Jacking points

Well having solved the  wheel nut problems the next thorny question is how to raise the car? A search of the excel.net shows that this is a perennial problem - largely because its hard to believe that GRP is so strong that you can jack on it. Well I know that you can as I did so on my Elite but even so I'm not greatly happy about supporting the car for maybe a couple of weeks in this way as the chassis and engine/transmission are effectively just hanging from the body by their bobbins! ...And as anyone who has ever been suspended from their bobbins can tell you it can certainly make your eyes water!

As I can gather from the forum the threads suggest
1. Jacking point metal plates will rot away leaving the jacking points unprotected. Dont use the scissor jack IF this applies (probably OK if jacking points still sound).
2. Don't jack under the jacking points with anything else unless you have packing- piece of wood to spread the load.
3. Jacking is best done under the front cross member to raise both wheels at once but access for a trolley jack is difficult unless you can drive onto some blocks or a ramp first.
4. Jacking at the rear can be under the diff (not really recommended unless for very brief lift and onto stands) and it could do damage. The suggestion is to use the lower diff frame mount although I'm not sure where that is!
5. When jacked up, get the  car onto axle stands placed either at a) the jacking points with padding b) under hubs/suspn arms with padding c) a wooden cross beam going across the car and taking the weight ....?

However despite this wealth of advice there isn't a single diagram, for instance where should this cross beam go? Can you still jack under the jacking points using wooden packing if the jacking points themselves have vanished? If the GRP is damaged at this point does it matter in terms of structural solidity of the car? Without diagrams or pictures its really difficult to know where to jack/support if not at the jacking points- and as I found out, for me this is potentially a problem.

My rear offside tyre has the worst leak- so first thing was to check out my jacking point for that wheel- no plate and a nasty shock!

Rear Offside jacking point- no plate and a nasty hole!

This is very worrying with a hole- circular mark which can be traced right around the jack point suggests a previous jacking attempt with an unprotected trolley jack (cup support) at this position. Clearly the box section  has been stressed away from the strong point and cracked- but is this a serious problem and can it be repaired?

Rear Nearside jacking point- missing the plate but at least its not holed.

Time to look at the front points:

Front offside

And the final...

Front nearside, plate still present

Front nearside seems the best preserved with jacking plate still present but covered in GRP goo

Its not immediately clear to me whether these points are usable (even with timber packing pieces!) and I certainly don't want to crack the body. I think all bar the rear offside should be OK so perhaps some tentative jacking is needed to test this.  My biggest worry remains the rear offside- which is of course the one I need to get to first! 

Its not clear how jacking points should have been attached but perhaps they were just stuck on with GRP- all odf the sites are surrounded by what looks like isopon but was this a factory installation or a later replacement? Another mystery is that all of these jacking points have a central circular indentation that and most seem to have a red cup-like feature inside this. I had though that this is part of the reinforcement plate- but a look at the new plates on SJSportscars shows that in fact these simply have a hole that would locate directly over this red feature. So what is it exactly and is it load bearing?

Locking Wheel nuts

The wheels fitted to my Excel are clearly from the Toyota parts bin. They are the same as those fitted to the Celica Supra and probably others. They were however offered as genuine Lotus originals and to prove this they have a nice (flimsy plastic) Lotus centre cap. I quite like them although I'm not sure if they were optional or standard on the Excel. The sales leaflet I have from 1984 shows them fitted and doesn't mention that they were any "option" as such.

Lotus publicity flier 1984

Anyway my problem wasn't the wheels; it was the fact that someone had thoughtfully fitted locking wheel nuts and then (not so thoughtfully) disposed of the socket key/adaptor. Unfortunately only one tyre holds air; I have slow punctures on 2 wheels and a not so slow puncture on one other. The tyres will need fixing. I'd rather fix the punctures as this size is now unobtainable so changing just one or two isn't an option- I will eventually need a full set of substitutes before I can drive with safety- (but that's another story). For the time being-just pushing the thing around the garage holding air will be good enough!  Anyway in order to sort this the wheel shave to come off.

 I've been here before- it once took me three days of hammering to tap a set off my Escort. In the process both wheels and my hands accrued a considerable amount of collateral damage and I didn't want to do that again! Of course, I do have a set of "locking wheel nut removers". I put these in inverted commas because they seem to be of ornamental value only. They failed with the Escort and they failed again here. I reckoned I needed another approach.

Firstly, I took some Blu-tack and warmed it before pushing it firmly into the socket head of one of the nuts. When pulled out this gave a template for the size and position of the indentations into when the teeth on the missing key should fit. I then found a socket that fitted over the nut centre but whose rim overlapped the position of the key holes, and then I transferred the tooth pattern to the outside of the socket using a felt tipped pen. Finally I used a grinder to remove material between the "tooth" positions and hey presto! A rough and ready key.
Anyway, I fitted that to my impact gun and away we went.- Well I say away we went but it turned out these nuts were tighter than buggery, and took a hell of a long time to loosen- but eventually they did and I was rewarded with that lovely soft "Whirring" sound an air wrench makes when it wins and the nut finally loosens! Well the makeshift key was pretty much destroyed in this process (pic) which was sad as it was a fairly new socket. However,  it was cheaper than getting one of the mobile wheel-nut removers out -they had quoted me £25 per wheel (plus VAT)!

