Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I fitted my new slave cylinder, from Paul Mattys, with an external circlip with internal diameter 27.7mm / 1.09", thickness 1.48mm/0.058", external diameter 33.63mm / 1.324". I tries a range of them from Eurofasteners and this was the best compromise. It was a nice fit - not tight in the groove, but once the return spring was on I couldn't see why some front to back movement would matter.

Hope this helps.

Sean.

I went to purchase a similar clip years ago. I didn't know what the proper name for the clip was, so I showed it to the parts guy behind the counter.

"Oh," he said, "That's a Jesus-clip! Just when you think you've got it in place, it springs off into some dark part of your car inards, and you shout, "Oh, Jesus!" ... true story.

Gary
'71 Elan Sprint
Miami, FL

My clutch slave cylinder unfortunately failed at Le Mans a few years ago and I discovered that it had no circlip and was seriously stuck in the bellhousing, but it proved reasonably easy to replace the seals with the cylinder in position on the car by the roadside. That was several years ago and it's been fine ever since but I'm still dreading the inevitable time when I need to replace it.

S..

Isn't the web wonderful? After much research I found that circlips are all manufactured to particular standard dimensions. The metric ones are to DIN 471 and I had bought some DIN 471 28 X 1.5, where 28 is the Shaft diameter in mm and 1.5 is the thickness in mm, which were a bit too small in diameter, and some 30 X 1.5, which were much too big in diameter, and there is no 29 X 1.5, which is why I couldn't find any. The imperial ones conform to N1400, and I concluded that what I was actually after is a N1400 1 1/8" X 0.050", as this works out to 28.6 mm although the thickness of .050" is only 1.3 mm. As I couldn't buy any imperial ones here in France, and as the only UK sites I found selling such circlips only seemed to want to ship at least �20 worth, I got a friend in England to send me some of the N1400 1 1/8" X 0.050", but whilst waiting I had once last go at fitting the DIN 471 28 X 1.5 and, of course, this time managed to get one on. So I've at last driven the Elan again....... Then the N1400 1 1/8" X 0.050" arrived, and they definitely do look as if they would be a better fit - for next time!