Door Fit

[wobblyweb]

I remember seeing an article about cutting the door bottoms on a Sprint to allow the door side to move into alignment. I think this was done without affecting the door paintwork.
Anybody know the article and can advise please ?
Now seems like a good time to give it a try.
Thank you

[h20hamelan]

Cutting, reduces the door thickness. Therefore, add door seal thickness, only in that section you cut. Impossible. So you might need to add the 3/16 or whatever your kerf, elsewhere so as to not allow ingress of dust dirt into the cabin.
I simply re-twisted, as fatigue most likely occurs from not enough fibre glass in door skin from factory. The high torque of window motor, likely twists door.
If you look at photos of elans leaving factory. The lower edge is straight.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=42449&start=30

Pg 2, last pic shows how
Pg 3, shows results

I am glad, I didn’t pretend to be a lotus engineer. I beleve we all are

[gjz30075]

This might be what you're looking for:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11566

[europatek]

I did this to my S4. It worked out well. Here's what I did;
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19855&p=125090#p125090

[wobblyweb]

Thank you for the help.
Europatek that's what I was looking for. Does it stress the outer door skin by bending it in?
I have been looking at it today and the door seal seems to be causing most of the problem.
I need new seals so tried cutting the rubber., firstly by making a cut so the round section of the seal had an open edge, like a "C" section. Did not make much difference. Then cut the round section off where it
squashes with the door. This did make a difference and the door closes much better. Don't know what effect it has on water proofing. I will keep experimenting before I start cutting the door
Thank you

[Concrete-crusher]

I did mine, I'd say its the. Outer skin that moves in so can't see how that affects the door seal, also you are only removing a thin sliver and if done carefully the outer skin paintwork is unaffected.

I can't see how the window motor torques the door as its bolted to a steel frame that sits in the door, unless the whole frame twists, anyway its an easy mod.

Good luck steve

[europatek]

I spent alot of time messing with the doors on my car to improve the fit and flushness. This is what I discovered and what I settled on;
- The door seal needs to be the correct section. My car had the wrong ones which pushed the door out so I found a section from a local supplier that looked like the origial one. I tried several before I settled on the one that worked the best.
- I fitted new nylon pivot pins in the door hinges and reconditioned the lower body bobbins for best fit to the pins.
- With the window frame/glass assembly out of the door I could align the doors shell pretty well. However when the window frame/glass assembly was fitted the weight of it twists the door shell (the door shells are not very stiff) the the poor fit was again highlighted.
- So I decided to remove some material from the door inner panel as described. This did stress the skin of the door and it did end up with a crack in the paint/gel coat. I wasn't that fussed about it as there was already other cracks in the body and paint (typical classic Lotus patina!) and the car overall was still very presentable.
- The seal face on the door inner panel is warped and needs to be filled and flattened to run parallel to seal/seal flange on the body.
Hope that helps. Regards, Matt.