Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

To align the doors of the Elan what procedural method to adopt to realign with the rest of the body?
I'm not talking about the internal top-to-bottom fit on the front of the doors, but the cronic disease of yawning.
If the specialists could indicate their procedure.

Hello really nobody!

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11566&start=

Sorry for the late reply. I was actually doing this fix yesterday. I used the method that cuts a slim wedge about an inch in from the outer skin then reglassed when the fit was good. I'm not sure that the method that splits the halves would have worked. My doors were bowed out along the bottom a bit not just twisted.

My S4 also had a thin wedge sliced out in situ as the front was OK. This made getting the right fit easier along the bottom and back. Dan

I took everything off the door as far as the window mechanism and all and then laid in about as much glass on the inside part of the door that I thought I would be taking off from the outside, remounted the door and protecting the rest of the car ground down the outside of the door until I got the overall finish in the door that I wanted as far as fit, Gordon Sauer

When I did that mod (S3) I first used a felt tip marker leaning on the sill to mark on the door with a rough approximation of how far out it was. Like most I've seen mine was ok at the front top/bottom and rear top, but the lower rear was about 1/2" out.

Then I used a cutting disc (1/8" ?) to slit the door just behind the outer skin. The cut started maybe 6-9" from the front and went to the rear and then up the door to close where the lock goes. The longer and "gentler" the taper on the wedge cut the smoother the door skin panel will look.

There's a limit to how much you can cut out because the door window frame sits along the base of the door. You're not moving the front of the door by much (if any) but at the at the rear you reduce the clearance for the window frame base. There's no point having a door with a perfect shut line if you can't fit the window frame !

I think I took roughly 1/2" out of mine, maybe more but it's certainly very tight on the frame now. Once it was sitting nicely I used acetone to clean inside the door panel and fibreglass it all back together. It's a simple but time consuming job, fortunately most of the work is out of sight save for the final external finishing.

Brian

My new midweight doors and shell fit well on the RHS but the LHS had the problem. John

Hi Geni,
Had the same problem on my Sprint, it went to SMS in Spalding for complete respray and door modification.
If you click on this link viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30547
you can see what they did to the doors. They also re-contoured the headlamp pods and front wings above the doors so that everything lined up.
Cheers
Ian

silverlink wrote:Hi Geni,
Had the same problem on my Sprint, it went to SMS in Spalding for complete respray and door modification.
If you click on this link viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30547
you can see what they did to the doors. They also re-contoured the headlamp pods and front wings above the doors so that everything lined up.
Cheers
Ian

Very interesting what they did with the wings. On my Sprint, the doors have the same issues. I'm planning to take my car apart and fix "all" the body issues and respray/color change this fall/winter/spring. I figured the only way to fix the top/front issue was to add material to the wings, but I couldn't see how to do that and have it blend in correctly with the windscreen pillar, so I thought I'd just address the bottom/rear stickout. I'll take another look at it.