Toe-in bar again!!
Discussion
Have got my S2 booked in for a B service in a week or two and asked the garage (Horizon Motorsport in Brum) to fix the knocking problem at the left rear (previous posts suggested this was the toe-in bar inside joint). Costs for this part have been suggested at about £15 but Horizon say that the part costs them £40. Now I am not suggesting that there is any dodgyness going on here but is it possible that they are quoting for the whole toe-in bar? Does anyone have a part No for the bit that I need so I can check the part that the lovely Horizon people have?
Hi Ryan:
What year is your S2? You'll have gathered from my previous posts that I've had the same problem. Some scouting around on my behalf by my Fleet Admin guys has discovered that there was a recall of S2s built in the summer of 2001... I think that this may relate to your problem; certainly worth checking out before you part with any cash. Also worth checking out thta heat shields have been fitted to the ball joints (should be fitted to S2s after problems with S1s)...
... still waiting for final resolution on my S2, but work all now carried out...
.. got my car back on Wednesday last week after 6 weeks at the garage, drove it down the A1 into England, and the indicator assembly blew out of the socket! So, back to the garage it is for a new indicator seal... 3 days on the road in the last 2 months... ... ...
... nobody said owning a Lotus was going to be easy... ... ...
What year is your S2? You'll have gathered from my previous posts that I've had the same problem. Some scouting around on my behalf by my Fleet Admin guys has discovered that there was a recall of S2s built in the summer of 2001... I think that this may relate to your problem; certainly worth checking out before you part with any cash. Also worth checking out thta heat shields have been fitted to the ball joints (should be fitted to S2s after problems with S1s)...
... still waiting for final resolution on my S2, but work all now carried out...
.. got my car back on Wednesday last week after 6 weeks at the garage, drove it down the A1 into England, and the indicator assembly blew out of the socket! So, back to the garage it is for a new indicator seal... 3 days on the road in the last 2 months... ... ...
... nobody said owning a Lotus was going to be easy... ... ...
My Lotus garage (in Scotland) initially told me exactly the same thing: that the problem with the tie arms was an S1 problem, and that there had never been any problem with the tie arms on the S2. We can now say that this is definitely not the case... there *have* been problems with failed tie arms on at least one S2: mine.
Lotus sent an engineer up from Norfolk to look at my car, and took away the broken parts for furhter analysis. The car has subsequently been fitted with new parts on all four wheels, and the heat shields (which were absent from my car from manufacture, an absence that probably contributed to the tie arm's failure) have been retrospectively fitted. At this point in time, my fleet department has not paid anything for parts or labour relating to these repairs... ... ...
I wouldn't bee too surprised that your Lotus garage hadn't heard of the problem in an S2 - neither had mine. But then my local dealership had serviced the car 4 times, and hadn't noticed that there weren't any heat shields... ... ...
Lotus sent an engineer up from Norfolk to look at my car, and took away the broken parts for furhter analysis. The car has subsequently been fitted with new parts on all four wheels, and the heat shields (which were absent from my car from manufacture, an absence that probably contributed to the tie arm's failure) have been retrospectively fitted. At this point in time, my fleet department has not paid anything for parts or labour relating to these repairs... ... ...
I wouldn't bee too surprised that your Lotus garage hadn't heard of the problem in an S2 - neither had mine. But then my local dealership had serviced the car 4 times, and hadn't noticed that there weren't any heat shields... ... ...
some notes:
the part you are talking about is "toe links"
they are only fitted to the rear of the car, not the front.
they do wear out, they are a std pattern ball joint, cost something like £20 from most factors, Lotus probaly chage somewhat more for them.
there was a problem with some early S1 Elises where they came loose, this is NOT the same problem.
the part you are talking about is "toe links"
they are only fitted to the rear of the car, not the front.
they do wear out, they are a std pattern ball joint, cost something like £20 from most factors, Lotus probaly chage somewhat more for them.
there was a problem with some early S1 Elises where they came loose, this is NOT the same problem.
OK can anyone finally put this bleeding issue to sleep. I have no idea if my car has heatshields - should it? I presume the whole toe-in mechanism is not replaced but people have referred to the ball joint. Issue here is that this is the outer joint on the illustrations I have seen but then I have been told the issue is a common one for the inner joint?????? Be a bit of a bugger if I get the inner replaced and then the problem is the outer.
Last post on this point... ... ...
Firstly... apologies for lack of clear use of vocab... Simon is, of course, absolutely correct to point out "toe links" at the back... "tie bars" are, of course only found at the front... I prefer driving my Lotus to talking and tinkering with it, so apologies for any lack of clarity...