One final note- These hub nuts turned out to be of the flat-washer variety. Bit of a shame as I have a whole set of taper seat nuts taken from my Elite and I had intended to replace the lock nuts with these. Sadly therefore a new set of 4 flat washer types- £9.99 off eBay!

Locking nuts off, note key holes to which blu-tack was moulded (upper right) and flat washer seats to base. Remnants of my makeshift key bottom left- Gone but not forgotten!

Clutch hydraulics

Clutch hydraulics part 1

When I got the car the brakes had some semblance of activity! There was fluid in the master cylinder and pressure at the brake pedal- true the brakes didn't seem to have any effect at all on the car's motion- but there was at least fluid! In contrast the clutch reservoir was empty and the pedal simply hung limply as a constant reminder of one of the most embarrassing nights of my life! It had to be sorted and  now whilst I consider my options for the engine, was probably the time. At some point water has obviously been a frequent visitor to the driver's footwell. I suspect the blocked air intake drain hose that I cleared the first day I had the car was probably the culprit - and might well account for the rusted HRS relay as well.

Anyway the clutch pushrod clevis pin and the cylinder securing nuts were rusted- I recommend anyone tackling this to wear some thick gloves while trying to remove these bits as the scratches on my hand bear witness. The cylinder is held in by 2 bolts, the lower is easily removed with a 12mm socket and extn, but the upper is blocked by the bulkhead. Here I was able to use my half moon obstruction spanner! Perfect and extremely gratifying as this spanner set has lain unused in my toolbox for around 5 years! When you need this type of thing its just the type of thing you need! (also access via extension bars and UJ)

Crud and rust visible under the cylinder boot

Site of master cylinder after removal note rust to mountings. Don't think this area should get wet, but there was no gasket present to keep water out of the car or off these bolts.

Anyway master cylinder off and over to the bench... not a pretty site. Removing the boot showed a load of corrosion around the base- nasty. I scraped this way, removed the base circlip and eventually managed to “pop” the plunger out of the cylinder body. To my surprise there was some residual fluid in the body which pumped out clear during this popping operation and when I eventually got the piston out, the inside of the cylinder was bright, smooth and unmarked!! Internal corrosion was limited to the exterior of the cylinder ie in front of the pushrod retaining clip.

Master cylinder disassembled, disc float from reservoir. All needs cleaning, note 90 degree elbow attachment adapter that accepts the clutchfluid pipe.

All the components cleaned up nicely in my sonicator bath and I was confident that it would be simply a case of getting some new seals and rebuilding- as I have done many times before with Girling and Lockheed brake/clutch parts. It doesn't always work, but when it does its a hell of a saving- and greener to boot. Here though I was disappointed! I simply cannot find anyone selling seal replacement its for these Toyota items... and although I did track down  cylinder repair kits at SJSportscars, these were priced only a few pounds short of the cost of a complete new cylinder which obviously defeats the object. Interestingly and in contrast, seals for the UK made brake system seem to be readily available. This means I will need to replace both cylinders completely- more expensive than anticipated but I guess more reliable a fix anyway! I resolved to order these parts at some point in the future- although this point isn't terribly urgent since at present there is unlikely to be any power from the engine that needs disconnecting- and will not be for some time.

If you do need these cylinders then its worth shopping around- slave is CV-200 and the Master is MC1602. Check orientation of the reservoir, 1600 will fit (and probably work fine) but when mounted, the reservoir is not vertical. I got mine from Amazon, but there are many equivalent code numbers from different suppliers so check those on a parts crossreferencing site and do a search on those numbers too. I ended up finding some around £20 and £35 each... although having said that the MC seems to be delayed and I'm hoping it will actually arrive rather than be cancelled!

Note added (considerably later)

New master cylinder did arrive and was stored until 04/07/2016 when I finally revisited the clutch hydraulics. New cylinder fitted easily but remember to detach the brass 90 degree adapters from the old cylinder as these don't come with the new one. I cut a new gasket out of silicone using the cylinder back plate from inside the footwell as a template for the hole positions and then mounting this on the cylinder to cut the edge profile.

Old cylinder- I saved the float and cap

...and removed the 90 degree elbow/banjo which needed...

...cleaning- I used the Deox C

Tapping out a new gasket from a silicone rubber sheet- I used the internal footwell MC bbacking plate to mark the positions of the holes

all holes cut out the square could then be slipped onto the M/C and...

New gasket trimmed to profile

Finally the new M/C was installed in position, bolts tightened and the clevis reconnected to the clutch pedal rod*. I will wait to adjust the pushrod length as at present there is no fluid and I still have to swap out the slave cylinder.

Installed

I will try to renovate the old cylinder as I did eventually get some replacement seals so for the time being I am storing the de-rusted cylinder coated in oil. See the section on the brake M/C for a general description of my approach.

*... All was not well... although I installed and connected the master cylinder to the pedal- it became clear later that the alignment between pedal and master cylinder was  wrong, forcing the pushrod to adopt a strange angle in order to connect the two- and this in turn prevented the master cylinder from working properly.. This is mostlikely due to a bent clutch pedal or pedal box which does seem to be a fairly common fault on these cars... usually caused by a siezed master cylinder and in my case that cylinder was clearly a problem. I think its likely to have been a problem even before I got the car as it had actually been disconnected by the LBPO. See my later post "Adjusting the clutch refilling the pas system".