My very brown 74 Elite project

[ChrisJ]

Love them all - the first image is great

[Tony D]

Superb pictures. Worthy of publicity brochures. 👍

[Bling]

Great photos. Makes me want to buy one !

[BrianK]

A couple more artsy pictures. Same spot, different day.

This one (above) is a bit out of focus - it was too dark to see the car to set focus (I didn't think to use the flashlight to help until after I left), so I set to infinity and hoped for the best.  Got the mountains in focus, but the car... not so much.

The light on the car comes from the flashlight on my phone - without it, the car would have been as dark as the mountains behind it. I kept the camera shutter open for 30 seconds, then walked the flashlight back and forth in front of the car to "paint" light on it (a fun lighting trick - not something I invented). Even though I'm walking between the camera and the car, you can't see me because I'm wearing all black and there's no light on me, but you can see my phone's flashlight reflecting off the car - it's those long streaks that look like overhead lights.

 

Similar here - 30 second exposure, phone-flashlight walked in front of and around the car, and a random passing car driving down the road behind (the red streaks are from the passing car's tail and side-marker lights; and the yellowish glow on the road are reflections from its headlights)

In more on-topic news, I've ordered new seals for both filler caps - as they tend to spray fuel when I'm driving up here (the car handles so well, it's hard to go slow ). I almost lost a tail light on the trip, so I'll have to dig into the rear bumper and lighting just like I did with the front - make new mounts, secure everything, make sure wiring is good, permanently fix the in-boot light covers, etc.

I put over 250 miles on the car last week - mostly in the mountains. I'm growing to like it more and more with each trip. Maybe that's why I'm taking so many photos.   

Edited May 4, 2022 by BrianK

[jep]

Brilliant.

Justin

 

[TAR]

I absolutely love that 1st shot. Understanding how you composed it makes it even better for me  

[soldave]

The quality and extent of work you've done on the car, the photos you've taken, and even your write-up here are really inspiring. Massive respect for what must be a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and money that's gone into this build. I hope it's as fun a drive for you as it looks.

[BrianK]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.  Photography is kind of a hobby & these were some of the first pics taken with a new-to-me camera.  Still learning how to use the new camera, but I think these shots came out pretty good.  

Today's entry is another small curiosity worth sharing: Fuel filler sealing rings.

Backstory: fuel was sloshing out of the tanks in tight corners. It was coming out through the fillers, as was evident by dried up streams of fuel on the body below and behind each filler. In addition to obvious signs of spillage on the outside of the car, I was also getting a good bit of fuel smell in the cabin when driving through the canyons (which was especially bad on my first higher speed outing). While I didn't think my filler seals looked *that* bad, I thought I'd go ahead and replace them to try to keep fuel inside the car.

SJ sells the sealing ring, by itself; or the whole cap.  Caps aren't that expensive, but for whatever reason, I decided to try to save my filler caps rather than get replacements - so I just wanted to replace the seals. Each seal, importantly, is two pieces - the plate/ring that mates with the filler neck, and a gasket behind the seal plate that forms a seal between the sealing plate (on which the seal ring sits) and the cap, itself.  My gasket (would you call that a gasket? grommet? stopper? whatever...) was fairly brittle and cracked, so it needed replacing.

While SJ sells the seal ring, they only carry the ring - not the plat on which the ring sits or the gasket behind the plate. Our filler caps are shared with the Norton Commando. I was able to find complete filler cap seal kits from a Norton dealer in the UK (I found none in the US).  I ordered two sets - installation took all of 5 minutes. It's dead simple - remove the old retaining screw & replace the whole thing. Make sure the spring is turned the right way when you reassemble (the spring won't land correctly if its reversed, but it will still work just fine)

BUT! There's a difference between the Norton seal and the Lotus seal.  The Norton seal has a vent.  Lotus expects the tank to be vented elsewhere. See pics below:

Old, Lotus seal:

 

New, Norton seal:

 

Notice the vent hole just below center?

I hadn't noticed this until after I put the car in storage for the next month or so.  My plan, when it comes back out, is to simply seal the vent hole with some sort of metal epoxy (JB Weld, likely) & call it a day.

