Lotus Excel Restoration

As I've been driving the car I have noticed a juddering through the brakes, not particularly bad and only really noticeable as you come to a halt when the car has obvious tight spots on the discs. I checked all the discs and de-rusted the rims which did improve matters. To be frank I couldn't find any really obvious distortion or run out but I did notice a slight wobble in the rear face of the front left disc. To be fair it was minute but this tightness has to come from somewhere so I bought two new National front discs. These are marketed for the Toyota Supra (NBD 269)

They come well wrapped and greased so you will need to degrease them before fitting.

I've described disc removal before, but since that was part of a much more general front end overhaul I thought I'd bring it together as a specific post here. The whole process took me about an hour a side so if you have some reasonable technical know-how you should be able to halve that!

Remove the road wheel, the calipers and torque bracket need to come off before you can shift the hub so its 2 x19mm bolts on the back of the bracket and a 14mm bolt on the swing release behind the caliper... the caliper has to swing to let you get at the 19mm bolts!

loosening the upper bracket bolt, the swing release bolt has already been removed.

Once you get the caliper and bracket off suspend the bracket from a short bungey wound around the upper arm and remove the hub grease cap. Here its hidden by the disc

pull out the split pin (NB this is NOT a cotter pin) and lift off the castellated cap.

Loosen the hub nut with a 30mm socket- its not usually tight

and remove the hub nut and tabbed washer beneath

I then refit the grease cap to keep the muck out and remove the hub. Often it will simply pull forward with hand pressure. If it doesnt then a hub puller will apply nice even pressure- I found I needed this on one side but the extractor only needed finger pressure to loosen the hub.

Remove the hub and...

Hub removed- note bungey holding the bracket and caliper

Invert it inside the wheel you have just removed to hold it firmly.

Unscrew the 4 disc retaining bolts- these are tight so you will need a breaker bar but usually holding the wheel gives enough purchase to start them turning.

I found that the discs came off easily if they were supported in one hand whilst the centre of the hub was struck with a rubber mallet. However, I have had these apart relatively recently so they weren't rusted. If you need to, support the disc (hub down) on wooden blocks and tap the back of the wheel studs with a punch through the holes in the disc from above to loosen it.

Using a plastic bag to cover the bearings.

The discs then lift off- to be frank not much visible in the way of distortions

Clean the new discs thoroughly- I used carb cleaner followed by meths.

... and offer the new disc into position. Refit the bolts starting them by hand to avoid cross threading and then tighten them to the specified torque

Refit the hub as before

insert the tab washer

... and nut

Testing the turning force- this was the final test after everything was reassembled- the castellated cap wouldn't usually be in position to set tension.

You can then set the bearings and I find this problematic- seems I may have got it wrong at least once! The following is my take on this awkward process and probably makes too much of a meal of it, but I worry about these things!

The manual calls for you to tighten the hub nut to 20 lbft whilst turning the hub. This centralises the bearings and also locks up the hub. You then need to loosen the nut and re-position it by hand such that the wheel turns at around 150 gf (used oil seal). Trouble is that loosening the nut does not release the bearing so you need to crack the nut back by as little as necessary before you can free up the bearings to get free rotation of the hub - too much and you risk decentralising them again. Then test the turning force needed using a spring balance on the wheel studs it should be negligible, and tighten the nut using the socket BY HAND little by little, testing the turning force required after each movement. The turning force should increase progressively as you tighten the nut- until the desired force is achieved. Don't set it by loosening the nut as the bearings tend to stick and so there's a tendency to over-loosen the nut. Make sure the final tension adjustment is set by tightening the nut. Then refit the castellated cap and a new split pin.

Frankly this is a cumbersome and over-complex method. I don't see why it can't be defined (as most cars) in terms of angular turn-back required after the bearings are clamped and centralised . One day I will see if this is a reasonably constant value.

However although fiddly and guaranteed to generate self-doubt, its at least not a tricky thing to do. In fact the hardest part of the disc swap process is refitting the clips and pads which will almost certainly fall out when you remove the torque bracket/caliper assembly.

Outer pad (slots in the sides)

Inner pad tabs at the side.

Its not too bad as long as the clips are bent into position and grip the bracket tightly. Its a real bugger if they keep falling ff as you try to slip in the pads.

Finally refit the torque bracket and don't forget the swing clamping bolt!

To my surprise this has removed the slight judder in the brakes, so that small amount of run out I found must have been the cause. I was going to change the rear discs as well- and indeed may still do for completeness as they are now the only part of the braking system* I haven't renewed!

*Thinking about it I've not touched the G valve (front/rear partition valve).

I know its very sad but I like to collect the original sales brochures for any cars I own. They do appear on eBay from time to time so I guess I'm not the only one! Anyway I'm trying to assemble a set for the Elite- along the same lines as that for the Excel....sadly Lotus didn't keep a library of their publicity publications, I guess running a cutting edge company in tricky times and a vicious market did tend to take priority! However, this means that as far as I can tell there is no definitive list of publications for any model. Some attempts have already been made and there is a rough chronology for most Lotus models on the Lotus drivers guide. However its not complete and having been compiled on the continent, it includes a few foreign language version which were not presumably available originally in the UK.

