Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I remember reading years ago that the cracks at the corners of the light pods were caused by not lubricating the pivots enough. Wether there is any truth in this I dunno...

Robbie

Robbie693 wrote:I remember reading years ago that the cracks at the corners of the light pods were caused by not lubricating the pivots enough. Wether there is any truth in this I dunno...

Robbie

I would doubt that, esp. with stock bobbins in pot metal. My guess is that these kind of cracks start with careless hand pressure on the center of the front of the car, and the light openings make for a weak spot where the bridge with the bonnet opening is shortest.

Slowtus wrote:

1969Plus2 wrote:And what was the conclusion of this great debate?!?! What does one define as being "at speed"?

I'm trying to help here.

Take the advice I passed on - or don't.

Apologies, I was just asking with enthusiastic curiosity! Please don't take it the wrong way.

Imho it is a bad design.
For repairs i use only resin and matt, then finish with tissue. No p40 or fillers.
Alan

1969Plus2 wrote:

Slowtus wrote:

1969Plus2 wrote:And what was the conclusion of this great debate?!?! What does one define as being "at speed"?

I'm trying to help here.

Take the advice I passed on - or don't.

Apologies, I was just asking with enthusiastic curiosity! Please don't take it the wrong way.

All good.

I slowed down the rate at which the light pods go up and down by restricting the flow of air into and out of the vacuum pod. I only have one pod on my +2.

I fitted a home made clamp out of two nuts and bolts and two strips of steel to a rubber section I let into the air line. I then adjusted the clamp to give a 3 second rise and fall.

No more cracks - at least from headlamp pod impact!

Dave Chapman.

This is a common stress crack area and really needs to be reinforced. When the bodywork on my +2 was refurbed, this and several other areas were reinforced. No cracks to date - 10 years & 40k miles on. Cracks have appeared elswhere, door quarterlight area, rear window lower corner and a couple of others .

I also use Landrover Defender headlamps which are made of plastic and weigh a fraction of the glass ones, so less stress. Beam pattern is brilliant (reflector has the beam pattern, not the lens front)

Jeremy
PS not sure the slow ascent of my headlamps can be called 'snapping open'!

+1 for being reinforced, both on top and the underside.
Other areas I reinforced was the Boot hinge.

Mine cracked very similar. I removed the pod and cleaned the back of the body in the area then built up the inside with fibre Matt and resin. I effectively extended the side flange of the pod opening back to the vertical flange of the bonnet opening, thus reinforcing the area. That was many years ago and it has stood the test of time well. I?ve since fitted an electric motor to operate the pods, this stops the pod opening with a bang at speed as it is positively controlled over its full range of movement, unlike the vacuum system that can be overcome by wind pressure and hit the stops hard

Interesting discussion here, and I am thinking about my pod openings now, which are crack free at the moment. Good idea to reinforce the underside (I'll add it to the list!), but how about modifying the stop (wherever that is, I've not looked) for a softer landing?

I suppose there are problems around the pivot bolts also.

For the Stops there should be Rubber Buffers that fit over the set screw heads
Like the Rubber Buffers for the rear of the Boot Lid.

Alan

Yes available from the usual UK suppliers, here is an example link:-

https://www.sjsportscars.com/parts-and- ... B6113Z.htm

I've got the same problem on my Sprint.

Is there any trick to get the mat to stick to the underside of the horizontal surface?

If you don?t have an anti-gravity machine it?s messy but cover up everything else in the area with plastic sheet and put on one layer at a time. Just keep stippling the resin into the fibreglass mat until it starts to go off.

Ensure the surface has no paint or oil etc.

Rough up the area with course sandpaper.

Wipe the area with a clean rag lightly dampened with some Acetone. Be very careful with Acetone it will destroy paint surface and read the H&S data. You can use the Acetone to clean your brushes and mixing container afterwards.

Cut 2 or 3 ?Patches? of fibreglass chopped strand mat. The patches need to be progressively smaller so the second patch applied is smaller than the first.

Then apply the mixed resin to the car surface and fibreglass patches and position the first patch.
Stipple the patch with the brush adding more resin in needed to soak the patch. Do the same with the other patch/s.

Note: - If doing the upper surface, use less patches of chopped strand and finish with 1 or 2 patches of fibreglass Tissue. This leaves an improved surface.

And as noted above by Bigbaldbloke, cover up everything with plastic sheeting and stipple if necessary until resin is starting to go off.

I purchased my products from East Coast Fibre Glass supplies. They also have some video guides.
I have no association, just a satisfied customer.

https://www.ecfibreglasssupplies.co.uk/