Tuga's Green NA work Log

[dapinky]

Good find, Joao - it isn't something which springs to mind as being a possible problem, as it is fairly rare!

Bear in mind that the disk retaining screw is somewhat redundant, as it is only any use when the wheel is off, as the wheelbolts will clamp the disc in place when the wheel is fitted - as others have said, this sort of problem may or may not be easier to spot with or without the screw fitted.

Do you know if it is the caliper that is worn, or the sliders?

If you need them, I have calipers and sliders on the shelf (good used ones, and a pair of new ones)

I suspect this is a simple case of failure to check and maintain the OE brakes regularly (by a previous owner, not you!) - once they get a bit of rust in the sliders, it will act as an abrasive, and over time will wear away the metal - it will only get worse with use. Some of the wear can be eradicated with silicone grease, but worth keeping an eye on it.

[Tuga2112]

Good find, Joao - it isn't something which springs to mind as being a possible problem, as it is fairly rare!

i just put the car on stands and removed the wheels, after that it was a matter of trying to move anything that would be able to affect the wheels and driveshafts, so far the only thing i found that was moving more than expected was that caliper

Do you know if it is the caliper that is worn, or the sliders?

the new sliders made it not shake, but i suspect both calliper and sliders are worn.

If you need them, I have calipers and sliders on the shelf (good used ones, and a pair of new ones)

thank you for the offer, i may or may not take you up on this one, however i will have a look at sourcing my own replacements. i am thinking of checking rockauto and possibly ordering both front and rear spare calipers (with a couple spare front slider kits)

I suspect this is a simple case of failure to check and maintain the OE brakes regularly (by a previous owner, not you!) - once they get a bit of rust in the sliders, it will act as an abrasive, and over time will wear away the metal - it will only get worse with use. Some of the wear can be eradicated with silicone grease, but worth keeping an eye on it.

I have to say the previous owner was not a hands on individual, but he took the car to PMN to do repairs, (theres a few invoices from there in the file) including the most recent MOT (just before i purchased it) where PMN did some work and installed 1 front brake caliper "sourced by the customer"
looking at the caliper, I suspect its from a scrap car, because the amount of rust around it suggests it has not been refurbished anytime recently (i would even guess, never)

[petezipp]

Hi Tuga you really are a devil for problems good luck with this new car.
Don't suppose we will see you at the meetup for some time , stuck in the garage 24/7 eh!
All the very best
peter

[chrism]

Thoroughly agree Tuga.
When I first got my Elan the front brakes were seized + dangerously useless despite a fresh new MoT!
I bit the bullet and renewed front calipers (ouch, before I knew about RAuto ) + discs + pads + flushed 1l of dot 3 through the whole system. Those fronts are so important...absolutely confident with her now...

[Tuga2112]

the car is still in the garage at the moment, but while i was messing about with it i noticed that it still has the original heater valve... which is stuck solid in place.
i know the replacement is from a volvo, but i dont know which one, so i need to have a look at the wiki for that and order a replacement

put to some extent, a more urgent issue is the timing.
after getting 2 full tanks on a average of 30 MPG and what i honestly feel is a sluggish accelaration i have decided to check for the timing advance.. now. as far as the NA is conserned. the distributor is installed in the location of the CAS in the SE
which makes it very intuitive for me to know how to adjust the base timing,
so i shorted the black and the white/black connectors from the ALD and started my checks....

it turns out my distributor is adjusted as far clockwise as possible, and this still only gets me to 10 degrees BTC where the book states to start at 16 and then adjust doing timed runs.

so, at this moment either i need to adjust the belt because there is a chance its a tooth or 2 out. or maybe the dizzy cap can be re-set somehow to allow the sparks to happen at the correct time.

in the meanwhile the car has not been driven yet, so i still dont know if the brake moving about was the reason for the shaking while accelarating... just another task to get through over the coming week

[dapinky]

but while i was messing about with it i noticed that it still has the original heater valve... which is stuck solid in place.
i know the replacement is from a volvo, but i dont know which one, so i need to have a look at the wiki for that and order a replacement

Volvo 740

These seem to have got quite expensive these days - only a couple of years ago you could get one for a tenner!

