Brakes...not done. New master cylinder Sir?

OK...so I changed the pads @the weekend having earlier swapped the fluid and bled the system. It's clear the RS42's (pictured) were glazed; "yay" I thought.....brake-balance cured! Sadly....
'twas not to be....

Rather than sand-papering the RS42's (I'll leave that for another day) I wanted to get a new set on the car all-round so to reduce any scope for variance. So, with a new set of Carbone Lorraine's installed (pictured below) I set off on a hopeful test drive, expecting that magical feeling of front-end-bite to return.
Pads bedded-in, I go for a few hard-stops. It went like this:

Brake> rears lock > dab of oppo > Try again.
Brake > rears lock > dab of oppo > try again. Merde!



Net/Net....the "tiny job" I expected is the sting in the tail. Rad, clutch, rear main seal, toelinks, misfire, coilpack....and now I need a new brake master cylinder and/or a caliper refurb. All before silverstone. Super.

I reckon the cost per lap YTD is something like £1,000 ...presently. This is really rather not going to plan.

Rear main-seal: done

Picked the car up earlier this week. Rear main oil seal fixed, also fitted a new clutch. Hmmmm. Thanks to the boys @Guglielmi.
Only thing left to fix is the brakes.....the front-end bite is non existent and the rears are locking. Have bled the system and added new fluid....it's definitely not the master-cylinder as the pedal is hard-as-a-rock. It's highly unlikely it's sticky pistons as it's not grabbing. It can only be the old knackered RS42's on the front so.....they are coming off. Bought some rather super-looking Carbon Lorraine pads from Hofmann's and they're going on the car @the weekend. Then....out on the road for a test....it's critical as if the rears still lock, i have a major problem to sort before silverstone in 2 weeks........

Radiator: Done

And so it is finished. Ol' rusty bolts and c-clips replaced with shiny new ones....al' rusty washers ground-off to be all nice and shiny ...why not?

It all took a lot longer than i thought it would - of course - having not anticipated i'd have to replace so many other bits and pieces. Mounting the fan to the rad was a real pain-in-the-ass (rivets required plus had to get all the rust off the old fixing plates) but everthing else was relatively straight forwards: filled up the system with coolant/water mix, turned on the engine w/o coolant header cap on, topped it up as the system drew air in...bled it @ engine side. let it run up to 100 degrees before the fan came in and that immediately took it down to 90 degrees.
I have to say the pro-alloy rad is absolutely a fantastically well-made bit of kit.
Front clam on and wheelarches (PITA).
Left the car @Guglielmi to start work on taking out the gearbox to get at that rear main-seal.....

Rad change day #1

"I'll do as much spannering as I can to save money...."
....was *just one* of my justifications of going racing when I sold it to Mrs R earlier this year. Today presented itself as a persistent lessor of a loan extended to my often, over-eager tongue. It was time to pay-up or shutup.
So....it was a proper day of spannering - and an enjoyable one at that. I'd like to extend a BIG thanks to Steve Guglielmi for letting me spanner in his workshop all day. I've been using Steve and his fantastic team for over 3 years now - as a paying customer - and they've never let me down. Always hugely welcoming and they ALWAYS do what they say they'll do. Whilst I'm not expecting this to be a permanent arrangement (after all, how often do you get the chance to use a first-class workshop and call on first-class help when you want FoC) Anyway.,...the deal is I change the rad before handing over to Steve's team to do the rear-main-seal. Definitely not a job I'd have even the faintest about......

So...I'm working to some time pressure but.....I didn't*really* expect to finish the job 100% today. In many respects, not working to a specific time-deadline made the spannering a tad more enjoyable and certainly, less stressful.

Some pics below........

Clam off and coolant drain..........(3hrs due to some rather spiffingly rounded-off bolts on the pax side sill. Thank you Lotus).











...this is the bleed-off valve on the exit side of the rad. It was completely perished on the top-end - an additional turn tighter disintegrated the entire silicone and rubber extension - and the break-down is visible on the inside of the pipe.....










10-yr old Rad off. Removing the fan was really fun. I love rivets.










Coolant pipes under the front crash structure. removing - and subsequently fixing new silicone hoses - was absolutely joyous. The black bar is the uprated front anti-roll bar.












5pm: front clam off, old rad off, all the old narly bolts and rusty c-clips removed and replaced with shiny new items, NS silicone hose mounted and jubilee-clip-tightened, wheels back on, roll Naomi back into workshop.
(Naomi - whilst pretty damned good to look at and on paper - ultimately extremely unreliable, peaky, high-maintenance and on occasion, law-breakingly upsetting to live with). You dirty good for nothing has-been.....see you tomorrow.....