company.
In the autumn of 1968 an acquaintance who, following a road accident received a substantial insurance payout offered to part
exchange his S3 Coupe for my tuned and modified Mini Cooper 1275s. He had bought a new Aston Martin with the bulk of the settlement
but part exchanged it for a cheaper car when he ran out of free cash, repeating the exercise several times before getting
the S3. Although I lost contact with him I heard later that he replaced the 1275s for a motorbike.
I decided to trade in the S3 for a new S4 and phoned several dealers before ordering a standard specification drop head model
in white from Jos Randles of Stafford. The invoice was for £1401, which included a push button radio. It was delivered about
a week later and arrived midday on a Friday. It had Weber carbs, a bulge on the bonnet, and black badges. I assembled the
kit over a long weekend, mostly singlehanded apart from two others helping to install the engine using a rope over a single
pulley! Some of the other points I remember from that weekend were, looking into the cockpit and observing that the absence
of a gearstick was the only thing that showed it was not a complete car, and connecting the battery as the first item so I
could have the radio on whilst I worked. There not really any problems putting the kit together and I had the engine running
by the Sunday afternoon although I left the fan off the waterpump pulley because it fouled the radiator and doing that seemed
quicker than re-adjusting the radiator position. On the Monday I registered and taxed the car and by the end of the week took
it the dealers for the mandatory once over. The only fault they found was that the cast iron exhaust manifold was cracked
so that was replaced under warranty. Interestingly looking back over the documentation I have from that period the Inspection
Certificate shows it was carried out at 5 miles, even though there must have been several hundred miles on the odometer.
The first few months of use were then uneventful apart from an incident one winter evening when I had travelled about 1 mile
from home, I felt an intense pain in my left ankle and looked down into the footwell to see flames coming from my sock! The
source of the ignition was the stop light switch (maybe it was incorrectly adjusted) which had a plastic body that was on
fire and dripping burning globules on to the floor. Fortunately it was easily extinguished, which is just as well since I
did not carry a fire extinguisher, and I then replaced the switch with a metal-bodied one.
During the next year or so I replaced the steel knock-on wheels with some aluminium Minilite ‘Sports’ bolt on wheels, having
to buy new front hubs and bearings as well as the rear hubs. I discarded all the bits I took off having no further use for
them. The same throw away policy applied when I bought a Motolita steering wheel, rear shock absorbers with bearing housings,
(the car had come with the narrow ballrace type) and many other items over the years. I was not concerned about originality
and replaced the dynamo for an alternator, fitted capacitor discharge electronic ignition and replaced the wooden dashboard
with one I fabricated from aluminium covered in black Formica. The dashboard project (still unfinished) started because the
car was stolen from outside a restaurant one night and when I got it back two weeks later the tachometer non functional. I
bought a ‘Speedwell’ electronic tachometer as a more accurate replacement but it did not fit the dash aperture, in any event
I had lowered the steering column when I fitted the smaller Motolita wheel so decided to re-layout the whole dashboard.
I purchased a sheet of 1/8” thick aluminium and cut it to the same external profile as the wooden one, and then cut three
large apertures leaving only about a ½” wide frame all round with two 1” wide vertical strips running from the tunnel fixings
to the top dash fixings. The central rectangular cut out, has three separate panels screwed to it, the top one is for the
radio, the middle one has most of the switches, and the lower one has three small gauges. The aperture cover panel in front
of the driver carries the speedo and tacho and some warning lights. One major advantage breaking the dash into separate panels
is the much improved accessibility.
Being the only car I had the Elan was an all purpose vehicle and I used it to transport anything and everything. I carried
15 foot lengths of timber by fastening it to the outside of the car using rope tied into the headlamp aperture, the window
frame, and the hood frame, and the boot hinges. I often removed the passenger seat so I could carry building materials and
later cut away the rear hood tray and trim so that I could fit a child seat over the differential. To accommodate it I had
made a very heavy steel structure that fastened between the two rear towers to replace the original flat plate.
