disappearing elan

[twincamman]

welll tonight while setting the carbs I turned away from the car to pick up a screw driver and when I turned back to where the car once was there was a large hole in the garage and no Lotus . To my amazement the car was rolling merrily backwards down the sloping driveway across the usually busy street and onto the neighbors lawn . So how does one shorten the parking brake cable [ far less dramatic than emergency brake ] to ensure the parking brake stays tight ???? ed

[Old English White]

welll tonight while setting the carbs I turned away from the car to pick up a screw driver and when I turned back to where the car once was there was a large hole in the garage and no Lotus . To my amazement the car was rolling merrily backwards down the sloping driveway across the usually busy street and onto the neighbors lawn . So how does one shorten the parking brake cable [ far less dramatic than emergency brake ] to ensure the parking brake stays tight ???? ed

Ed ,
There are no parking brakes on proper 26R's , but on Elan's too.
Mine is for MOT , only.
Use a wood block , as it seems to have some in your country.
Take care ,
Christian .

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Ed,

trying to shorten cables usually ends up with tears at bed time.
Trying to re-solder nipples on grease contaminated steel cables is a nightmare.
There was some chat on this subject only a few months ago; give it a search.
You could effectively shorten the cable by fitting a stepped slotted sleeve to the outer cable at either end, the choice is yours or a similar sleeve over the nipple at the rear brake tree.
I don't know if such things are comercially available (smaller versions used to be used on push bikes) but they'd be simple to make in a lathe.
Slot the sleeve with one or two hacksaw blades.

Oh & when I get a wild notion to do a job on the Elan, I make a note of it & then do it when I'm sober

John

[garyeanderson]

Hi Ed

I guess you found out that there is 2 inches of pitch in a garage. This is a code thing and has to do with heavier than air gasoline vapors. The Vapors being heavier than air will follow the pitch in the garage and hopefully exit out the garage door just as the elan did to prevent a fire or explosion if someone drops a lit match. A side benifit is when all that snow melts off the car it will drain into the driveway.

There is a adjustment nut and a jam nut on the end of the cable as it passes just under the frame mount for the engine mount on the drivers side (your left).

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Oh errm, my post was assuming that all of the possible adjustment had been used up
John

[garyeanderson]

Oh errm, my post was assuming that all of the possible adjustment had been used up
John

Hi John

There are a lot of assumptions on this forum and I guess I may be that biggest.

Gary

[alexblack13]

It's a pain of a problem this. I had a brand new good quality cable from Susan Millar. Fitted it. Built all the car only to find that the cable was around 60 -70 mm too long. A right pain in the ass. Had to take it out again and shorten the inner.Did this by first of all making up a new clamp on nipple. When I finished this out of interest to see what load it would hold I put one end of the scrap pc of old cable(the one that came off)into the vice and made up a lever assy to pull on the new nipple. The new nipple (out of stainless) could not be budged at all. I was quite surprised at this. It was my major concearn. It was secured to the cable by 4 grub screws Horizontaly apposed.I could not move it. I took out two grubs and tried again. Took lots of leverage to shift it. I concluded that this would be ok for normal use as it took about (estimated) three times the load one would apply via the brake lever.

When fitted, with all adjustment at the nut on the outer cable at zero and the tree lever almost fully back.Caliper levers on their stops,I could position the clamp on nipple exactly where I wanted it. However..... ... Me being me this mod managed to bog itself down in between my ears. Not comfy! spent a few nights thinking it through..Result was I ended up taking it off again and having a new swaged on nipple fitted by a local boat chandlers. We had the position for the new one dead on though and I dont think the clamp on one would have moved (I could not move it!), and believe me I pulled like bug**ry on the handbrake lever trying hard to do so.

My hand brake works V well Thank goodness. It must have been quite a 'moment' that Ed. We had a knock on the door one v cold winters night when a neighbour reported our car was sitting in the middle of our street! It had just made off on the ice. Mrs B then put it in the Garage...

[twincamman]

thanks ---this is going tooo be a job ---I see by Garys photo I had the cable in all wrong - ---ed

[garyeanderson]

Hi Ed

Here are a few more photos. When working on an Elan nothing can be assumed to be correct for every model as lotus changed bits as needed to ship cars. Most specs are close and like models may be the same or different so assumptions can only burn you. Throw in the fact that folks been messen with it for 40 years or more and the slim to none chance you had just went out the window. A two line reply has all of the value now of pulling on the chain. What is correct for a LHD may not be the same for a RHD. If you do not describe the problem properly the answers you recieve are not likely to help, if you don't describe the problem at all t'aint nutten gona help ya'all.

[twincamman]

welll after a frustrating day it appears the umbrella handle only has 3 clicks on it when pulled [started at the wrong end]---I'm sure there must be more travel than that --- where is the limiting stop on the inner shaft of the handle??? ed---thanks to Gary Anderson I have found the handle is working OK --it appears to be the cable or the levers OR the turn buckle is hung up some where ----oh well time for some beer and tomorrow Ill tackle it ----ed

[Rob_LaMoreaux]

Mine hasn't worked in years.

The plastic coated inner cable got too hot as it went by the headers. The plastic melted inside the outer and glued the two together. One of these days I'll get the time to replace it. In the mean time I pull out the wheel chocks from behind the passenger seat when I need to. I then pick them up from the open door as I drive off.

Rob

[69S4]

welll tonight while setting the carbs I turned away from the car to pick up a screw driver and when I turned back to where the car once was there was a large hole in the garage and no Lotus . To my amazement the car was rolling merrily backwards down the sloping driveway across the usually busy street and onto the neighbors lawn . So how does one shorten the parking brake cable [ far less dramatic than emergency brake ] to ensure the parking brake stays tight ???? ed

I had that happen at our previous house that had a bit of a slope up to the garage. I left the car parked with the handbrake on and went indoors. About 5 mins later there was a knock on the door and I was asked if I owned the white car that was blocking the main road. The Elan had rolled slowly back across the road and stopped, blocking both lanes. There was a queue of about 20 cars in both direction. Very red face

This year I had a bit of a blitz on the handbrake. Like everyone else I found that the inner cable seemed to be about 3 inches too long but rather than trying to shorten the inner (really not happy trying to solder a new nipple on) I tried lengthening the outer by making up an extended end to the handbrake lever where the outer locates. Simple enough to do with a couple of pieces of steel tube and it's in compression rather than tension when the handbrake is operated.

I made it long enough so that the handbrake was full on at half lever travel with the chassis adjuster in mid position. This, plus making sure that the caliper centralising strips are working as they should and paying a lot of attention to minimising disc runout when I was changing the wheel bearings has resulted in a handbrake that still held the car on a (roughly) 1 : 3 hill (channel ferry deck changing ramp) after a 1000 mile euro trip. It's not perfect (slightly too much disc runout does still wear the pads) but it'll now go about 2000 miles between 2 min adjustments.

[alexblack13]

You dont need to solder a new nipple on.Take it along to a boat chandler that makes up stainless cables and he should be able to swage a new one on for you.

Sorted..
Alex B...

[69S4]

Alex, I live near Oxford. Boat chandlers are a bit thin on the ground round here. TBH though, there may well be some on the Thames that I've never noticed as I don't have much interest in boats.

[alexblack13]

Send it down to speedy cables then.Ask them to shorten it by what you need. Susan Millar might have them shortened already. I gave her the length (not a Length!! ) at Donnington.

You never know.Speedy will swage you on the type of nipple you need. I still have the grub screw clamping prototype I made. Works well. Clamped up its near impossible to move it. I can't anyway...

Alex B....