My wife broke the shifter cable on the Elan, slamming a shift while racing a Corvette from a stoplight. Since she beat him, how can you blame her?

Here's the context for the repair. You have to take off the turbo hose, drain the coolant and remove the reservoir. Then unplug a few cable connectors and plunge your hand deep into a jungle of sharp edges.

Pull off a few cotter pins, remove some fiddly washers, snap off some circlips, tie on pull strings and then go into the car to do the rest.

Here's what it looks like deep under the hood. Don't worry if the photo does not give you any frame of reference, because you won't be able to see this anyhow! Only my spy camera could capture this view. The real work is done by braille...

Here are the ends of the old and new cables. The first photo shows the engine end, where the plastic breaks. Originally this nylon end was supposed to have a nice smooth wire clip, but that popped off too easily, so they now use a sharp-edged circlip that (if pounded on) can cause the end to break off like this. Hard shifting will do it too!

The next photo shows the console end, where the cables connect to the shifter. See the plastic end with a separate metal stud on the old cable? That's where some of them break. Ours did not break there, but it had worn and was loose. The new cable uses an attached stud in a metal end, so it should not break (he thinks) .