[Tuga2112]

Car has been taken to a small run to the nearest village and back home. and although we are talking about a very small 10 minute drive on a straight road at 60. i can feel a complete change in vibrations.... althouhg i am not 100% sure if they are all gone. and what i felt was just poor road condition shakes. i am confident enough to take the car for a longer run sometime soon.

I Have also pre-emptively replaced the heater valve with the Volvo one Dave linked. and as part of that job i came across a vaccuum hose at the rear of the engine near the top which was disconnected.

after 2 hours of faffing about i posted on facebook. and with some help from a couple of Dave's i finally found the place where the hose was meant to connect (someplace very close to the secondary throtle)
I then spent 5 hours in my garage trying to find the tiny clamps i bought 5 years ago (which were used in the exact same hose in the yellow one after HG replacement) to make sure that hose wont move... after 5 hours search, i gave up and installed it without the clamps.

i have also re-glued some of the window seals. a temporary measure untill i get in touch with the seal wrangler to get a more long term solution around the water ingress.

as of right now. i am still running the timing at 10 degrees BTDC and slightly afraid of having to "not replace" the timing belt to get that figure closer to the correct number.

i am also having an interesting problem with the engine running very rich... which im not sure if its related to the secondary throtle vacuum hose, or just a side effect of faffing about with timing.

[Tuga2112]

another update.

althought i havent spent much time on this car for months. i did have some time to look into its issue with the shaking.

replaced the disks with brand new disks and took it for another test drive.... this time the shaking was 100% gone... for the first 5 miles.... after that it started retrning and increasing.

i put it back in the garage and jacked up the drivers side front wheel to inspect the caliper... and AGAIN it was wiggling a bit... i am now convinced the issue must be that... however im hoping with fingers crossed that its the caliper bolt coming loose due to some grease in its threads. because if my suspision is right. then the only solution is to get a brand new caliper. or take that caliper to be machined and its holes re-sleeved to get back into the original tolerances...

still need to check that out. but the car is in the garage just waiting for myself to have the spare time to look into it now.

[Tuga2112]

its been a while since i last put an update here... so... well where to start ???

the driveshaft tripod was knackered.. that was replaced. and as a result of not liking to pay 60 quid for a replacement i spent a lot of time trying to find a cheaper replacement, and although i did use the GKN part that was suggested via facebook. i have also tried a renault clio/kangoo which fits. and left notes about that somewhere else in the forum.

after that issue was resolved i have tried to replace the weather strip with a new one. and that was a huge project creep situation where an afternoon job took a whole week.
as it turned out, some of the screws were rusted, the plastic butterfly clip was not plastic.. it was metal and rusted into the glass.. (an absolute pita to remove) and the original Lotus speaker fell down to the window well... at least that explained why the window wouldnt open fully.

the car was driven a while after that untill it developed a strange effect where everytime you brake it was leaning to the left... after refurbishing the front calipers and getting new discs the issue didnt go away. and then upon further inspection i found one of the rear calipers was catching... so i swapped the rear calipers with brand new ones from a oldsmobile cutlass and adapted the bracket to work on the elan based on Pinky's approach although instead of modifying the elan bracket to fit the cutlall caliper. i have modified the cutlass braket to work with the elan cables.

when setting the handbrakes for the new calipers i found myself with disks that were warped... and given the news about SJ's supply of faulty rear discs (as well as the rather eye watering price tags) together with the fantastic work RonR and Pinky done with adapting Astra G hubs on the elan... I am now also running separate hub + disc configuration from an astra G on this car.
i promtly took my old discs to the machine shop. and i now have a spare set of elan rear discs with integrated hub that have been skimmed and are ready to fit whenever needs must.

