Lotus Club Queensland
Dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of the Lotus experience
Login
Register
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Membership
    • Member Login
  • Events
    • Calendar
  • Motorsport
    • Lakeside DTC Timed Laps
    • LAKESIDE DTC RESULTS
  • Magazine
  • For Sale
    • Merchandise
    • Classifieds
  • Posts
  • Galleries
  • Directory
    • Suppliers & Parts
    • Advertisers
  • Archives
IMG_2552

Twincam Tips

Supplied by Barry Ellis.

A Lotus TC article written by a mechanic from Vegantune who has now rebuilt over 5,000 twincams for road and race use. Approved for reprinting from Club Lotus UK Lotus News 1982, No 4 for Barry Ellis – a member of LCQ as well as Club Lotus UK.

Torque Talk

Your workshop manual tells you how to tighten down your cylinder head, but is the instruction correct or complete? I think not.

Set your torque wrench to just 30 lbs ft. Now having tightened all the head bolts down finger tight move around in the sequence shown in your manual cracking the wrench at the 30 lbs ft figure on every nut.

Now up the break figure to 50 lbs ft and go around again in the sequence. Finally, do it again at the 60 lbs ft figure.

After the car has been run for about 5 hours on the road, the time has come to torque the head down once again. So now you must drain out the water, crack all the nuts off their setting and go round again tightening again to 60 lbs ft in the right order again.

Why? Because several head bolts will have tightened up by up to 10% with heat and block/head distortion. Had you just taken a quick trip ‘round the head, cracking the wrench on each bolt you would not have detected one or two which were now at the 70 lbs ft level and ready to stretch or strip.

Now refill the engine with water, let it tick over for a while with the radiator cap off and watch the trapped air come out . Now you can get in another pint or two.

If you have to refill a Europa you need to spend quite a while purging the system of air.

Either park the car facing down a steep hill or jack the back high in the air. Now fill her up and start the engine with the heater valve set to full heat.

If the system has been totally drained of water you will need about 15 minutes to be sure that all the trapped air has bubbled out. On the Europa I recommend having BARSLEAK in the cooling water all the time as they are prone to leaks in the heater matrix and in the tubes that run from front to rear.

You must also remove the heater hose at the thermostat housing and then put your thumb over the end of the hose (or kink it closed) and wait until cooling water comes out of the thermostat casting without a lot of burps or trapped air. There is a vent on the nose mounted radiator. Open this from time to time as you fill the car to let the air hiss out.

WARNING: Don’t let the water temperature get too high before you start work on bleeding – it can be rather painful sticking your thumb over a pipe full of hot water!

Rocker Arm Pillars

WARNING: The rocker arm pillar torque setting is ONLY 15 – 20 lbs ft so don’t go making expensive mistakes! And who said your torque wrench was accurate? Rolls Royce check test all wrenches in “sensitive assembly areas” every day!

DTC – April 2018 My Lotus Story (well, part of it)

Related Posts

duratec-banner

Articles, Homepage, Technical

Duratec Elise – better late than never

plus2-banner

Articles, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Technical

Unique +2 Road Trip to Brisbane

helmet-banner

Articles, Homepage, Racing

$10 HEAD/$10 HELMET

Random images

Go-or-Stop- Kris-McKerron-track concours-1 12-The-outdoor-breakfast-lot 11-Loti-at-the-Cafe 10-Europa-and-Elan 9-Resting-on-the-mountain impressive-machinery 27-Liam-following-Ken-onto-the-eastern-loop 26-Clive-on-the-eastern-loop emr-3 jensen-cu btiu-17 16.Clive-Richard Waiting_for_the_bus_Yackandandah IMG_0053 IMG_0045 IMG_0009 113_1370_IMG IMG_8417 Ian, Clive, Eddie Group-N-Lotus-Cortina Photo-28-11-20-8-10-05-pm Joe-Arico-and-Helen-McMahon-with-Elisa IMG_1978 IMG_1963 Bathurst Pit Bay elises-2 black-seven Western Aussies img_1098_2 IMG-0160 IMG-0152 20161105_082215 Daryl laying down the Law col-strolls-past-the-monaro-gts Kens Tyres Simon with Peter Graham & John Ormiston-15 John-followed-by-Mitch P1020211 IMG_8049 IMG_5164 IMG_5075 image_047 image_014 Mar-main-118 Lotus-Xmas-gathering Daryl IMG_4381 main-29 main-7 IMG_3864a 2006_08_27_Gympie_Skid_Pan0087 Ploughman's Lunch 1426859018_f63ace8db0_m_1 IMG_0361 img_1091_2 P8310122 image_222 IMG_6225 IMG_8612 IMG_6930 IMG_4442 121_2198_IMG IMG_5308 IMG_8897 IMG_5221 36_MG_2581 2_Warm_up_lap P1060531 P5250039 Russell_Leigh_Wade_Derek_Anita 184_184 020_20 IMG_3948 IMG_3945 IMG20210427093622 Mark-Alan-Gerry-friend Jasons-R300 Lambo Elise Camp Line-up-at-Tyalgum_gw DSC_0227 IMG_8847 geoffs new splitter Austin-Healeys-at-rest targa-v6-elise Martins Nose 3 Dick and Luke D74_9592_full alex-photo-3 clubman Cool cats Torana XU1 Dick, Liam and Paul Lotus galore main-104 20170709_104608

Recent Articles

  • Morgan Park Sprints R4
  • Kev’s Big Day Out
  • Duratec Elise – better late than never
  • Gold Rush Hill Sprint – 2022
  • Marburg Pub Run – 4 Sept 2022
  • Unique +2 Road Trip to Brisbane
  • Leyburn 2022
  • August 2022 DTC

Latest Gallery Images

20220220_093834 20220220_093818 20220220_093827 20220220_093743 20220220_093812 20220220_093730

Search articles by category

Archived articles

Lotus Club Queensland
© Lotus Club Queensland   |   Site by Black Eye Studios