When the car was about two years old my search for more BHP took me to the local Lotus dealers who were trying to get into
the race tuning and performance market and were promoting a package that seemed good value. The engine was bored out to 1750cc,
larger valves fitted, head ported, cylinder block line bored and steel main bearing caps fitted. When I collected the car
it certainly felt better but I was unhappy at how much the engine rattled when cold and at tickover when hot. On investigation
the dealer informed me that the company they used to bore the block were used to preparing race engines and that piston clearances
were deliberately on the sloppy side, oil consumption was high as well so I was not happy with the conversion.
In the next few weeks after the engine work I replaced the head gasket four times! He car had started overheating as soon
as the converted engine was run in, eventually getting pressurised and loosing coolant each time.
After the first two gaskets I had the head checked for flatness, porosity and whatever else I could think of. I pressure tested
the whole block/head assembly myself after fitting the third gasket but could find nothing wrong. A week later that gasket
failed as well! It was now 4 days before a planned trip to Italy. I took the cylinder head off the engine once again and examined
every surface I could see. By chance I rocked one of the pistons side to side and just happened to see a crescent shaped black
line appear on the top face of the block about an 1/8” from the edge of the bore! Closer examination revealed that cylinder
liners had been fitted to all bores but one of them was a loose fit in the block. The dealer that had carried out the conversion
had decided as a matter of course to liner all blocks regardless of whether it was necessary on the basis that it avoided
the possibility of breaking into the water jacket.
Presumably under running conditions the liner was moving from side to side (probably only a thou or two) and wearing the copper
gasket away near the edge of the bore, so the block was scrap. I borrowed a friends car, drove to the factory at Hethel and
paid cash for a new block, pistons, bearings, and a workshop manual for just over £60! The next day I rebuilt the engine and
a day later set off for Dover. The engine was run-in carefully over the next two weeks abroad and achieved MPG figures into
the high 40s. I must have been over confident though because I did run out of fuel on the autostrada! In spite of crossing
several Alpine passes in the heat of the summer the car never boiled even though it still did not have any radiator fan, occasionally
though even the open cockpit got somewhat uncomfortably hot when the heater fan was run to prevent loss of coolant.
In 1969 I loaned my Elan to a friend who took it to Ibiza for six weeks (well I did have the use of his new Ferrari Dino 206!)
I flew out to Ibiza for a few days and we drove back through Spain and France more or less non-stop. Whilst cruising at high
speed with the hood down on the autoroute south of Paris we were stopping to refuel when I discovered that the car was stuck
in 4th gear. Not only that, the metal shaft of gear lever was probably at 180 degrees centigrade! It was impossible to move
the gear lever which seemed welded in position so we pushed the car on a hoist in the service area garage and discovered that
one of the bolts that held the exhaust pipe support bracket to the gearbox was missing allowing all the oil to escape. We
let the casing had cool down, a temporary bolt was installed in the vacant hole and oil put in the gearbox. By this time the
gear lever had freed off. When I reversed the car off the ramp to the accompaniment of a horrible grinding noise from the
gearbox, it caused much head turning and seemed quite amusing to the people in the area, whilst I was wondering how we were
going to get back home. In the event I engaged first gear and drove at low speed noisily round the car park to see what it
was like in other gears. After I had gone about 100 yards, beautiful silence!
I have no idea how far we had driven with no oil in the gearbox, but it would be in top gear so none of the pinions would
be transmitting power but equally none would partially submerged and therefore not lubricating the bearings by splash. Amazingly
the gearbox seems to have suffered no permanent damage. The same gearbox is still in the car and only the deformed nylon cup
nut that retains the gear lever needed replacing. I have since replaced the tailshaft oil seal and changed the oil several
times. Having only 4 gears is a limitation but the Ford gearbox cannot be faulted for its feel and reliability.
