Type 26 body mold tooling Identifiers

[garyeanderson]

At the local car show today there was one of the transition type 26 Elans with some features that Brian showed us back in 2007 in some of his pictures.
elan-f14/window-frame-question-t14118-15.html


Brian's photo shows 7 hex shaped indents molded into the left side scuttle where the back of the bonnet rests when closed. The Elan I saw today had 6 hex indents and was a bit later unit number than Brian's but still in the S1 to S2 transition period. The body number was 3672.

Does anyone care to think about what these hex indents were used to signify? Does anyone else have them? 1,2, more ?

Here are a couple of other shots of the Elan.

[mazlot]

Mine has two, not a great shot though !
Body number early 200's

[garyeanderson]

Mazlot I take it that your body was a Bourne body shell? Lotus started numbering the bodyshells molded in-house at 3000. I am guessing that there are more of these hex indents on peoples Elan's but like yours are nearly hidden by paint and other stuff.

[rodlittle]

Didnt notice any when I did my body, unit 3067

but its a bourne body
rod

[cabc26b]

2- indents on the 63 - early lotus body
4 indents on the 64 - late S1

They are round and the indents appear else where as well

[garyeanderson]

2,4,6,7

I guess that it may be some sort of a count. I thought that it may have been a mold id number but maybe it a count of the number of bodies pulled from the mold. Later when painting or body prep occurred they would feed back to the molders how much extra work was required to prep and paint. When it got to a certain number of hours it was time to refresh the body mold. Like always, I don't know and am speculating so please feel free to offer something else. I wasn't expecting anyone to know what they were for, I just wanted to see how often and where they show up. anyone else have them on there Type 26 bodyshell?

[cabc26b]

Mr Ant,

Please add to Identities "22" that was on an S2 I use to have -

My speculation would be that these marks are the ID's for mold sets. the indents are repeted in at least two other spots on the main body. I have also seen the engine and boot/trunk lids have the same number of indents on them . I have always assumed this was done to insure that you made up a car from the same mold set.

Regards,

G

PS - Blue car moved under its own power for the first time in 27 yrs this week -

[garyeanderson]

cabc26b


Regards,

G

PS - Blue car moved under its own power for the first time in 27 yrs this week -

Ye Haaaaaaaaaa!

[paddy]

I was told that Bourne had four different moulds, and there are identifiers on all of the panels, 1-4 dots, not just the body, so that all panels were matched for fit. I haven't looked for them on any of the other panels.

Paddy

[Tahoe]

Not to side track the subject, but who owns the blue car, and what color is that? I keep falling back on painting my car blue and that color (in my opinion) is the nicest blue I've seen.

I need to peal up the rubber on the area of my car and look for those tooling marks.

[Tahoe]

Okay, I pealed up the rubber that in that are and I counted 6 hexs. I think that's all of them as some werevery easy to see and a few were alittle harder to make out. My number 4050 if this helps at all.

[Famous Frank]

George, cabc26b,

Congratulations on the getting the Blue car to move under its own power!!! Hurrah !! How come you didn't get it to move under its own power to my house?

I'll have a look at the front clip I took off my car to see if it has any tooling identifiers.

Famous Frank

[Mr.Gale]

Mine has four.
26/3749 (July, 64)

Gale

[garyeanderson]

Not to side track the subject, but who owns the blue car, and what color is that? I keep falling back on painting my car blue and that color (in my opinion) is the nicest blue I've seen.

I didn't ask what the color was. In a see of British cars (BCD at the Museum of Transportation), lets just say I didn't even see the Elan when it was pointed out to me by Darren (26/5031 who owns). That said, it's a very nice color but I think that Georges Medici blue
elan-photos-f18/new-blue-paint-medici-t15369.html
is a nicer color and factory one too.

With this sampling it would appear that the mold bumps/body indents are a Bourne carry over to Lotus. None of my bodies are of Bourne origin all are molded by Lotus in house.


I thought I would look at what I had access to and see what I had forgot.

unit 26/4020 body 3569 - No indents on shelf none on doors

Unit 26/4100 body 3709 (I have only the body, the Elan is owned by someone else.
2 holes/indents on the shelf and none on the doors

Unit 26/4597 body 4246 - 4 indents on Door, none on shelf

Unit 26/4997 Body 4526 - 6 indents on Door, none on the shelf

So whats it mean? More info ids needed please as I don't know!

[cabc26b]

Mr Ant & Frank,

Thanks for the encouraging words, The punch list is down to about 50 items, some simple, some not so simple. Anyways not quite ready for a trip out of the neighborhood. Obviously slowing down...

Back on topic -

The cars in the garage have the indents repeated on the trunk lid once , the central body two more times at the back , and on the engine lid twice , one on the leading edge one on the trailing edge ( see picture) Ill keep looking .

George