Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Every day's a school day

Spacer shown by ncm is what you need.
If possible check the position of the bearing on the new shaft when fitted has the same distance to the spider as the original one. Reason being all may look good until you go to fit the brake caliper over the rear brake disc, the disc position relative to the carrier fixing for the caliper is set by the bearing/shaft position.

Craven wrote:Spacer shown by ncm is what you need.
If possible check the position of the bearing on the new shaft when fitted has the same distance to the spider as the original one. Reason being all may look good until you go to fit the brake caliper over the rear brake disc, the disc position relative to the carrier fixing for the caliper is set by the bearing/shaft position.

Excellent observation. I will check it!

Also when pressing on bearing put pressure on inner part of bearing one side and the centre of shaft on other side.
Don't put pressure on spider legs or they can bend.
Alan
Ps. I would get the Spider Legs checked to see if the Workshop bent them. If they can't fit a Bearing correctly they could also bend Spider Legs.

Yes disc position is important.
It doesn't really matter that much for footbrake as individual pistons adjust for eccentricity but the handbrake is much more sensitive.
I had to shim one caliper onboard last time I did bearings during a full rebuild a few years ago.
I've just redone that side because the shaft wasn't true - only really discovered when a friend commented on wheel 'wobble' after following me. There hadn't been any vibration in the car.
So today or tomorrow I should find out whether this time round it still needs it!

I am getting old but I honestly dont recall that the last time I assembled a rear hub (and I have done 3 or 4 cars) that the bearings went on a certain way. I seem to remember that there was no difference in how they went in.
Can someone clear this up.

The older cars had two bearings of the same size. The newer ones have a large and a small (width) bearing. The large one is inboard and the smaller is outboard.

That’s my understanding. My Elan is a ‘67 and has two bearings of the same size. Hope that clears it up.

Best,
Tony

tvacc wrote:I am getting old but I honestly dont recall that the last time I assembled a rear hub (and I have done 3 or 4 cars) that the bearings went on a certain way. I seem to remember that there was no difference in how they went in.
Can someone clear this up.

On the cars with the issue 18 struts / bearing carriers and matching axle the larger inner bearing is not symmetrical and has an offset in the inner race. This inner race offset needs to be positioned with the protruding section facing to the wheel

On cars with the earlier issue 16 struts / bearing carrier two identical and symmetrical 6206 bearings are used so orientation is not critical

cheers
Rohan

Hopefully the conclusion of this saga...

I couldn’t find a shop near me that would press the bearing all the way onto the shaft. So I went to Home Depot and obtained a short length of 1 1/4” (inside diameter) black pipe. That was sufficient to fit over the axle, and still small enough to sit on the inner race without fear of sliding off. The universe gets it right sometimes.

I supported the inboard section of the axle with a small block of wood, so I wouldn’t be stressing the arms of the spider, and hit the top of the pipe with a mallet. It didn’t take that much force at all to reset the bearing properly. Lo and behold, the circlip ring appeared just where it was supposed to, I.e., right next to the inner race. So I did not have the later, wide bearing axle, and therefore I did not require a spacer. Convenient.

I have reinserted the axle and bearings into the carrier, and although I haven’t reinstalled the hub yet, it should go on without incident now. All looks exactly the same as the other side.

So, the root cause of all this was the fact that the machine shop did not press the bearing on fully. I don’t know what they thought the floating circlip was for, but they’ve never performed this operation before, either I guess. No sense holding a grudge.

Once again, thanks to everyone who contributed to this solution.

Best,
Tony

Hi Tony,
well done and good luck for the rest.
Alan

Good to hear - well done