1979 Yellow Lotus Eclat: My project thread

[soldave]

1 hour ago, EXCEL V8 said:

Here's one I made earlier!

 

 

 

The top photo shows the parts and the bottom one how it is assembled to pull the driveshaft into the bearing.  

Hope this helps!

Pete

I think it does. So the right end of that "bolt" is a rounded nut which screws into the driveshaft, and then turning the large nut will pull it all through? Or maybe I've got it completely wrong!

Did you make the puller "bolt" yourself?

[EXCEL V8]

Yep - you've got it.  I made it from bits I already had in the shed.  You put a spanner on the small hex to stop it all turning.

Pete

[soldave]

So much for the rear wheel bearing replacement being done. Went for a drive this morning and car felt a bit off. Got back and it was having trouble rolling into the garage and the rear wheel is hot to the touch. 

Back on jackstands tonight. The wheel was turning fine when i reconnected the driveshaft so I'm wondering if the bearing has just failed straight away. These things get you thinking about what you did or didn't do, and the parts supplier (a Lotus centre) told me the bearing was pre-greased and no more needed to be added. I hope that was the right guidance.

[soldave]

3 hours ago, soldave said:

So much for the rear wheel bearing replacement being done. Went for a drive this morning and car felt a bit off. Got back and it was having trouble rolling into the garage and the rear wheel is hot to the touch. 

Back on jackstands tonight. The wheel was turning fine when i reconnected the driveshaft so I'm wondering if the bearing has just failed straight away. These things get you thinking about what you did or didn't do, and the parts supplier (a Lotus centre) told me the bearing was pre-greased and no more needed to be added. I hope that was the right guidance.

Well that was strange. Given a 15 minute hall pass to jack up the car and check for movement. Hub and wheel have no wobble so then tried actually turning the wheel. Really didn't want to move and then something just seemed to slot into place (slot sounds quite smooth; this wasn't) and then wheel moved like a rear wheel attached to a diff does as usual. Rotated it a bunch of times and couldn't get it to replicate the issue.

Very wary of driving until I am sure it's fixed for good but what could have caused that? I'll check driveshaft nut torque and get the brake drum off maybe but it didn't feel like brakes were grabbing and then suddenly released. Plus I drove for 5 miles yesterday with no issues so can't see them being seized after that.

Whatever it was, it caused the wheel to get damn hot and me worried, especially if I can't pin it down to anything.

[ChrisJ]

I had my hand brake suddenly apply itself a couple of times, and then free itself off - this was on my Esprit though. Cable was knackered, catching on something,

[soldave]

8 minutes ago, ChrisJ said:

I had my hand brake suddenly apply itself a couple of times, and then free itself off - this was on my Esprit though. Cable was knackered, catching on something,

I guess it could have been. Handbrake setup was replaced with new a couple of years but something might have caused it to engage randomly.

[ChrisJ]

One time it happend, I called the RAC out. By the time the man in the van arrived it had freed itself. He followed me home and 1 mile later on a slip road joining the A10 it just engaged itself while changing gear. It was very weird.

[EXCEL V8]

That's a strange one.  The brakes are so far from the wheel they'd have to be on fire to get the wheel that hot but I can't think of anything else - the wheel bearings are pretty simple items really.  Did you notice if the drive shaft was hot as well?

Pete

[soldave]

2 hours ago, EXCEL V8 said:

That's a strange one.  The brakes are so far from the wheel they'd have to be on fire to get the wheel that hot but I can't think of anything else - the wheel bearings are pretty simple items really.  Did you notice if the drive shaft was hot as well?

Pete

I know, right! And if the bearing had got so hot that I probably couldn't have kept hold of the wheel, you'd have thought the wheel would be wobbling all over the place. Wasn't able to get my hand to the driveshaft when I got back from my drive unfortunately so could only check the wheel itself.

But with the car jacked up, something clonked into place and it became smooth again.

Going to check torque on hub nut and also get the drum off tomorrow night i hope and see if anything jumps out at me.

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by soldave

[soldave]

Wondering more and more whether the guidance by a Lotus specialist where I bought the bearing from that it didn't need any additional grease was incorrect.

[makepeace]

Something like this happened to my car a couple of months back, but I didn't touch the wheels/hub carrier, just the drum and driveshaft. My brakes had definitely bound up for some unknown reason. I remember doing some things like pulling up the handbrake and rocking the car and also doing the reverse and handbrake pull adjustment method as well as hard braking and it seemed to right itself. I then had the brakes redone as everything started popping on me - master, wheel cylinders. Now it's all good. 

