Bleeding brakes...

[EuropaTC]

The wheel cylinder "floats" in the backing plate so it works on both shoes.
John

That was my understanding as well, with everything clean and new spring clips it is possible to push the cylinder fractionally either way. We're not talking about a lot of movement here, maybe 0.025 to 0.040 " ?  I've never tried to measure but it can't be a great deal.

Before I gave up with the rear drums I did spend some time trying to get a decent handbrake. On mine I found I was "losing movement" at most points due to wear so replaced the cylinders, the actuating arms from the cylinder to cable (Triumph parts) and fitted new pins.  I even tried the "handbrake helper", a sort of modification that Triumph issued at one point to increase leverage so the efficiency of the handbrake seems to have been an issue with the Triumph boys as well. 

An illustration towards the end of this thread http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=108.msg9594#msg9594

The most improvement I had was modifying the shoes themselves which altered the angle of the backplate actuating arm and put it's rest position hard up against the backplate. Then I found the "steady plate"  part, not in the parts list but apparently standard and does the same job. Some guys on here had them fitted from new but I'd never seen them on my car. Again, pictures on the previous thread.

The photo here shows where I ended up. This did work with little travel at the umbrella handle but I'd not claim it to be a good handbrake. I never tried the test used by Autocar which was to measure the stopping distance from 30mph (over 200 feet) but I'd be surprised if it was any better.

Brian

[Steve_Lindford]

The strange adjuster in my tunnel is just an add on. I have the usual set up with the 2 nuts and the horseshoe - but I suspect it was added to take up the slack in a stretched cable - which despite looking like it was designed by Fred Flintstone does the job quite well - and can be modified by one hand.

[StephenH]

In recent years I have used a vacuum oil extractor to bleed and flush brake fluid through the lines.
Very easy to use and almost no chance of making a mess as the fluid all gets sucked into the vacuum bottle.

I bought one to suck the oil out of my Smart (no oil drain plug in the sump) but as it came with a set of tubes for brake bleeding I gave it a go and became a convert to this method.

[jbcollier]

In some systems, the vacuum method may suck air past seals.

[StephenH]

I'm sure it could, on three different cars to date I haven't had any issues.
Have replaced the Europa brake fluid (including replacing lines along the radius arms) and it made the job easy.
I do have a quite large receptacle so don't draw much of a vacuum, a couple of pumps seems to be enough and allows a lot of air and/or fluid to be drawn from a corner.

[buzzer]

I tried the vacuum pump system on my TCS to bleed the brakes, but it draws in air, I suspect via the threads on the bleed nipples.

[FranV8]

You need to put some grease on the threads first.  I might have even used copper grease on a clutch slave cylinder I did (not Lotus...)

[buzzer]

good idea, I'll try that.

[EuropaTC]

On the topic of sealing the threads on bleed nipples, these days I usually wrap a couple of turns of that ptfe thread seal tape that you use for plumbing. In fact I seem to use it in a lot of "non-plumbing" applications, the drain plugs on engines and gearboxes for starters !

Brian