Scottish Elises

right, so still having brake problems. have replaced my master cylinder and the discs and pads in the last 2 weeks. whilst doing the rear pads, i noticed on of the seals is weeping on the nearside rear piston, so thats on my to do list, and i believe thats whats causing my soft pedal.

anyways, last night on track, after 10-15 mins on track, pedal is getting softer and i lose confidence in brakes, so come into pits and let them cool off. do that all night, until last session, pedal has started to go soft again, until i brake for duffus, and the pedal is rock hard, with grinding noise and vibration through the pedal.

gonna get all the wheels off today and have a look, but theres no marks on any of the discs and pads. only issue i hd with them, was that i didnt fit buffers to the fronts, so they click, but i'm gonna sort that today hopefully with copper grease, and i cant see how that would give me my problem

any ideas???


cheers

neil

Silly question, but the fluid been changed recently?

yep, but i still have air reappearing. thats one of the reasons that made me change the master cylinder, but i'm not sure if that was the problem. i defianetly have a dodgy rear seal, but that doesnt explain the sudden stiffening (oe-er) of the pedal

Hmmmm, sounds very dodgy. Personally wouldn't drive it until you had the whole system checked....

Weeping seal is first problem, but like you say that doesn't explain the solid pedal routine.

When you say solid - you mean 'brick under the pedal' solid, right? What was the braking force like. Is it possible that you have a jamming piston maybe?

I'm just extrapolating wildly, but it's a possibility.

right, quick check revealed 2 things, firstly, on the front nearside caliper, the anti-rattle spring had snapped lost half of it, and half of it was kinda lodged in the pad/calliper area. not good. might expain loud noise and vibration, not sure about stiff pedal.

secondly, the rear nearside calliper no longer has a top bolt holding it onto the hub, allowing the calliper to pivot around on the bottom bolt. if this was out of position, it might explain the solid pedal(maybe??????) as the solid pedal thing did come and go.


got new anti rattle springs on order from lotus. where can i get a new top bolt?? from lotus again, or is any bolt ok????

FACKING HELL!!!!

You had that on track?

Okay - top bolt I'm sure would be available, but I don't have dimensions. If Lotus can order this separately, it would probably be worth it for the hassle/cost balance.

With that all fixed (and make sure that's all that is wrong) then you should be fine. Make sure and check all the hoses too, for any bulging or witness marks (where they may have rubbed on something)

Take the P clips off if you've got braided hoses, and check in under them too - and pack out the clip with rubber (I've used bits of inner tube) so it can't move and rub on the clip.

yeh, on track, but as soon as i got the stiff pedal, i stopped. on way home, i heard a couple of loud bangs then rattles, so that was probably either the bolt or the spring leaving the car and bouncing off down the road.

hoses are brand new braided ones, and i am gonna get the rubber inserts sorted before i go to spa and the ring at the end of the month.


oh, thirdly, the offside handbrake was jammed on aswell. free'd off (with a hammer). so hopefully it'll go a bit quicker now aswell

Neil,

I take it you have order a new retaining spring for the other side???


I'd also be tempted to order new pins and R clips too.


You might also want to get the rear caliper off and over to Stu to have a look at the threads - they shouldn't work themselves out like that - it would need to be less than finger tight.

Echo what Shug said - do a full spanner check on all the caliper attachments, hose connectors and hoses.


And say thanks to what ever god you believe in

(pictures Neil thanking himself )


Mac

Lesson #1 - Don't take a car on the race track with dodgy brakes. You were lucky - that rear caliper could have caused major accident (as can the weeping seel, stuck handbrake, etc.).

Who worked on that caliper last?

I would be inclined to buy the replacement bolt from Lotus - won't be mega expensive but at least you know it's the right material.

At this point I would be tempted to remove all the calipers and check them out for damage/binding pistons (I have had at least one caliper fail due to a worn piston binding in the bore).

IF the pedal goes hard but the brakes don't actually do anything then you're looking at some kind of binding either at the pedal or the master cylinder (and let's face it, that has been worked on recently).

IF the pedal goes hard but the brakes sort of work then I would guess the rears were binding (if you pull on the handbrake the pedal goes noticeably harder in most elises; to me that implies that a lot of the pedal movement is down to operating the rear calipers). The one with the handbrake on would be very hot; the one with the missing bolt could have swung off the disk.
As the disk is ridged outside of the swept area, if you pull the caliper over that ridge the pads will need to move apart, thus jamming against the piston (in a way the piston/caliper would see this like the handbrake being pulled on due to the self adjuster in the caliper).


Cheers,
Robin

ok, so it looks like i've been spelling caliper wrongly.

when the pedal went solid, there was still loads of brake retardation, in fact, it felt like i want my brakes to (bar the bad vibration)

the handbrake wasnt completly on, just hadnt totally released, which is why i never noticed it whilst driving.

the discs are brand new, so there probably isnt a ridge yet, but i agree with the general theory that it was the rear caliper moving that gave the solid pedal.

are you available sometime before spa and the ring to possible help me check all the pistons?? or, what do you mean, just that they all jack out of the caliper, cozi can do that myself.

robin wrote:
Who worked on that caliper last?

On 11/05/06, Graham Walsh <graham> wrote:
lol, is that after someone changed their discs and pads at a Brands Hatch track day last week??

Hmm, let me think.....

yes yes, it was me

"heh heh - I 4mm, Raoul McKean has just managed to reduce the weight in my car. I'm sure the other bolt is just a spare"

Neil "Homer" McKeann - "Safety Officer"

lol. good work boys, keep it up. just remember, i WILL get you back,