Sue Miller CV joint conversion, easy fit?

[thor]

I take it it's a fairly easy job to pop off the donuts/driveshafts and fit this conversion, am I right?

[Jason1]

You can tell yourself that.



I have the MK1 Spyder rear end and did not find it easy.

The new studs that are fitted in the CV's will not pass through the existing holes in the diff flange or the hub shafts. All the existing holes need opening up and the CV's needed to be split as the hub/leg would not move out enough to fit the shaft.

If you can I would take out a stud and open up the holes and try it before you get uder the car with the shafts.

I do not know if the standard Lotus leg will pull out enough once the bottom wishbone is disconnected?

Jason

[thor]

hmmm, disconcerting.. . I probably also have a mk1 Spyder rear, as the Spyder spaceframe is from the late eighties..... Maybe I'll leave it to some professionals, as I don't know if I'll get enough spare time, and springtime is for driving.

[cdraper]

I found the drive shafts supplied by Sue very easy to fit! Spyder chassis with standard Lotus suspension. Fit the outer end first then engage the lower stud at the inner end - fit a nut loosely and then turn the driveshaft the other studs just slip through the holes as the spider reaches the bottom fit nuts in turn. No need to file or modify anything - but make sure the mating faces are clean and you get somebody to stand on the brake pedal when you do the nuts up! Must confess I am spoilt by having a car lift in my garage. Took around one hour per side - the second being much quicker!!

[thor]

lovely lovely news. got an email reply from Sue with prices in an hour today, very impressed. I called the last time, and had the impression she was of the old school, i.e. not big on emails...
She's fab.

[alaric]

The first issue is that the studs on the shafts should be a snug fit onto the flanges on the diff and the outer driveshaft. Mine were tight, and I managed to damage the flange on the outer driveshaft when I'd popped one on to try it - I had the hub completely removed. I had to replace the outer drive shaft - not cheap or easy to do.

So, if your shafts are not easy to push onto the flanges, you'll need to open up the holes slightly. I used an adjustable reamer to do that and it worked a treat.

Secondly, my car had centre pins on inboard and outboard. If you have them you'll need to remove them. I used a dremmel and angle grinder; the dremmel was easier in the end - finer cut. You may be able to do this with the diff and hub in place. I had both on the bench.

Sue's really helpful.

Sean.

[Hamish Coutts]

Thor.

Your drive shafts may have safety pins fitted and you will have to remove these before you can fit your nice new drive shafts. You can see what I mean from the background drawing on this site. You can see the pins fitting inside the intermediate drive shaft. That's what you have to cut off. You will have a total of 4 pins to remove. Just use an angle grinder or dremmel.

Hamish.

[bcmc33]

Fitted a set last week ? and I have to agree and disagree with some of the comments made to date.
1. It took me 3 hours to take-off the old driveshaft and one hour to fit a new one.
2. Working on my own I found trying to fit from the outer first was impossible as I had no way of preventing the hub pivoting out from the strut top fixing when trying to line-up the inner spindle. With two people it would have been possible. If I was doing it again I would remove the spindle from the hub ? and then it would be p*ss easy.
3. The pins in the centre of the spindles were easily cut-off with a hacksaw.
4. All the studs fitted perfectly when nicely lined-up with the holes. Remember ? they need to be a good fit. Opening-up a hole is not recommended.
5. I fitted the inner first and then the outer ? reasonably easily.

I recommend you get someone to help you, and if you can avail yourself of a pit, then it will take a lot less time that I did lying on my back on a concrete floor.


Brian Clarke

[alaric]

Re opening up the holes, it was essential to get the driveshafts to fit on my car; the flanges were literally a spring fit onto the studs - I just couldn't get them started without forcing them. Most people don't have that problem.

I spent some time lining them up carefully with everything on the bench, to no avail, phoned Sue to get her advice, faffed about, made tea, drank beer, agonised, jammed one on, hammered it off again and damaged stuff, posted on the forum and found that others had experienced the same and advised reaming, bought the reamers, then finally, very carefully, removed a few thou. They still needed some effort to push them on, and I needed a light tap with the wooden end of a hammer to get them to come off again. At the end of the day it's all down to variation in tolerance of a few thou. The holes shouldn't be opened up enough to make the shafts a loose fit.

I don't think that forcing them on so that they cannot be removed is sensible - well I proved that actually - on the one that I forced on, which was seated properly, I had to use a heavy hammer to even get it started when I was removing it as there's nothing to lever against; luckily I didn't fit to the diff end. I then had to rebuild the hub - not an easy or cheap job.

They do have to be removable. I couldn't have removed the shafts if I'd just assembled them onto the car with the original hole diameters. Maybe I'm wrong - suggestions on how to force these shafts off without damaging the ears of the hub shafts or diff shafts would be welcomed.

Still, this is just my experience on my car; they all seem to be slightly different don't they.

Sean.

[rgh0]

The bolts from the CV adaptors into the legs of the Lotus shafts should be a light push fit at most. Any more and you risk overstressing the bolts in bending or distorting the legs.

Lotus did not take much care with the accuracy of the holes in their shafts as the rubber donuts took up any variation. Subsequent slight bending of the arms will also have gone unnoticed as the donuts could still be fitted even if the holes PCD or parallelism had been altered.

The CV adaptors cannot accomodate this variation and you need to ream out the holes in some cars to fit the CV shafts --- just the way it is

regards
Rohan

[cdraper]

When I fitted my drive shafts I did not undo the supension arms - I just removed the old drive shafts and bolted in the new ones as I described Outer end first - inner end next - worked alone - but having the cars on a lift was aamajor advantage!

[elansprint71]

Seem to remember that mine went in no trouble, I jacked the suspension (Spyder twin wishbone) up to ensure that the shaft was as straight as possible, tap with a nylon mallet and it slid into place.

Pete.