Try jacking the rear up under the hub carrier lower links (and securing it properly) and running it in gear maybe with the rear wheels off to be safe to see if you can see anything strange. I would probably say your brakes need more attention than the bearings as long as the hub nut is FT.

Edit: when I redid my rear bearings I packed them chock full of (I think LM?) grease, so time will tell which is the right approach.

[soldave]

It's a good call running it in gear with the wheels off to see if anything looks strange. Will try that once I've checked the hub nut torque, maybe added a little grease to the bearing itself, and taken apart the brake drum to have a look.

[soldave]

And of course with the open diff, any drag one one side will cause the hub not to rotate. But doing that did reveal to me that the passenger side brake drum was dragging possibly a little more than it should (give the hub a good spin on the driver's side and it will keep moving a little; do the same on the passenger side and it stops almost immediately and you can feel the show rubbing against the drum.

Loosened the brake adjusting screw on that side and typically now the drag has gone mostly but the handbrake has lost its effectiveness. It's that damn balance between seriously dragging and getting virtually no handbrake. It will need tightening up a tiny bit on both sides but I should be able to do that using the holes in the drum itself.

 

EDIT: Just jacked the car up again and tried again with wheel on. With a good spin I get 1/2 turn on the passenger side before it stops; driver's side gives me 3/4 turn.

But doing this may have helped with the issues I was having a few days ago. The first time I went to spin the passenger wheel, I just started moving it and it felt like the wheel dropped a little. The hub carrier and suspension didn't drop; just felt like the wheel and then it started moving. Which is making me wonder more and more whether that bearing died when it was fitted.

Edited July 14, 2022 by soldave

[soldave]

I know what you're thinking: "Oh jeez...it's this guy again!". Yup, like the proverbial bad penny I just keep turning up with more random videos to show you. Before you watch the vid below, please just take a minute to read the context below.

 

If you've been following my Eclat rear wheel bearing woes you'll recall I said I felt like the wheel kind of "dropped" when I rotated it after it had decided it didn't want to turn so well. Jacked the car up tonight and it did the same so I tried lifting the wheel up; it seemed to clunk back up and down when being lifted by the wheel. I've tried to take a couple of videos of this, the first using a lever under the wheel (a spade - just call me MacGuyver!), and the second with me lifting the wheel from the bottom. Hope you can hear if not see the clunking up & down. Hub carrier doesn't seem to have any equivalent clunking which is making me think more and more that the wheel bearing is on its first and last legs. I get, of course, that when you lift the tyre the suspension will raise will move. But I don't believe there should be that much movement and notchiness in there using relatively little effort lifting the tyre. After that notch everything feels tight.

 

The only thing I wasn't able to do was lift the wheel and then try rotating it. But from what I've read and those visa, does that seem like a fair diagnosis?

 

 

[makepeace]

Yep, that definitely doesn't look right. The wheel should not move relative to the hub carrier. Either need to making the hub tighter or its a bad bearing.

[soldave]

51 minutes ago, makepeace said:

Yep, that definitely doesn't look right. The wheel should not move relative to the hub carrier. Either need to making the hub tighter or its a bad bearing.

A couple of people on Facebook have suggested checking out the U-joints too. Not sure it would cause this issue, but other than the bearing moving inside the carrier and then locking up I'm not sure what would.

Hub nut is torqued to 200lb-ft which I think is factory spec.

[EXCEL V8]

If you remove the wheel and grab hold of the outer u/j can you move the outer drive shaft within the hub carrier?  There should be absolutely no play between the outer drive shaft and the hub carrier (other than rotation of course).  If the bearing seized for some reason the whole bearing may have rotated within the carrier - that would create a lot of heat (and wreck the carrier).

Where abouts in Yorkshire are you Dave?

Pete

[makepeace]

Did you tighten it further than 200 lb to fit the pin or loosen? SM says tighten.

[soldave]

8 hours ago, EXCEL V8 said:

If you remove the wheel and grab hold of the outer u/j can you move the outer drive shaft within the hub carrier?  There should be absolutely no play between the outer drive shaft and the hub carrier (other than rotation of course).  If the bearing seized for some reason the whole bearing may have rotated within the carrier - that would create a lot of heat (and wreck the carrier).

