Informative and amusing accounts from 20 years of working on Elans and other Lotuses.

Mike and the Mail-Order Tall Block

This is the first article in a series that will describe some of the more colorful goings on at my shop over the years. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and hide the guilty.

A client with an Elan, let's call him Mike, wanted more power. He had a Stromberg motor and he had lusted after a Weber head for some time. He located a complete 1700cc "tall" block motor on the East coast. This from a reputable firm. I agreed to do the necessary installation work.

The motor was shipped and arrived at the shop. It was said to have been completely rebuilt. Now over the years I have seen some dubious "complete" rebuilds, as this seems to mean different things to different people, but this looked good from the outside. It was clean and painted nicely. In fact it looked fine on the inside too, as I pulled the cam cover to check the valve clearances. It was again clean and I saw new tappets under the reground cams.

So I refit the cam cover, put on new Weber carbs, distributor and fit the clutch and flywheel. I installed the motor and prepared it for initial start up.

The motor started right up. It held constant water temperature and oil pressure. I set the timing and synchronized the carbs. It was late in the day, but I prepared the car for a road test.

I rolled out of the shop and everything seemed fine. The Elan pulled nice up to 3500 rpm, which is my limit for fresh motors.

Then three blocks later as I was turning a corner there was a small thump down by my right foot and the car died. Nothing very dramatic, just a heavy clunk.

I towed it back to the shop. It was late, but I wanted to get a peek and see what was what. I jacked it up and looked at the flywheel. It was loose! I double check all my wrenching, so what is this? The flywheel was loose, but still firmly bolted to the crankshaft. The crankshaft had broken!

I informed Mike. He was not happy to say the least. He authorized me to pull the motor and strip it to get a look see. When I pulled the pan two main cap bolts lay in the sump. Not broken; they just fell out. The rest were finger tight. The crank was broken into three pieces. The rod bolts were right up to spec.

It seems that this motor was built by a well known British engine specialist. Hmmm. Had the builder walked away at tea time in the middle of torquing main caps? We won't know. But my practice is to always find a good stopping point so I can pick up right were I left off. Or make notes. The block was also trashed.

I rebuilt his original Lotus bottom end. Cleaned up the Weber head and rebuilt the motor. It ended up being a very quick Elan. But not exactly by the route envisioned by Mike, me or the others involved. By the way there was some recompense by the seller, but it didn't completely cover Mike's costs.

© 1998 Rich Kamp. May be redistributed as long as this notice is preserved on all copies.