The car was used as a family car when I married, My wife was working as a college lecturer two counties away and having only
one car, she drove 20 miles to take me to work, then drove another 15 miles to leave our daughter with her parents, and then
got on the motorway and drove another 40 miles to the college! The round trip was repeated four days a week putting on a fair
number of miles each term. At the time the car was shod with Michelin ’X’ tyres and one set lasted 72,000 miles, which says
a lot for the tyres, the car and of course the driver!
By 1980 the engine was getting a bit tired and not having any decent workshop facilities or spare time I entrusted to QED
who fully overhauled it.
In 1981 a pre MOT check of the chassis confirmed that it would be unlikely to pass the test. The worst areas were the front
suspension towers, these had already been repaired previously by welding plates over the thinnest areas but this time there
was little to weld to so I decided to carry out a full rebuild on a new chassis. Although over the years I had cleaned out
the various drain holes occasionally Lotus chassis in those days did not have the benefit of galvanising and the car had been
in daily use in all weathers in the days when salt was thrown more liberally on the roads than it is today.
I started the chassis change and full rebuild confident that it would only take a few weeks at the most, I was however working
long hours and we were totally renovating the house we were living in. I stripped the body almost to a bare shell before my
wife and I lifted it off the chassis and then set about removing all the remaining components, the whole process taking a
couple of days. I removed all the Metalastic bushes from the suspension parts and had those and many other pieces stove enamelled.
Progress was quite good initially but enthusiasm waned after a few weeks and we decided to buy another Lotus that we could
use whilst the rebuild was in progress. The only car that seemed a logical choice was a Plus 2 so we bought an ‘H’ registered
example fitted with massive Webasto sunroof from a local company that specialised in all things Lotus. The test drive when
we first saw the car (it ran out of fuel a mile out of the showroom) was a foretaste of what was to come, and in retrospect
wish we had bought something else. Within a few hundred miles high oil consumption and ominous rumblings from the engine heralded
imminent big end failure and an engine strip down revealed well worn bores and broken piston rings. Fitting the engine out
of the Elan easily solved the problem! A few thousand miles later the clutch started slipping so the engine had to come out
again, not long after the car needed rear wheel bearings at both sides. In short the car was in mechanically poor condition,
however as I had a stock of Elan parts sitting in the garage so I just ‘borrowed’ whatever I needed to keep the Plus 2 mobile.
I bought a genuine Lotus chassis and had it modified by converting the front and rear towers to sealed box sections fitting
and them and front cross member with threaded bosses to accept tapered sealing plugs. I had the chassis lightly sandblasted
and then stove enamelled before painting it myself with two coats of chassis paint. I poured copious amounts of Shell Ensis
fluid into the boxed areas, fitted the sealing plugs and then rotated the chassis in every plane to fully distribute it. I
intended to convert the headlamps to electric operation. I cleaned, wire brushed, painted, polished, plated each part as I
rebuilt the chassis and suspension. All suspension bushes, brake disks, lines and hoses, seals and many other items were replaced
with new ones. I overhauled the steering rack, fitted new seals to the diff and gearbox tailshaft before fitting them to the
chassis. I stripped the brake callipers, had the bodies Cadmium plated and reassembled them with stainless pistons. Some parts
of the handbrake mechanism were well worn and I had these built up with braze before machining them to size. I bought a new
handbrake ‘tree’ and used it as a template for one I had made out of stainless steel.
Rebuilding the engine that came out of the Plus Two was next, I had the cylinder block bored to +30 thou to suit the only
pistons I could find after hours of searching by telephone, the crank was reground and the block journals line bored to accept
the oversize bearing shells. I left the cylinder head alone as I intended to put the tuned one back on before I sold the Plus
Two but I did fit new timing chain and sprockets. For various reasons large periods of time elapsed between carrying out stages
of the renovation so that whilst the rolling chassis was being assembled the Elan body was lying in the garden getting overgrown.