After sharing this story with another Elite owner in LA, he walked me through all of his fuel system ventilation upgrades. I think it's about time to start paying attention to mine - I recently disconnected vacuum from the charcoal canister because it allowing too much air to the carb (was acting like a leaky carb), so I suspect there's a broken connection or cracked hose somewhere. That might also explain the fuel smell.

I also notice my brakes are a little sticky - they don't release right away & squeak a bit for the first few rotations after braking.  I think I'll rebuild the front calipers during the next service.  Will likely do the master cylinder at the same time & hope I don't have to deal with the rears at all.

 

[EXCEL V8]

That's the little hole I mentioned - the one that acts as the vent on cars that don't have the little take-off on the neck.  I don't know when the system changed over from one to the other though.

Just get your old bit re-plated - or is the rubber seal bonded to the steel element?

Pete

[BrianK]

On 17/05/2022 at 03:44, EXCEL V8 said:

That's the little hole I mentioned - the one that acts as the vent on cars that don't have the little take-off on the neck.  I don't know when the system changed over from one to the other though.

Just get your old bit re-plated - or is the rubber seal bonded to the steel element?

Ahhhh, yes. I didn't realize it was *this* hole you were talking about - for some reason I thought it was some sort of larger hole in the cap itself. For that reason, when ordering these new ones, it didn't even cross my mind to check that there was a difference in seals.

In trying to break my pack-rat habit, I threw the old, hole-less seals away. D'oh!

If this doesn't end up sealing well after plugging that hole, I'll likely order entire new caps from SJ and replace the filler necks while I'm at it. 

Thanks for the advice. It's a shame I didn't take it.   

[BrianK]

On 16/05/2022 at 15:29, BrianK said:

I also notice my brakes are a little sticky - they don't release right away & squeak a bit for the first few rotations after braking.  I think I'll rebuild the front calipers during the next service.  Will likely do the master cylinder at the same time & hope I don't have to deal with the rears at all.

I need to stop saying these things.  In an earlier entry, I said, "I didn't replace the rear wheel bearings - I hope that doesn't come back to bite me."  well... it did; and so, too, have the sticky rear brakes.

 

TL;DR: I was surprised by a sticky wheel cylinder. Replacing wheel cylinders is a pain.

 

Quick background: I have a very small one-car garage at my house. The Elite isn't the only car that gets to live in the garage, so when it's someone else's turn, the Elite goes into storage.  I don't like leaving anything sitting for very long, so I'll often hop over to the storage facility to drive it around the block every few weeks to keep it limber.

Back in June, the Elite was in storage, so I did my usual - one trip around the (very long) block then back to park.  Parking takes a bit of time, so I shut down the car while I open the giant hangar door & prep the space. When I finally went to pull the car back into its spot, it rolled forward a foot or two then the car stopped on its own. Odd.  I reversed a few feet then tried to move forward, but again, the car stopped - it felt like it was hitting something.  I got out, looked for a loose bolt or something of the sort in the drive line, but found nothing.  I took it out of gear, pushed it backward, but when I pushed forward - it stopped. To make a long story less long, after jacking the car up and testing both wheels, I found that one wheel had free motion, but the other would stop after rolling a foot or so forward; so I put the car up on wheel dollies, rolled it into the hangar, and put it away while I tried to figure out what was going on

Luckily, the collective knowledge of this forum came to the rescue: 

 

... it was suggested that I look at the wheel cylinders.  Sure enough, one of them was sticking.  The rusty/stuck cylinder was allowing the drums to rotate backward, but not forward (which is an interesting attribute of our rear brakes -  @Gray14 has a good writeup in the above thread as to why that is). It was obvious, then, that the wheel cylinder(s) needed to be replaced.

In the above video, I press, then release the brake pedal, but you can see that the wheel cylinder doesn't retract.

