Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi JJ Thanks for the encouragement! Little bit of brake fluit on the main seals, and on the base of the piston then once the piston was in the main seal and had had gone through the bellows I added some red grease to the bellow groove on the top of the piston. All got very slippery! Crunch point will be tomorrow when I fit no 2 and bleed them - hopefully no leaks.....

Perseverance gets you there in the end!
Might I suggest that you give the discs a bit of a clean up before fitting the pads. Might be easier on the other side before fitting the caliper. I’ve used a rotary wire brush on a drill and gradually rotated the disc. Should clean up pretty well

I would also check the Run Out of Disk with a DTI to be sure. Less than .004"
I have seen many Disk that don't run true.
Bearings don't like vibration.
I would not put Loctite on Bolt going through the AlloybChapman Strut.
Because the next person will unscrew the Bolts and tear threads in Caliper
Best to put Locking Wire.
Alan
Just corrected my explaination.

Surely the threads are in the calipers which are steel not alloy. Agree the original design is for wire locking, but loctite should be fine on a road car.

Sorry yes. What i meant to say was if they are Loctited when you unscrew them it will be difficult. This can put a lot of strain on the Alloy Lugs.
Alan

Hi Alan
Understand the aversion to loctite and take your point about the strain on the lugs but IMHO if you undo a loctited caliper bolt (with the thread in the steel caliper and the alloy bracket breaks then I'd say thats a good thing as it must have been weakened in the first place
Re runout - in a perfect world I would, but the discs are pretty old and could probably do with replacing but thats not going to happen this year! There was no problems with them before I took the calipers off and I want to drive the car sometime so its calipers back on and on the road for me.
Remember that ORJ is my 'driver' while I do a complete nut and bolt, everything done restoration on my other car - once the other is finished then I'll do up ORJ to my standards but at the moment I don't want to rob the other car of time doing stuff to ORK other that which is necessary. And every job I do on OJR brings up questionable practices by the previous owners. As you can see from the pics the whole rear end of OJR is pretty rusty but I don't want to spend time doing it all - and of course the rear wishbone bolts are in the wrong way so getting the 'A' frames out to paint will be a nightmare involving an angle grinder, hacksaw and a lot of swearing! And before you know it the body comes off and I've got to immobile Plus 2s on the drive which SWMBO won't be too impressed with!

Hi Matt,
you're right and it's difficult to only do the needed things.
My first and second +2s were everyday transport. There was often a panic to get it ready for Monday morning and work.
Alan

Caliper no 2 fitted yesterday with no problems, brakes bled and handbrake adjusted. Wheels not back on yet as I was redoing the fuel feed banjo which still had a very slight leak (thats another thread!) but now hopefully fixed. Just did the second bleed, only a tiny bubble of air out of each side and the pedal is hard so and it's all looking good for a run out tomorrow.

Nice work. I too have a small leak on the banjo connection, also on my todo list!

I’m hoping mine is sealed up now. Simple enough to do, just a bit of a pain to get to. It looks like yours is a bit more accessible so I’d get the Hylomar on it while you can get to it!