Saltire wrote:Jõao, I think from your post you may be under a slight misapprehension. Lotus originally listed two B post caps: for vehicles up to and including chassis M6800, and M6801 and after. The South West Lotus caps are a modification of - and improvement to - the later Lotus version whereby the tension induced by spring extension is countered by a screw and brass nutsert, rather than a thin piece of plastic. It is therefore different from (and IMHO vastly superior to) either of the previous versions.
im not aware of a 3rd design.
this brass nutsert design may be the answer to the flaws. i dont believe i have ever seen it.
I have 2 designs in my possession, the one fitted in my 91 SE and the design with a metal hinge from the 92 NA
its obvious that the first design has flaws as they seem to break regularly, however after seeing the broken one from the alternative design. i think that is also flawed. the metal hinge does not allow for sideways play. and although in theory the hood frame movement is on a single axis, (matching the axis supported by the metal hinge) there is a lot of play in the structure itself allowing for movement in other directions, which given the extra rigidity of the metal hinge, makes the later design "self destructive" (as it happened in my NA)
my intention was to make a plastic attachment bracket with enough play to not damage itself when the hood is going up (and wobbles a bit), as well as having some kind of self centering actuation when the springs make it retract when the hood goes down, (longer, slightly curved flaps with thicker walls being my first idea.) it will take a few iterations to design something im happy to make public.
it will probably be winter before i am going to look into this project again.
I Am all in favor of specialist companies to designing their replacements and improvements. unfortunately I regularly find their pricing a bit difficult to accept when i know i can produce the parts in my own time.