Where abouts in Yorkshire are you Dave?

Pete

Well the plot thickens, and potentially not in a good way. Wheels off and still had the movement which I traced to back brake drum. Drum off and diff output shaft (aka inboard shaft) was pulled in and out, and there's a bit of movement (see video below). I'm imagining that means the output shaft bearing there isn't in great condition if there is movement. No grinding as it goes around but ir's movement that translates to vertical movement in the wheel

My understanding is that this is a diff out job to replace these bearings which is an absolute nightmare, and with a newborn son could mean the car is on jackstands for quite a while . Now could that cause the rear wheel to get so much resistance that the wheel would be ho to touch? Well I'm not too sure about that - if so then the heat at the diff must have been pretty damn high. Both UJs seem to be in good condition though and there's no real growling from the bearing when it's being rotated so that part of the mystery is still not solved.

BTW, I'm just south of Wakefield, 5 mins off J39 of the M1.

 

4 hours ago, makepeace said:

Did you tighten it further than 200 lb to fit the pin or loosen? SM says tighten.

It was tightened to 200lb and then just tightened a tiny bit more so I could get the pin in.

[EXCEL V8]

The diff output shaft bearing is held onto the drive shaft by a heat shrink sleeve.  If the bearing is free to move on the shaft (it shouldn't be) and the sleeve has slipped slightly that could account for the movement.  If the bearing is in the correct place on the drive shaft and also held in place as it should be by the sleeve then the bearing/drive shaft assembly may be moving in the diff housing.  The whole assembly is held in place by the plate that also retains the brake backplate - are all four bolts tight on the bearing retaining plate?

Pete

[soldave]

1 hour ago, EXCEL V8 said:

The diff output shaft bearing is held onto the drive shaft by a heat shrink sleeve.  If the bearing is free to move on the shaft (it shouldn't be) and the sleeve has slipped slightly that could account for the movement.  If the bearing is in the correct place on the drive shaft and also held in place as it should be by the sleeve then the bearing/drive shaft assembly may be moving in the diff housing.  The whole assembly is held in place by the plate that also retains the brake backplate - are all four bolts tight on the bearing retaining plate?

Pete

Yeah, just been out to check. All four bolts on the bearing retaining plate are torqued to spec. But I did manage to get a bit of luck and after loosening the retaining bolts the inboard drive shaft slid right out. Now there is no obvious movement in the bearing, and the collar appears to be right up against it. All I can think of is that perhaps the bearing and collar could be a couple of mm further down the driveshaft towards the retaining plate (i.e. outside). I can't see an obvious gap but it's all I can think of.

Interestingly, I looked back at my notes and this thread, and it seems like I have had issues in this area before. Back in 2016 I had similar play in on the driver's side output shaft (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o61-B47tuMQ), and then in 2019 I had grinding on the passenger side (i.e. this side) bearing and so replaced it, collar etc. If so I might have had this movement for a while and only just noticed.

Which goes back to me wondering if this has any connection at all with the wheel stickiness and heat issue. And people wonder why I sound stressed!

Edited July 17, 2022 by soldave

[EXCEL V8]

Have you measured the "nip" on the bearing retaining plate?  What figure did you get?

Pete

[jonwat]

The original Europa & the Guigiaro Esprit had the same suspension design as your car where the drive shaft is load bearing & acts as the top suspension member.

The correction for wear is to add shims around the differential output shaft to compensate.  

Hope this helps 

[EXCEL V8]

Also check the integrity of the retaining plate itself - they can crack if the nip has been too much in the past.

Pete

[soldave]

14 hours ago, EXCEL V8 said:

Have you measured the "nip" on the bearing retaining plate?  What figure did you get?

Pete

11 hours ago, jonwat said:

The original Europa & the Guigiaro Esprit had the same suspension design as your car where the drive shaft is load bearing & acts as the top suspension member.

The correction for wear is to add shims around the differential output shaft to compensate.  

Hope this helps 

Thanks, guys. for the thoughts about the nip and maybe shimming it. So theoretically I may be able to shim the retaining plate out enough so that i cancels out the in/out movement of the shaft itself. That's encouraging.

I'll report back on Wednesday when battle resumes between myself and the Eclat. If I attempt to work on it tonight or tomorrow I'm just going to be found collapsed in a pool of sweat and diff oil in the garage! I'll get the hub carrier off too whilst I'm there as I really want to give that bearing and UJs a once-over.