[Chococar]

My rear cable broke next to the adjuster (see photo).

My dealer was kind enough to send me a new cable so that I could install it myself, saving me a 200 mile roundtrip. I didn't realize that it would be very difficult to thread into the sleeve.

You have to disassemble the adjuster to have any chance at all of getting it through the sleeve. I first tried pushing it through with my fingers. Then I tried pushing it with a coat hanger. I got it more than half way through, but progress stopped. It was like pushing on a rope (duh).

So then I switched approaches and made a special little tool that would screw into the adjuster (photo). I just drilled two holes through the head of a screw. I pushed a coat hanger through the sleeve, bent over the end and grabbed a wire. Then I pulled the wire through and attached my special tool. I then screwed it into the adjuster and was able to pull the new cable through very easily. Hooray!

I did a trial fit to determine the adjustment of the adjuster. I couldn't find anything in the service manual, so I set it so that the back rod would drop into the slot without having to be stretched or have any slack. When I snapped over the side rail, it felt good. I do not know if this is the correct adjustment or not, but we'll see.

I then took apart the adjuster and slipped over a piece of shrink tubing (photo), put it back together, heated up the shrink tubing to get it to shrink, then put it on the car.

Note the position of the cable compared to the bracket. Daniel (powerbookguy) told me that he got one that was installed backwards at the factory (probably Lotus' subcontractor, actually). That will tear up the weatherstripping. Check this before beginning your installation :-)

--Joe