Scottish Elises

Guys

Apologies as this has no doubt been asked many times before but is there anywhere that would be refurbish rear calipers on an exchange basis? I know you can buy a refurb kit from Eliseparts and Eliseshop but was wondering if there was anyone who'd do it for you?

Have access to swap over the brakes but refurbing myself looks quite tricky! On one side of the hand brake is sticking and neither caliper appears to do very much on the rear discs. I know the elise is heavily front biased but after and hour of driving the rears havnt even cleared any of the crud of the disc after it has been sitting for while.

Cheers

Steven

Understand your trepidation, Steven.

I picked up a "pre-owned" rear caliper from one of the breakers - Douglas Valley probably - and managed to fit it without spilling much brake fluid or blood or even tears

Not sure if I wrote about it on here in any technical capacity, but the SELOC tech wiki probably has an entry and if it doesn't I'll happily try to remember how I did it if you wish!

However before emarking on replacing calipers there may be some freeing up exercises to try out first. I realise that if the pistons are truly seized, it's refurb or dispose, however if it's to do with the slider pins or the handbrake auto-adjust mech then I *think* you can set about making all that work a bit better with little more than some moly grease, WD40 / GT85, a block of wood and an assistant

Eg, if you remove the caliper then place a block of wood slightly narrower than your brake disk between the pads and press the pedal, can you persuade the caliper to close onto it? Does the caliper move along the slider pin OK? After spraying some lube or wiping on some moly grease, does this improve?

Just 2p.

If you'd still like to do an exchange, try giving Bigg Red a ring.
I've not used them for Elise parts but I did use them for Cortina calipers for the Locost and am very happy with the service. They say they'll do any make.

They turn these:


into these:

What a great link, Simon. Thought I was going to need a caliper for the other side of my Elise but fingers crossed it's ok for now. Will look into these guys in future if need be though.

ooh shiny shiny I want all my calipers refurbed and shiny now

Cheers Guys!

Campbell, will try taking apart and trying to free them first. Hopefully will be some minor.

Handbrake holds the car on a slope but the rear brakes don't seem to be causing much friction on the disc under normal braking so maybe it is a stuck slider! Fingers crossed!

Steven