Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi Anna,
i suggest you do the repair to the Bonnet like "Miles Wilkins" . That's to say grind out cracks to a feather edge maybe 2 or 3 cms each side . Then use ONLY Resin and grp Mat. Then finish ONLY with Resin and grp Tissue. NO FILLER and there will be NO shrinkage and the repair will never come back.
Alan

Fortunately I haven't had that problem when doing my rear bearings.
I have, however, disassembled bearings in situ in similar situations.

By that I mean getting to work with a thin punch, a sharp screwdriver, and a hammer.
I'm not sure if there's enough room on the inner bearing to do this, but it looks like there is.

Punch through the oil seal with the screwdriver and tear/cut it out of the way.

Use the punch on the rivets between the balls. Eventually, as you turn it, the rivetted strip gets so mangled you can pull its remains out with a pair of pliers.

The bearing is still together but at this point it pays to remember how they put the balls in the bearing originally.
If you push all the balls together, ( as there is now nothing separating them ), you can give the shaft a small tap, in the opposite direction to where the balls are now sitting, and the shaft will move enough to allow all the balls to be poked out.
Or in, you can retrieve them later.

If you're lucky you'll only have to do this to one bearing, but no big deal if it's two.
You'll end up with a shaft with inner races still attached, and a housing with the outer races still fitted.
At least they are now separated and much easier to work on.

Careful work with a Dremel, and a cold punch, will sort the inner races, ( done that a few times).
Don't slit all the way, as close as you dare then smack it with your chisel, ( safety glasses please.... : )
You could probably do the same with the outers but I wonder if the standard industry trick wouldn't work on these.
Which is to MIG weld a bead around the inside of the race which shrinks the race as it cools.

Picking up useful bits of hard steel from the scrapyard I could never figure out why the big bearing races had weld all around the inside, until a fitter explained it to me.

Ralph.

Thats how the bonnet is looking now The crack is full through 3 to 4 in!
Good to know there are some options for the bearings.
None of the boys took responsibility
for the misstreament of the bonnet. Maybe I spray their cars pink pearl flakes overnight

So this is, how they came out:
removed the outer bearing plastic seal, grinded away the nine litte rivets from the bullet cage, removed the outer cage and carefully tinkered down the waves of the lower cage. This ended with a bit of excessive material of the lower cage "waves" which I cut out. Now bullets could be pushed into one corner. With a Proxxon Micro Mot and a 4.5 mm Korund tool, a passage was cut into inner and outer race, putting 3 layers of gaffer tape over shaft and alloy housing for protection.
Took a while
After liftig out the bullets, I put on the kettle...
Pouring the hot water on the alloy, it expanded happily and just little tinkering with a decent hammer drifted the shaft/bearing assy out.
Here we are...

Yes in the end if nothing else works a grinder does a good job at removing shafts and bearings

cheers
Rohan