at the moment of posting this. the car has 1 door sorted (as far as new speaker, new weatherstrip, new butterfly clip and sliders properly greased and aligned) and the other still waiting the oportunity to be resolved (as im planning filming that for youtube)

i found out now that its getting dark that most of the interior lights are not working. all the lights on the instrument clusters are fine (althoguht some bulbs were replaced as per youtube update) but the other backing lights around the dasboard (heater controls, switches etc) dont work... so upon a little check i found a note in the service bulletin that gives me a hint that explains why reading the wiring diagrams nothing made sense to me.



this note now confirms that one of the "issues" i assumed existed when i first bought the car, is actually a (poorly) documented factory instalation. but also makes it a bit harder for me to diagnose the other lights not workign from the armchair.

the car is due to MOT next month, which brings me to the realization its been nearly a year since purchase, some work has been done, but certainly a lot less than anticipated...

in the todo list i still have the intention to
1 - fix all the issues on the driver's side door. (speakers, rails, butterfly clips and weatherstrips)
2 - rewire the radio properly
3 - modify ignition to a vauxhal one that has a "ACC" connection so that it operates more like a civilized vehicle.
4 - fit JamieN's seal kit
5 - complete suspension arms "restoration" (by that i mean, take everything out, remove all rust, do some rust prevention by either powder coating or acid + paint and reinstall with new bushings)

i would be happy to achieve all these by the end of 2024 but i suspect 4 and 5 are unlikely given how busy life has been.

[lotusflasherman]

i found out now that its getting dark that most of the interior lights are not working. all the lights on the instrument clusters are fine (althoguht some bulbs were replaced as per youtube update) but the other backing lights around the dasboard (heater controls, switches etc) dont work... so upon a little check i found a note in the service bulletin that gives me a hint that explains why reading the wiring diagrams nothing made sense to me.

All of the instrument light were controlled by the rheostat so they could be dimmed or turned off, until that Service Bulletin made the small instruments ignition controlled. (Some cars may still have the original wiring if that Service Bulletin wasn't done - one of my SE's is still original wiring.) All the remaining lights will still be on the dimmer rheostat - the round knob, like a volume control (which work in the same way), between tacho & r.h. heater vent. It's quite easy for that to get knocked round and all those lights turned off.. check that first by turning clockwise. If that's not the solution, check it hasn't gone open circuit.

BTW - the Bulletin theory was to put the 3 small instrument bulbs onto the ignition to clear any condensation that appeared inside the glass by using the heat from the small bulb - therefore it's not recommended to replace those with LED bulbs that do not produce heat. The Bulletin also claimed it would 'reduce battery drain when parking with sidelights on' but that could be achieved by using the rheostat to turn off instrument lights anyway, so a load of b0llocks!

[Tuga2112]

The Bulletin also claimed it would 'reduce battery drain when parking with sidelights on' but that could be achieved by using the rheostat to turn off instrument lights anyway, so a load of b0llocks!

yes, i read that and i thought its a blatant pair of lies.
to resolve condensation issues, the units should have been properly sealed and assembled in a dry environment. taking advantage of the side effect that bulbs generate heat doesnt resolve the condensation issue, it just increased the air temperature in the area making the water temporarily mix with the air, but as soon as it cool it will create droplets in the glass.

makinf the low battery drain is a even more funny comment. because the sidelights use up a lot more energy than the instrument cluster bulbs.. and after all back in those days alert chimes were already fairly common in cars.. i fact i have installed my own adaptation to do that a while ago just to make sure i never forget the lights on

[lotusflasherman]

Did you check the rheostat position to see if that cured your lights off condition?