Some background: The Elite came with two flavors of wheel cylinder - 3/4" bore and 7/8" bore.  For reasons I don't know, the smaller bore was used on cars with automatic transmissions, while the larger bore went on everything else.  Unfortunately, the larger bore wheel cylinders are NLA, so I bought two smaller bore cylinders from SJ so that I could have a balanced pair.  Wheel cylinders are cheap - something like $15/side. Unfortunately, replacing the cylinders is non-trivial.  There's not enough access to the back side of the drums to remove the cylinders in-situ, so the diff had to be dropped... again. 🤬
 

I'm well-practiced at this horrible job, so, as they say, "nothin to it but to do it." The big difference this time, however, was that the car is no longer in my garage - it's in storage.  I have no tools at the storage facility, and no way to get the car home. So, I loaded up a working car with ALL the tools and set up shop in the storage hangar. 

(I very much enjoyed the extra space in the hangar. The view was pretty nice, too )

I won't bother going into the details of rear suspension removal, as we've been through that twice already in this thread. I will say, however, that I ran into a couple unexpected snags along the way: Two washers decided to become one with the threaded rods on which they were mounted - one on the diff side and one on the hub carrier side. It took several "why isn't this working" moments before I realized the washers were stuck - which made the process of diff removal take a lot longer than expected. Some large channel locks on the washer and another set of plyers on the rod freed the washers after a couple twists, which allowed the rods to finally be pulled through and out.

 

The biggest sin-of-the-past that came up, however, was that I used regular cotter pins on the parking brake clevis pins rather than hairpin cotters. Regular cotter pins are those that go through, then are bent back on themselves to prevent them from backing out... as opposed to the hairpin style that retain their shape & their shape holds them in place.  Unbending the "regular" cotter pin so that it could be removed from the parking brake clevis pin was a test of patience because how inaccessible they are. I was able to mostly straighten them with long-handled needle nose plyers, but one of the two would just not come out.  I eventually tore the ends off to force the issue.  Top tip: always use the hairpin style cotters on the parking brake clevis pins.

With the diff out, the wheel cylinders are relatively easy to replace. You will, of course, need to block off the brake hard lines while the diff is out of the car.  Previously, I'd used fingers of rubber gloves stretched over and rubber-banded to the hard lines, but that wasn't a great seal & still allowed fluid to leak. This time, I got a "master cylinder bleed kit" from the local parts store that had "close enough sized" threaded, barbed fittings that would screw into the brake lines, then a couple vacuum plugs over the barb kept brake fluid from leaking:

 

This was the first time I'd ever serviced drum brakes - so there was a bit of head-scratching during this phase of the project. For future me, or the otherwise uninitiated, here are my notes:

Brake shoes are installed/removed fully assembled - meaning both the top and bottom springs are attached to both shoes before/during installation and during/after removal. To remove the shoes, you remove their retailing spring clips - a simple push through and rotate to release. The shoes, without retaining clips, then fold outward like a taco, then slide downward to come off. Easy peasy.

Originally, I thought the springs had to come out (as is standard on some shoes). I fought the springs for several minutes trying to get them out.  I did manage to get the top one out to remove the shoes, which works well enough, but I'd say it's impossible to put the spring in with the shoes mounted. The taco method is the way to go.

With the cylinders out, it was easy to see the problem: mine had simply gotten rusty:

 

New wheel cylinders... 

 

It should be noted, there is an H-shaped spacer that goes between the shoes and wheel cylinder - you can see it in the above pic just below and to the right of the parking brake lever. Presumably, this spacer will ensure the self-adjuster lever will have the correct range to adjust the shoes with the parking brake handle. I didn't have the spacer, I can't find it to reorder, and my shoes appear to be adjusting correctly without it; so if you have it, keep it & reuse; but if you don't, don't sweat it.

Wheel cylinders are held in place with two, interlocking clips. I ordered new clips with the new wheel cylinders, but ended up reusing the originals, as they were made of more stout material. It should be noted that the wheel cylinder is designed to shift back and forth in the slot through in which it is mounted. For that reason, you should apply white lithium grease around the slot. Grease should also be applied to any part of the backing plate that comes into contact with the shoes.