Its possible to get wound up in an ever tightening spiral if you collect this sort of stuff, so I will state here the limitations to my own collecting: I limit myself to UK Lotus published original material although I do include road tests which I think were reprinted from the magazines at Lotus' request and used as publicity in showrooms. I don't personally collect magazine ads or articles that weren't actually reprinted for Lotus. Apart from that I do also collect oddities related to these cars- there are a number of phone cards, stamps, Top trumps and even a beer named after the Elite! I'm not including those here though.

Lotus don't print identification numbers or dates on most of their (early) material so I don't know how many different versions may exist of any single item and dating is obviously a bit of a guess. I'm taking most dates from the link above and guidance from the various style revisions to the car but even so much of this is guesswork. As usual, if you can add any more info or correct what's already in here please get in touch ... and if you have Jpegs of any missing publications please send them and I can at least make this page more complete- even if the gaps persist in my physical collection!

Price lists

This is the first Elite price list produced for general distribution, July 1975

Price lists were issued irregularly from 1974 when the first preliminary information was included in the launch press pack. The first independently released list I have is dated July 1975. It was also included in the Interim report press pack also issued that year (see below). The early lists were A4 format and listed the Elite only. Later lists were published as double A5 on an A4 sheet and featured both Elite and Eclat. The first lists were printed in coloured ink on plain paper, later in black type face on coloured paper and the final few in three coloured ink on white paper. Photocopying at the time or since can modify this and this generally simple approach to publishing means that some of mine may be duplicates or forgeries rather than original showroom documents. Anyway those price list issues I have been able to identify took place in:

1975 July and October

1977 October

1978 Feb and Sept

1979 Sept

1980 May (version S2.2 from here)

1981 Jan

1982 Jan

I may have missed some, the lack of anything in 1976 is odd so if you know of definite issues to fill the gaps please let me know.

1974

Lotus Elite launched at the London Motor show in October 1974...

The Lotus Entry in the Daily Mail guide to the London Motor Show 1974

... but its release was heralded by a press information pack issued in May that year- a boxed set of docs and pre-release information including a poster, specifications sheet, preliminary price list, brochure, dealers list and a set of black/white photographs contained in a brown folder. My set also includes an Autocar lotus special which I believe to be original to the set and a Donnington park catalogue which I suspect is not. Ive seen other such kits and these suggest that the box of matches (see below) and colour swatch may also have been included. Sadly these didnt come with a contact list so I don't know exactly what they contained or whether they were all the same.

Boxed set

folded poster

Glossy brochure

Selection of contents, brown folder contains loads of information and b/w press photos

1975

The first car was delivered in Dec 1974, so its surprising that Lotus issued a second press pack, "Interim report on the Lotus Elite" in only 1975. However the car had won the prestigious Don Safety trophy earlier that year so maybe this was the reason. The car had also received several good reviews and maybe Lotus thought this was worth bragging about! The report was contained in a black card folder and contained road tests reprinted from May-published magazines, the July price list, information on the Don safety trophy, dealers lists and specifications sheet. Its not dated but must have been issued in the second half of 1975.

The release brochure continued to be available in 1975- a few more pics below.

Glossy brochure (as in release pack) 10pp glossy print. Full spec with cutaway diagrams

Sample pages

1976

10 page glossy colour brochure 11.5x8 inches also included the Eclat which had been announced in Oct 1975

Fold-out

Fold out colour brochure 11 x 5 inch 6 colour sheets.

There are two versions of this brochure which differ as far as I can see only in the fact that they have most unusually got part numbers. DM/M2/976/20- and DM/M3/1177/25 respectively.

I'm placing these next two brochures in 76 largely by guesswork as I can't identify any dating information for them. Both are printed on thinner paper and may be forgeries- sad but true that you do need to watch out for this when buying brochures, particularly price lists which are easily duplicated- and indeed may have been copied even in the day.

The above brochure is a mystery. Its a 4-page printed spread containing only Lotus material. Although the print quality is high, its printed on thinner paper more like a magazine than the usual stiff glossy card. However it shows no staple holes and its an odd size for a magazine. Perhaps it was an insert? If anyone has any information about its origin I'd be delighted to add it here.

The A4 brochure/flier below is similar in that paper quality is poor and in this case printing quality also seems questionable. I have seen others which are also printed on this thinner paper and perhaps this is a reason to assume that the two above are contemporary. Perhaps Lotus experimented with a cheaper publicity product?

Single sheet A4 colour brochure- specifications on rear.

1977

Fold-out brochure 10x21cm

Silver coloured fold-out 10x21cm

contents

1978

Single page A4 brochure colour pics on both sides.

1979

21x109 cm silver covered brochure foldout

1980-1982

Lotus press release dated May 1980. Launch of S2.2 models. Probably incomplete I would have expected this to be in a folder with press photos. Not currently in my collection.

I haven't been able to date these brochures other than generally to the years in which the S 2.2 was offered. Again if anyone has a chronology that would be very helpful.

A4 plastisheet for colour specimens. This is the only colour-selection sheet I've been able to find apart from the swatches included in the launch pack. This one still shows Carnival red which was replaced with Calypso red in 1980 but I don't know if a new colour chart was then issued.

A4 foldout 3 page colour brochure- inside pictured below

Single page A4 sheet listing Elite, Eclat and Esprit- details to rear

Single sheet brochures, I've seen these reproduced as magazine adverts.

Road test reviews

This section includes only those reviews that were reprinted or issued as supplements. Most of these were used by Lotus in its sales docs and supplied to journalists in various information packs. For all I know they may have been available in showrooms too?