Lotus rear hub bearings, pt. 7

Short day today because at 4:00 my wife and I met with Frank and Laura Smith and the rest of the Hana Ride gang for a shake-down ride around Tantalus, in preparation for next weekend's ride to Hana. Which means I won't get any work done next weekend.

Fortunately today was one of those days when things go well. My goal was to get the hub on, so that the Loctite would have plenty of time to cure. I made it with a little time to spare, which I used for a much needed rest.

I started with installing the new braided steel brake hose. No problem there. On the RH side I left the steel brake line that runs along the top of the trailing arm in place. The LH side only had one clip remaining, so I removed the line to paint the trailing arm. Getting the line back into the clip was ridiculously difficult, but I managed.

The real work was installing the forward bolt, the one the arm pivots on. The RH side was just hard. The LH side was as close to impossible as possible. The problem is the length of the bolt. Lotus should have made the cave in which all this takes place 1/8" wider, or used a slightly shorter bolt.

Since getting the hub on was the goal, connecting the brake hose to the trailing arm was not on the critical path so I left that for later and moved on to the brake backing plate. On the RH side I had a terrible time getting the four bolts threaded into the cast aluminum carrier. As luck would have it, only one on the LH side was a problem. All it needed was a lot of pressure pushing into the hole while gently turning. In situations like this, a steel bolt going to an aluminum casting, I always use anti-seize.

With the backing plate in place I could install the hub. Yes, I remembered the spacer! I thought I could do it without connecting the lower link, but before I got close to 150 ft. lbs. the hub was twisting more than I was comfortable with -- I did not want to damage the rubber mount -- so I stopped to put in the bolt that connects the lower link to the hub carrier. I did not need it tight, just in the hole. It was very hard to get out, and today, again, it was very hard to put in. I need to check that out next time.