Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi everybody,
I had a couple of wheel questions and I was wondering if anyone could help.
I nearly lost my front left wheel yesterday (on my 68 plus 2). It seems the brake caliper seized on, causing the hub to heat up, grease to melt onto the thread, spinner to come loose, a couple of studs to shear off and the holes in my steel wheel to oval quite badly. So...
1. I have ordered some new drive pegs/studs - can anyone give me a hint on how to fix these in. It seems like some people use loctite fastener, others weld them in?
2. Steel wheel repair: is it safe or effective to weld and redrill the drive peg holes? Or should I just get a new wheel?
3. If I get some new wheels, I was thinking of Spyder cars minilite replicas. Does anyone know if I can use these with the original pegs and spinners (I have seen some discussions about needing longer pegs and different spinners for alloys)?
Very many thanks for your help,
Al

Hi Al

You have suffered bad luck and a fair amount of damage from a caliper seizure.
I have replaced lost studs, I found they were an interference fit but I did apply Loctite stud lock. The repair of the stud holes depends on the extent of the damage and how many are damaged. "Photo please" I have had tig welding carried out on my wheels to good effect, worth it as my wheels are the unobtainable chrome rim type.
Maybe you can repair and keep it as a spare till you can locate one.

Good luck

Hi, thanks for that. Just trying to attach photo... Apologies for low quality, as garage a bit dark now.

Hi

If that's just two of the stud holes I would go for a weld repair to keep the original wheels till you can locate one.
They come up on ebay quite often.

It must have been making an awful noise to get to that level of damage, I had wheel nut loose on my first +2 and the vibration was quite noticeable.

Yes, it was a shocker. Unfortunately, I was on a single file country road, so had to take it a couple of hundred yards to where safe to stop - that's what did the damage, I think, as it was rolling around all over the place even at a crawl.