Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Before I get into the door I was hoping to get some thoughts about what might be causing this.

It sounds like metal hitting glass. It takes a medium size bump to cause it.

Thanks!
-Kyle

No pad on bottom window stop. Glass hitting metal. The top edge of the winch pulley bracket has a pad fitted to prevent this.

I agree with Mike. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure you can't access the pulley bracket without removing the window frame from the door.

On my +2 with the same symptoms, a new window channel felt from Sue Miller solved the problems. I have no knowledge of small Elans though.

Roy

Thanks Guys!

Roger,

What is that white piece stuck to the bottom of your window glass? Presumably it's to stop the tendency for the wire/cable to rub against the glass as it goes down (and make a nasty scraping noise). What's it made of and is it effective?

The next time I play with the window mechanism I will look into adding a shim to the down stop, perhaps 1/4"-3/8", so that the glass stops a little higher than standard. This would hopefully stop the end of the cable, clamped in the lower corner of the glass, from grinding noisily into the pulley wheel. This only occurred to me recently and I don't have a frame out to check if the idea makes sense, but I think it might.

Nick

Hi Nick,
When I was bench testing the window after rebuild the cable was indeed contacting the lower edge of the glass and making a horrible noise as you say. I stuck a piece of plastic cut from an ice cream tub to the glass and it certainly quietened it down but would not stay put .. couldn't find a suitable adhesive at the time. As it turned out the problem went away when the frame was installed back in the door with the packing washers on the lower mount bolts .. the frame is pretty flexible and I guess it was being twisted a bit by the tension on the lift cable when raising the glass on the bench.

I don't recall a problem with the cable end contacting the bottom pulley (although it was 11 years ago that I last had it apart) but if you do have an issue with that I think your idea of raising the landing pad should work.
Cheers

I use pieces of a cork flooring tile as padding on my windows wires & contact points.

So we think that it's not possible to reach this stop even with the motor out and the window up?

I think you should be able to remove the window motor and at least see if the down stop pad is present. It may be reachable .

elancoupe wrote:I think you should be able to remove the window motor and at least see if the down stop pad is present. It may be reachable .

You may be right .....

I have a somewhat similar problem in that my glass rattles against something metallic when it's half way up. It's fine at the top and bottom but goes through a rattle period as it moves (when the car's moving anyway, it's fine while stationary). I've had the window frame out more times than I can remember, put pads against everything I can find and it still rattles. Any suggestions as to where I've missed welcomed.

It's not a huge problem to take the window frame out - probably half an hour if none of the bolts / screws are stuck, so probably worth doing to get proper access to the mechanism. If the glass breaks you'll have to do it anyway. It's putting it back (or more specifically putting the lock mechanism back together again) that needs either prehensile fingers or a large expletive vocabulary. By that stage though you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you've stopped the rattle.