Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hello everyone,
Ross has been suffering from minor flooding in Elan on this road trip. To quote today's blog post,
"I read today's post #19 and felt your dampness...https://xcountryelan.com/2021/04/29/rou ... -nineteen/

" Each door of my little Lotus has a very efficient water routing system that enables a lovely waterfall to emerge from the leading edge and fill the footwell. I wonder if some MacGyvering would find a way to redirect that water to the outside rather than my leg."

The underside of my Elan's upper door opening near the hinge has a piece of closed cell foam 1/4" square that runs along the underside from just inside the windscreen gutter all the way to the front of the door opening. It stops the water traveling under the upper part of the door opening on the body ahead of the windscreen post. It allows the water to drain into the top of the door from the windscreen forward. From there it drains through the holes in the bottom of the door.

On my car, the passenger side still had the foam, but it had been painted. On the drivers side, it was gone. Only the drivers side footwell got wet when I first bought the car. Once I found the foam on the passenger side, I replicated the foam strip on the drivers side. It didn't totally eliminate water leakage, some still came in through the hood, from holes in the top of the footwell. It eliminated almost 90% of the flooding. Fixing the holes in the top of the footwell helped the other 10%.

My Elan is currently apart and under restoration. I don't have access to take photos.

Could someone take photos of the rubber strips that travel from the base of the windshield frame forward under the door opening to the front bulkhead of the door opening and post them here? I let Ross know I would post the request. Many thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Dan Wise

If you are referring to the door "secondary seals" here a some pictures from an S4:

https://macgregorukcarparts.com

Though I am biased as I adore old Canada

1owner69Elan wrote:If you are referring to the door "secondary seals" here a some pictures from an S4:

IMG_5534.jpeg

IMG_5535.jpeg

Thanks!

That's what I was looking for. Those are the evolution for the later cars. The earlier cars used 1/4" square closed cell foam with self adhesive tape, or glued on with weatherstrip adhesive.

The water dripping from the windscreen gutter and running over the side of the scuttle would flow into the door openings and drip into the top of the doors where there's a matching gutter with drain holes. The water drains through the door out the holes drilled in the bottom. If the foam strips were not there, the water would simply run all the way to the inside of the door and drain into the cockpit.

Hope Ross is reading this. He can get adhesive foam from any home improvement store or hardware
store along his route.

I emailed him the photos. Hope he checks email soon.

Thanks Dan and 1owner and Greg,

I did check it out when I got to an internet connection at my hotel. I didn't put the sticky foam exactly there as shown in the pictures but now I will do so. What a great resource this forum is!

Cheers,

Ross

Sounds like the info needed to sort it out has been provided, but I wanted to say thanks for the link to Ross’s blog.