S4 with +2 Front brakes

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Hi guys,

I had a bit of a surprise yesterday.
Our friend "Rennbaron" encountered width problems with my Elan when trying to load it into a Mercedes Sprinter van.
He's done this a few times with "standard Elans" but mine has 6J x 14 Alloys & a fair bit of front negative camber, thus making it wider than standard.
He fitted a set of narrow standard steel Wheels to the car in order to reduce the width of the track & so fit into the van.

Here's where the next problem occurred; the car would not move on those wheels!
The steel wheels were jamming on the larger +2 brakes.

Now that strikes me as odd because I've never read on here of members having this problem after fitting +2 brakes to their Elans.
Although +2 wheels are 5 1/2J instead of 4 1/2J I think that the inset is the same.
Also I think that the front hubs on the Elan & +2 are identical dimensionally.

I don't fully understand why that jamming occurred & am wondering if anyone else has experienced it?

I'm not looking for a solution because the car was actually loaded into the van on its Alloys & it is now sitting in its new home in Somerset.
Food for thought if you have a bit of spare time chaps.

Cheers
John

[andyhodg]

John

Was it jamming in the radius rather that the side of the caliper? Standard wheels are 13" and your alloys are 14".

Andy

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

John

Was it jamming in the radius rather that the side of the caliper? Standard wheels are 13" and your alloys are 14".

Andy

I don't know the location of the jam; maybe Rennbaron will tell me on his return to Germany, the lucky bugger's driving of down to Goodwood now.

Yes I know the differences between my Alloys & the standard steels but that wasn't really the basis of my question, which was:-
Has anybody fitted +2 Brakes to an Elan & used the standard Elan wheels & encountered this problem?
Why don't +2 brakes jam inside the 13" +2 wheels?

Thanks for answering & I'll try to find out where the jam was but this was a panic job & I doubt if much thought was put into investigating the location or the cause.

Cheers
John

[gherlt]

>Has anybody fitted +2 Brakes to an Elan & used the standard Elan wheels & encountered this problem?

I have them fitted and have no problems at all.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

>Has anybody fitted +2 Brakes to an Elan & used the standard Elan wheels & encountered this problem?

I have them fitted and have no problems at all.

Vielen Dank!

I thought that is how it should be.
I must ask Markus how he had that problem when he's back here next week.

Sch?nes WE.
John

[cabc26b]

I have had to "grind" on the calipers to make clearance at the hub ( chamfer the piston area of the casting) - but not for the wheels you are asking about.

[paddy]

I believe he +2 hubs are different from the Elan ones - there is a photo somewhere here but I can't find it. The outer face is further out by about 1/8". The only reason I could think of for them making a different part for such a small difference in size was to give better clearance with the caliper.

Paddy

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

I believe he +2 hubs are different from the Elan ones - there is a photo somewhere here but I can't find it. The outer face is further out by about 1/8". The only reason I could think of for them making a different part for such a small difference in size was to give better clearance with the caliper.

Paddy

Now that's interesting & that difference could have been the cause of the problem, but according to "gherlt" probably not
I think it depends on what feature that 1/8" affects.
Maybe it's to resolve the problem that cabc26b encountered?

I've been on this forum for some years now & it never fails to amaze me how seriously weird our "toys" can be at times.
Can anyone define that mysterious 1/8" outer face anomaly?

Oh & thanks for your contribution Paddy!

Cheers
John

[bcmc33]

The parts list shows different part numbers for the Elan & +2 front hubs.

[garyeanderson]

02 July 2011 12:00
I posted pictures of the wrong parts, Those ugly calipers in the second photo are Cortina and not GT6

That said I took some more pictures to bring back some clarity where I have muddied things up. I just did a side by side of the GT6 and Elan and they arn't that different (top two pics of the set) the bottom photo I am holding the Cortina caliper on the left. One photo was deleted as it would cause questions, the captions were fixed in the other at the bottom of this reply.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rear hubs are 7/8 inch wider, I didn't look or measure fronts, I'm not sure that I have a type 50 front hub here to look at.
elan-plus-f13/knock-bolt-conversion-t18504.html

I took some pictures of some calipers and upights with caliper installed, not sure they show much other that how massive the 16p is compared to the 14LF

some more GT6 caliper info posted here
elan-f15/gt6-brakes-revisited-t19846.html

[paddy]

Here's the thread the last time we discussed it:

post116124.html?hilit=front#p116124

I was sure there were photos of the two side-by-side, but I still can't find them.

Paddy

[RotoFlexible]

I put +2 front calipers on an S2 with original steel bolt-on wheels (documented here) and found very slight interference between the caliper and one front wheel, at one flange where the center welds to the rim - solved by judicious grinding (of the flange or caliper, can't recall which).

[dodo_z]

The images you're thinking of could be found in "Authentic Lotus Elan and Plus 2" page 173 - but the shown hubs are rear ones.

@John: glad to hear you managed to bring your Elan where it belongs to.

dietmar

[paddy]

The images you're thinking of could be found in "Authentic Lotus Elan and Plus 2" page 173 - but the shown hubs are rear ones.

No, I'm definitely thinking about the front ones.

Paddy

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Well guys thanks for all of the information & ideas.
I think that the riddle has been solved in such that the +2 appears to need slightly wider hubs to accommodate the larger front disk brakes within the steel wheels.
So having fitted those brakes to my S4 the front wheel jamming/binding problem arose when attempting to narrow the car's width/track for transport purposes by fitting the narrow steel wheels.

That was a problem that had never occurred to me due to running the car on 6J x 14" alloys all of the time since I did the "big rebuild"

My many thanks to Christian "Rennbaron" for transporting my "Baby" to its new home in England.
His patience & out of the box thinking were vital in resolving the transport problem.
I hope he will post his "moving experience" on here when he finds time.

Dietmar, also many thanks to you for offering a transport solution for me.

LotusElan.net is a great place to be

Cheers
John