In the event it stood about ten years before I constructed a crude wheeled dolly so that I could move it in and out of the
garage. In spite of it experiencing wasp infestations, a buildup of moss, and being flooded winter after winter with frozen
puddles it survived remarkably well although a respray had become essential rather than just desirable. I set about removing
the outer layers of paint myself, using scrapers, abrasives and chemical strippers but eventually gave up and took the body
shell to a bodyshop that repaired ‘high class’ automobiles that was recommended by a colleague. They had the body for the
best part of 2 years and but only actually completed the work on it because they were closing down and needed to vacate the
premises. Although they mostly dealt with metal bodied cars they did an excellent job on my very dilapidated shell but the
bill (which was for nearly as much as the car itself cost originally) did not state the type and colour of paint that was
used.
When I put the bodyshell back on the chassis I took the opportunity to correct a small problem that plagues many Elans that
are fitted with wider than standard wheels, namely that of one of the rear tyres making contact with its wheelarch. On my
car when I fitted the Minilite wheels rims (which were 5” wide compared to the 4½” standard) the shoulder of the offside rear
tyre soon rubbed completely through the bodywork whilst the nearside had almost ½” of clearance at the corresponding point.
When refitting the body to the chassis I was able to centralise the bodyshell relative to the rear wheels before drilling
and tapping the various fixings.
As I was reassembling the car I became more and more aware of the mistake I had made using some of the parts to maintain the
Plus Two, also many of the minor bits and pieces had been lost, discarded or, like most of the soft trim had just deteriorated
in the intervening years. Even though I was keen to get the car mobile again overall progress was slow because I only spent
a few hours a week working on it. I had intended to do everything myself, including creating new trim panels, carpeting and
building a new wiring loom. My wife suggested that we get ‘professional help’ which I resisted initially but eventually she
brought me to my senses! I am sure that had I continued at the same rate I doubt whether I would have finished it yet.
We entrusted the car lo a local two-man restoration company and within a month the car had an MOT certificate and was in use
again! Since they were restoring the car as a business it was in their interest to complete the job in the most expedient
manner so, after collecting the car and all the remaining bits, they sat down, wrote a shopping list of missing parts and
just bought them from a local Lotus specialist. We were very satisfied with the standard of work they carried out although
less impressed with the quality of some of the purchased items. In particular the carpets and trim set are a poor fit, the
fibreglass hood tray only loosely resembles the shape of the original, and the wiring loom (which does not match the wiring
diagram that came with it) needed modifying before all the electrics worked.
We used the car only very occasionally each summer for the next few years, this was mainly due to three episodes of moving
house and also lack of time. Last year, and this year in particular the car has been in frequent, almost daily use. There
has been the occasional unscheduled stop. Twice the car started misfiring, loosing power and eventually failing to restart.
Quick checks proved there was no lack of fuel or sparks and the cause of the fault eluded detection by the roadside. Rather
embarrassingly the car came home on an RAC breakdown truck. Even in the garage I struggled to find the fault. Although there
were strong sparks and the engine fired up occasionally it then ran unevenly before stalling after a few seconds. I decided
to remove the electronic ignition that was put on the car during the rebuild and see how it ran with conventional Kettering
ignition. Whilst diagnosing the problem I had remove the distributor cap several times but saw nothing untoward, this time
however when I lifted off the rotor arm I noticed that the spigot that the rotor arm fits onto looked to be shorter than normal.
When I lifted of the plastic moulding which contains the 4 magnets that trigger the Aldon ‘Ignitor’ system it came apart in
my finger releasing the tiny magnets. After finding all the magnets I assembled them back into the inner and outer mouldings
securing the whole caboodle with a drop of superglue. A year later, and within a 100 yards of where the car broke down the
first time it showed the same symptoms. This time though I discounted the ignition system knowing that I had cured that with
superglue so wasted quite some time before finding that exactly the same thing had occurred. This time however I repaired
it by filling the assembly with silicone adhesive before fitting the magnets and cover letting the excess silicone extrude
out. I understand from the manufactures that they have now changed the design.
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