340 R Frame repair

[shv]

Hi there,

I had the unfortunate experince of smashing my 340 R.

Hit the track barrier backwards with the left back wheel. And as it looks now the frame had a sever blow, and needs to be replaced. Is it possible to exchange part of the Alu frame without replacing the hole frame?

[marki]

Ohhhhh that sound very very expensive , bad luck, oh no thats tommorow you get the bad luck

[Bonce]

Søren,

I'm really sorry to hear of your accident.

Bad news I'm afraid. The chassis (frame) is a single item made of many parts of extruded aluminium bonded together before the car is built. It is not possible to repair part of the chassis by cutting away damaged parts and bonding or bolting on replacement parts. I'm afraid the whole chassis will need replacing if any part of it is out of alignment.

[shv]

Txs for the swift answers.

So I guess the bedst thing to do is to buy either a new frame which will take approx 12 months according to Lotus or buy a used one and then use the old one for sparepars??

Is this frame different from the Elise frame?

[Bonce]

There is a little bit more information about the chassis here: www.elises.co.uk/components/s1/chassis/index.html

The 340R uses the same chassis as any Elise S1 series (111, 111S, 160, Exige etc) so there are plenty around. If your car was insured on the track, your best bet is to get a dealer or lotus specialist to source the parts and do the work for you. It is definitely possible to get a chassis in less than 12 months. Good luck!

[hungryjim]

Sorry to hear about your crash
I hope you can get it repaired because the 340R is an extrordinary car and there is not enough of them about

Jim

[adrianr]

Are you sure it's the aluminium bit that's bent, not just the rear subframe and longerons? These are replaceable separately.

AdrianR

[shv]

No unfortunatly the frame is serverly damaged.

So I guess there are spare parts avaible, as I will sell it off to buy an Elise Sport !

[Bonce]

Sorry to hear this Søren. So are you going to keep the damaged car and sell bits off it, or sell the whole thing?

[135sport]

I may be wrong.......but if you claim off the insurance it could make the vehicle a total loss.

Not because the chassis is expensive (I think about 6k) but it is the cost (in hours) of swapping components / rebuilding the vehicle.