Hood tray joint

[William2]

I am in the process of fitting a replacement hood tray to my S4 Elan, a fiddly job it has to be said to get it anywhere near a reasonable fit! I have to say it is areas such as this that give the Elan a bit of a "kit car" label. As the butt joint between the curved rear bodywork and the tray is pretty poor, has anyone tried using some kind of sealant to fill the gaps (silicone or otherwise). It would help keep the noise levels down with the hood up.

[nebogipfel]

I am in the process of fitting a replacement hood tray to my S4 Elan, a fiddly job it has to be said to get it anywhere near a reasonable fit! I have to say it is areas such as this that give the Elan a bit of a "kit car" label. As the butt joint between the curved rear bodywork and the tray is pretty poor, has anyone tried using some kind of sealant to fill the gaps (silicone or otherwise). It would help keep the noise levels down with the hood up.

I think you are being a bit unfair and hypercritical if you don't mind me saying so.

The replacement trays I have seen are not wonderful and I suspect they are being produced from old worn out moulds. I'm not saying originals were much better but you have to remember we are not talking about steel pressings but fiberglass panels designed at the dawn of the use of the material for car bodies. Lotus shells of that era are not the best quality but they are pretty light, pretty strong and er.......pretty

There is no reason I can think of why you shouldn't use silicone to fill the gaps if you wish but by the time it's all together and the edging trim is on you should find it's a pretty reasonable end result. With the hood up the noise from that area will fade into insignificance particularly if you fit the S4 twin tailpipe exhaust.

My solution to noise on a drophead Elan is keep the hood down as much as possible and so long as the rain isn't heavy you will not get wet if you keep moving The Elan is a far nicer car with the top down but then so are most convertibles of that era.

[William2]

Fair comment.

[William2]

As a point of interest, my hood tray came from Boss Motors who use the original Lotus moulds so I would imagine these are one of the best for being the correct shape. I note your point about the S4 shells being one of the better built Elan marks. I have beefed up the grp in certain areas such as the boot floor and inside the front nose section for added strength and weight!!

[Gray]

Hi

Rather than sealing and using the small hood studs to support the hood tray, I bonded my hood tray in, which makes everything much more rigid.

Cheers Gray

[Orsom Weels]

Well that's a coincidence, not only have I spent half of today trying to fit a Boss motors hood tray to a series 3 Elan, (which I have now given up on, it's going to be easier to repair & fit the original) but I too have been able to have a chat with a friend of mine that worked at Hethel from 67 through to the Bugatti era in the nineties. He remembers things in much the same way as Pete's contact but to add a little, he says Chapman didn't buy JLC marine until Elan production was almost finished, by which time Lotus were already experimenting with vacuum moulding technology in readiness for the forthcoming Elite/Eclat range. One of Chapmans other interests was boats & he believes, in contrast to Chris's version of events, Chapman bought the boat building company as he thought he could build a better boat for less cost using Lotus technology. To the best of his knowledge, there were no JLC marine staff brought in to Lotus, even if there had been, they would not have been working on Elan or +2 development as by then it was widely known that both models were at the end of their run & all efforts were towards the new models. In his opinion, the early production at Hethel was quite good for hand laid up moulding, but as time went on & the moulds got tired, quality fell, with the last Sprints & +2's being the worst, as by then they were not even allowed enough time to cure properly before being pulled from the moulds, shifted about with fork lifts & stacked any old how until being required, by which time they were quite badly distorted. He also remembers a chap leaving Lotus to set up his own business & lotus then subcontracting rectification work out to him, eventually selling him some of the old moulds. He believes this became.& still is Boss motors. Lotus were a big employer in the area & living close by all my life, I have met & talked to many who worked there at one time or another & all paint a very similar picture of life at Lotus in the Chapman era. Racing was his main interest & got his best attention, everything else was just a means to that end & things had to be done for minimum outlay & maximum profit, corners were often cut to achieve this & by all accounts Fred Bushel held the purse strings even tighter than Colin himself.
Tim

[nebogipfel]

Well that's a coincidence, not only have I spent half of today trying to fit a Boss motors hood tray to a series 3 Elan, (which I have now given up on, it's going to be easier to repair & fit the original) but I too have been able to have a chat with a friend of mine that worked at Hethel from 67 through to the Bugatti era in the nineties. He remembers things in much the same way as Pete's contact but to add a little, he says Chapman didn't buy JLC marine until Elan production was almost finished, by which time Lotus were already experimenting with vacuum moulding technology in readiness for the forthcoming Elite/Eclat range. One of Chapmans other interests was boats & he believes, in contrast to Chris's version of events, Chapman bought the boat building company as he thought he could build a better boat for less cost using Lotus technology. To the best of his knowledge, there were no JLC marine staff brought in to Lotus, even if there had been, they would not have been working on Elan or +2 development as by then it was widely known that both models were at the end of their run & all efforts were towards the new models. In his opinion, the early production at Hethel was quite good for hand laid up moulding, but as time went on & the moulds got tired, quality fell, with the last Sprints & +2's being the worst, as by then they were not even allowed enough time to cure properly before being pulled from the moulds, shifted about with fork lifts & stacked any old how until being required, by which time they were quite badly distorted. He also remembers a chap leaving Lotus to set up his own business & lotus then subcontracting rectification work out to him, eventually selling him some of the old moulds. He believes this became.& still is Boss motors. Lotus were a big employer in the area & living close by all my life, I have met & talked to many who worked there at one time or another & all paint a very similar picture of life at Lotus in the Chapman era. Racing was his main interest & got his best attention, everything else was just a means to that end & things had to be done for minimum outlay & maximum profit, corners were often cut to achieve this & by all accounts Fred Bushel held the purse strings even tighter than Colin himself.
Tim

Thanks for that Tim

[jcocking]

Split Discussion on Body Quality to a new topic. Performed general clean up.