With that, repair is complete... time for reassembly. Luckily, this went smoothly. A couple points worth mentioning:

After the diff and suspension are back in place, you have to reinstall the brake drums. Because the wheel cylinders are new, they are nowhere near properly adjusted. The self-adjusters will eventually wind out all of the slack, but they are painfully slow for large adjustments. The correct initial adjustment is done by winding out the wheel cylinder adjuster by hand until the drum *just* fits over the shoe. With the drum installed, actuating the hand brake several times should finish out the final adjustments. I wanted to be sure my self-adjusters were working, so before installing the drums, I made a quick video:

... working well! I found that I could hear the clicking of each adjuster until both sides were out as far as they could go - which let me know when adjustment was complete.

To bleed the system, being that I was solo, I just opened the bleed valve on each line and let the system gravity bleed for 5 or so minutes per side. That was certainly good enough to get me going. I will do another manual bleed later (the pedal is still a little soft).

As has been mentioned before, you're not supposed to tighten any bolt-through-bushing until the car is properly weighted. In the past, I've done this by rigging up a contraption in my garage's inspection pit below the car. This time, however, I didn't have the pit, so nowhere mount a contraption to load the suspension for tightening. The next best thing, then, was to load up the boot with as much heavy crap as I could find. Luckily, I was in a storage shed, so... a tool chest, a couple jacks, various metal sundries, and a wheel/tire got shoved in the boot for ballast. That might not have been enough to meet the workshop manual's requirements, but it was certainly better than nothing. I'll loosen then re-torque when it comes back home.

With that, it's finally back on the road. As expected, the rear brake issues have been resolved.  In hindsight, I can see that the signs of the cylinder going bad had been there for a while - I just didn't understand what I was hearing/feeling.  Brake performance has improved, once again.  There's still more work to do with the braking system, but it's getting better with each iteration.

Because of my schedule, this repair took 3 months - in which I had all of 3 days to work on the car. To celebrate its return to roadworthiness, I took the car to an "All British" car meet in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA - which is right on the coast between Los Angeles and Long Beach. I drove down with a buddy of mine who owns the very last legally imported Mini Cooper - that's been tricked out with lots of period Paddy Hopkirk bits:

^^ that car was purchased, new, by my buddy's father, so while it's technically a two-owner car, it's been in the same family since new.  Pretty cool.

Interesting anecdote: I followed the Mini to the show. The road to the show meanders through an area that's experienced heavy erosion & has made the road really bumpy with lots of sharp hills.  The Mini had to slow to take the bumps at lower speeds, but the Lotus just gobbled them up. I become more and more impressed with the suspension on this car each time I drive it.

...and a special treat: two generations of Elite in the same place at the same time 😎:

 

Next on the TODO list: new front brake calipers and master cylinder rebuild. I also need to fix the squeaky speedo. There's also thoughts of getting the wheels resurfaced & powder coated... hmmmm... 

[Mgormanvm]

Hi Brian, I contacted you some months back after seeing your Elite at Woodley Park. I have the same vehicle and use you as inspiration to keep working.  Question. I'm at the point where I need to do some painting. So far I have not found a paint supplier that can find a formula for Sable in  current paint. Although repainted black it was originally the same as yours and I want to go original.  I don't have a paint chip that can be matched. Your paint certainly looks a lot newer than 48 years. Did you find a source that had the info?

[BrianK]

On 09/12/2022 at 17:00, Mgormanvm said:

Hi Brian, I contacted you some months back after seeing your Elite at Woodley Park. I have the same vehicle and use you as inspiration to keep working.  Question. I'm at the point where I need to do some painting. So far I have not found a paint supplier that can find a formula for Sable in  current paint. Although repainted black it was originally the same as yours and I want to go original.  I don't have a paint chip that can be matched. Your paint certainly looks a lot newer than 48 years. Did you find a source that had the info?

Hi Michael.  Sorry for the delayed response - I haven't been back here for a while.

My car was resprayed long before I purchased it, so I don't have any better info than what you can find online. If you manage to find a good formula, I'd love to know as well.

[Elite 4.9]

 

 Hi Michael,

Any quality auto paint store can match nearly any color. Either by a guy who knows how to do it by his skill or by a camera that takes a picture of your car or a part of it and will match very closely the color. This is old school stuff so find a quality auto paint store that sells to auto body repair shops.

I live in the Seattle area and know of a good number of them that do this exact matching and have had it done for me more than once.

atb,

Richard