[Tuga2112]

Did you check the rheostat position to see if that cured your lights off condition?

yes,
the rheostat affects the bulbs that are switched on from the ign but none of the others in the dash.

i currently have 2 italian vehicles that need attention with urgency
When those are sorted, i'll put this one back in the garage and start investigating the electrical side of things

[Tuga2112]

as time goes by i keep forgetting to update this thread.

not much has happened in this car as i recall. I gave it the first wash and polish in my ownership and that paint really popped.

the electrical side of things is waiting for the winter to be resolved. as the car is running at the moment and doing the job of going from A to B just as one needs it to.

althought the car is running fine. theres an odd issue with the idle speed, its very fast but as soon as the car completely stops it drops considerably, althought its still a little high, the drop is very considerable, i need to investigate, I cannot hear any vacum leaks, but havent really put my head deep in the engine bay while running to have a close listen,

as i continue to use the car more often, i am finding the need to get the seals replaced becomes more urgent, i already have a spare set from JamieN it just needs installing but finding the time is the issue.

[Tuga2112]

i finally got the time and availability in my garage to look into this car and made a little progress

the electrical side of things is waiting for the winter to be resolved. as the car is running at the moment and doing the job of going from A to B just as one needs it to.

althought i have not looked into the misterious blue wire connected to the headlamps. in full detail, on a initial investigation, my original assumption that the headlamp pods were hacked seems incorrect. the wire is not connected to the motors. but to one of the bulbs, which one i do not know yet, still to be fully investigated

however i have started to rewire the radio, and now i have a radio that doesnt lose its presets, and doesnt drain the battery, it comes alive when the key is in the ignition position as it should have 34 years ago. (im looking at you Peter )
i do have a video showing both the theory and practice of such adaptation, but being in the NA most of you will "get the idea" and then adapt accordingly however i have not finished recording it neither editing, and given the tremedous success of my channel. theres little motivation to hurry up with that content.

althought the car is running fine. theres an odd issue with the idle speed, its very fast but as soon as the car completely stops it drops considerably, althought its still a little high, the drop is very considerable, i need to investigate, I cannot hear any vacum leaks, but havent really put my head deep in the engine bay while running to have a close listen,

so.. things got a bit further forward with this,over multiple "quick checks" since i last posted..

and
timing was outside of factory specs. the distributor was it maximum adjustment and the timing marks was recording 2 degrees below (or over) the 16BTDC that the factory spec dictates.

i have taken the hit and removed the engine mount, and then the top cover of the timing belt. my theory was, that the exaust cam had to be out of alignment. and that was prompty confirmed.. also with a belt that was a bit slack... to my disappointment as the car has an invoice from PMN for changing the belt 3 years ago...
so, given the amount of work it takes to set the cam. i decided to pull out the spare belt from my shelf and swap it.

started the car and obviously it ran rough, so i reset the timing and to my surprise.... i now can get to 16BTDC but im again. at the maximum adjustment of the distributor... which makes me worry i may need to swap it ?? maybe theres a different way to install the cap that would rotate all the contacts points a couple of degrees ??

now with the timing set correctly. the idle seems the same as before, but i can clearly hear a vacum leak coming from the back of the engine. using brake cleaner i found that none of the tubes that are "sprayable" is the leak. leading me to suspetc the vacum hose that operates the second throthle or possibly the heater matrix valve (i forgot to test the latter )

the car is runing stupidly rich, and on sorn now, so i cant really give it a proper test

im getting thins setup in my life so that i can park the car in ym garage for 2-3 months and then fully tackle the suspension arms. my plan is to take everything out, sandblast, acid prime and paint. this time i have no intention to powder coat, as i regret the decision on the yellow one.

i also plan on swapping all the bushings.. but given the price tag i found for a full kit. im going to spend a considerable amount of time trying to make my own poly bushes from mixing the ingrediantes. i have had success with one at the bottom of the front raft. i feel confident unlike 5 years ago. i have access to the tooling to make this job a breeze (hidraulic press, and lathe are now available after a 20 minute drive)

hopefully my next update will have a few pictures and more exciting progress. but for now thats all i got