Secondly, here's a link to some (possibly useful) diagrams of the suspension assemblies, front and back, that may help: www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/thecar/suspension/index.html
Thirdly a few points, most made elsewhere, relating to my own experience, and the feedback that I have had from Lotus.
- S2's should have heat shields fitted at the rear of the car; this is to prevent the ball joint from being over heated by the exhaust, causing the joint to seize up. This has led in S1s to...
- Toe links breaking as a result of the stress caused in the toe link by the seized joint. This happened to my S2, and once I have the broken parts back from Lotus, I'll try and post a photo on this site...
- Toe links coming loose, as mentioned by Simon, is, as I understand it, a separate but related issue... perhaps Scuffham could elaborate... ... ...
- Ryan's car is a 51 plate... and so is mine... so could there be a problem related to a particular manufacturing period...?... ... ...
- My Lotus dealership was unclear as to whether or not my car should have had heatshields fitted at the time it was manufactured. I was initially told that *all* S2s were fitted with these, but this became less clear as time went on.
Ryan: perhaps you should ask your garage directly whether your car has heat shields fitted, and, if not, whether these heat shields should have been fitted at the time of manufacture.
Perhaps there is a lotus dealer/advanced mechanic type on this forum who can get you further with the technical informaton you're looking for. Sorry not to be more concise, but I'll only offer information, not conjecture.
Best of luck... ... ...
Firstly... apologies for lack of clear use of vocab... Simon is, of course, absolutely correct to point out "toe links" at the back... "tie bars" are, of course only found at the front... I prefer driving my Lotus to talking and tinkering with it, so apologies for any lack of clarity...
Secondly, here's a link to some (possibly useful) diagrams of the suspension assemblies, front and back, that may help: www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/thecar/suspension/index.html
Thirdly a few points, most made elsewhere, relating to my own experience, and the feedback that I have had from Lotus.
- S2's should have heat shields fitted at the rear of the car; this is to prevent the ball joint from being over heated by the exhaust, causing the joint to seize up. This has led in S1s to...
- Toe links breaking as a result of the stress caused in the toe link by the seized joint. This happened to my S2, and once I have the broken parts back from Lotus, I'll try and post a photo on this site...
- Toe links coming loose, as mentioned by Simon, is, as I understand it, a separate but related issue... perhaps Scuffham could elaborate... ... ...
- Ryan's car is a 51 plate... and so is mine... so could there be a problem related to a particular manufacturing period...?... ... ...
- My Lotus dealership was unclear as to whether or not my car should have had heatshields fitted at the time it was manufactured. I was initially told that *all* S2s were fitted with these, but this became less clear as time went on.
Ryan: perhaps you should ask your garage directly whether your car has heat shields fitted, and, if not, whether these heat shields should have been fitted at the time of manufacture.
Perhaps there is a lotus dealer/advanced mechanic type on this forum who can get you further with the technical informaton you're looking for. Sorry not to be more concise, but I'll only offer information, not conjecture.
Best of luck... ... ...
OK, more clarification...
the heat shield issue is not unique to the S2.
what happend is that the left hand in-board ball joint (at the rear) is very close to the 180 degree bend in the exhaust. If the car is driven *enthusiastically* the exhaust gets somewhat hot, and radiates heat out all around.
this then causes the ball-joint to get hot, the grease to dry out, and the joint to start to creak.
if you ignore this long enough, I guess they will eventially fail, that said, it will go horribly loose first (and then screw up the handling) way before they will fail.
*most* cars now have a small tin cover over the joint to prevent the radiated heat cooking the joint, these are actualy just a bit of bent steel that's riveted to the sub-frame in the same way the uni-ball kit's cover is.
there are other issues with the toe links in Motorsport/track use to do with the link bar itself snapping under high loads, this is nothing to do with the heat issue though.
the heat shield issue is not unique to the S2.
what happend is that the left hand in-board ball joint (at the rear) is very close to the 180 degree bend in the exhaust. If the car is driven *enthusiastically* the exhaust gets somewhat hot, and radiates heat out all around.
this then causes the ball-joint to get hot, the grease to dry out, and the joint to start to creak.
if you ignore this long enough, I guess they will eventially fail, that said, it will go horribly loose first (and then screw up the handling) way before they will fail.
*most* cars now have a small tin cover over the joint to prevent the radiated heat cooking the joint, these are actualy just a bit of bent steel that's riveted to the sub-frame in the same way the uni-ball kit's cover is.
there are other issues with the toe links in Motorsport/track use to do with the link bar itself snapping under high loads, this is nothing to do with the heat issue though.
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