More Plus2 Leaks

[yosini]

First I was losing electricity in my Twink, then water, then oil - now it appears to be leaking brake fluid somewhere....

got in it this morning to drive to work and felt very little brake pedal pressure, so looked in the reservoir and it was right down at the bottom. Told the mrs and she said 'oh yeah, I thought they were a bit crap when I drove back last night', so presumably I now have some air in the system too...Anyway, filled back up with fluid and pumped the pedal a few times and watched the level - seems to be staying steady - however I did notice a puff of air being released noise coming from the servo. Difficult to check but I thnk it is coming out of the attached - the pipe is a bit loose, and surely it should have a jubilee clip on? If I had one I'd put it on and check, but thought I'd post this first, as well as asking if there are no visible fluid leaks on any of the calipers (all dry as a bone), and along any of the pipework visible, are there any other places I could be losing fluid from?

the only thing the Plus 2 doesn't seem to be using at an alarming rate is petrol, luckily that is just the opposite and it appears to be doing around 40mpg, at least there is some good news!

Cheers

Joe

[b2hbm]

If there's no visible leaks from any of the brake pipe unions or from the master cylinder (check inside the car footwell where the actuating rod goes into the master cylinder) then my guess would be the servo is leaking internally.

It looks brand new in the photo so I'm hesitant on this one, but there's a long history of brake fluid disappearing into servos with these cars if you check on the Lotus forums ( www.lotuselan.net/forums ) and a lot of folks simply remove them and change the brake pads.

Brian

[RonJohnson]

They all do that Sir.

Unfortunately nohting useful to add, but feel your pain as am currently chasing leaks all round an M100.

[Lotus 50]

As per the above posts, if you've checked all of the unions and the pipework and the callipers aren't leaking then it's either the master cylinder or the servo - which is a bit odd as it looks new(isn) from your picture. That said, I think they're all reconditioned units these days so you may have a faulty one. If the master cylinder is leaking I'd suspect that it will either be dripping fluid into the footwell or you'll see evidence of it around the cylinder under the bonnet. There are also a few unions that can be hard to find (hidden by the engine etc). Given that the fluid level dropped right down, if the brakes have gone spongy you may have got air in the system need to bleed them through. Remember, unless the system has been customised +2s have single circuit braking systems so if the fail it's down to you, the gearbox, the handbrake and the ignition switch to stop the car. While the system is pretty simple and a fluid leak into the servo probably wouldn't cause a complete failure its worth keeping a close eye on fluid levels as a matter of routine. (apols if this is all a lesson in egg-sucking!)

Did you manage to sort your water loss?