Cracking noise when opening door.

[GPT27]

Each time I open my door there is a point just as the door becomes open enough to get in where the hinge makes a crack kind of noise. The front wing flexes out and then pops in with the crack. I guess something needs greasing but I have no idea which part. Any ideas?

There is also some metallic sounding vibration in the doors that I here when the speakers are up a bit or when going over bumps. Are they all like this or is my door full of swarf or something?

Cheers guys.

[Darren]

Sounds like your 'A' panel needs adjusting/securing.

The 'A' panel is the small panel that has the side repeater mounted in it.

Depending the 'revison' the A panel either clips in at the top or is mounted by a bolt/nut arrangement. At the bottom, the panel is held in by a 'clamp' type arrangement i.e a strip of metal, held in place by two bolts, secured into two 'rawl nuts'.

The bottom of the panel is simply 'pushed' under the clamp assembly and then clamped into place. Now the rawl nut assemblies break down overtime (as they're made of rubber), resulting in the 'failure' of the clamp, which in turn means the panel 'kicks' out at the bottom, which in turn catches on the door.

If you're lucky, you could put both hands on the bottom of the panel and give it a firm push & that should suffice for a period of time. If you're not so lucky, then you'll need to remove the panel and replace the rawl nuts.

Now from experiance, you'll most likely have to grind of the top fixing, as they'll be rusted in place. then you'll need to 'fashion' new bolts (square heads), which I did using a 'coach bolt' & a grinder. Which I then glued in place with Expoy resin. After that, you'll have to try and 'dig out' the old rawl nuts i.e they deffo won't come out in one piece, that's assuming they come out at all i.e they might just disappear in the sill.

Anyways, any problems give me a shout.
Darren.

[TC]

If the A panel is loose at the bottom don't keep pushing it back like I did. After a couple of years pushing it back in place. Eventually the top mounts fatigued and it parted company on the M5.

If its loose get some new rawl nuts.

A panels seem to be getting like rocking horse sh1t!

Tony

[Matt RI]

I was just playing around with this over the w/e. Finally getting to some of my very long list of things to mess with...

I started to notice this after a little while- took me a bit as it was on the passenger side door. Don't leave it too long or it will start to rub and leave a mark as evidenced below...

I started on this prior to reading Darren's intelligent comments- I was thinking that if I just loosened up the bolts holding the bottom of the panel on (see picture marked 'fasteners') I would be able to shift the bottom of the door in place and no more problem. That attempt worked, for all of 5 minutes... Then it was back and the panel was not going to shift further inward.

In looking at the travel of the door, the problem as I see it is that when the door is opened to the full extension there are two bits (the upper hinge and the wire conduit) which flex that A panel outward (see picture marked 'contact points'). When the door reaches it's outer most travel, you can see the pressure it puts on the panel. I am thinking of filing the bolt or hinge slightly and seeing what relief I can pull to make the wire packet conduit not as tight as it is. Unless anyone has any other ideas?

The thought of cracking that panel is too much to bear!

[Virgin Dave]

Hi

I bought one with the same problem and as I'm getting it resprayed this week I would like to fix the doors properly before the shiney new paint goes the same way as the old stuff.

TC, where did you get the new rawl nuts? Are they readily available?

As you can pobably tell I'm new to the site as well as owning a Lotus, so your help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Dave

[John_W]

Dave,
ebay item #4652380324 : Lotus Elise Exige Rawlnuts Rubber Fasteners / well nuts .

£9.99  Buy it now
End time: 24-Jun-06 15:02:21 BST (5 days 16 hours)
Postage costs: £1.50 (discount available)

New Lotus S1 Elise / Exige rubber "Rawlnut" type rubber fixings (sometimes called well nuts ?). Ten high quality neoprene rubber nuts, with an embedded 5mm brass thread (M5) plus ten M5 x 16mm button head socket stainless steel bolts, and ten stainless washers

John

[Virgin Dave]

John

Many thanks. I hadn't realised that there were quite so many Lotus items on ebay, but got some all the same.

Thanks for the steer...

Dave

[Tim]

Hi all,

I,ve just been stuck in my car because the A panel had "popped out" (the first time I'd experienced this) but also, on inspection, the bottom door hinge seems to be a) very rusty and b) flexing slightly in the door. Is my door going to fall off I wonder? Without taking the door inner off I don't know what I'm going to find. Has anyone previous experience of this happening?

I was just getting excited about fitting my new Peco exhaust and this happens!

Tim

[algirdas]

Dear All:

No sooner than when I finished re-installing the left side fender liner, my left side door started making the cracking noise. The bottom bolts securing the A panel were not the problem. The top ones were the problem. I snugged up the nuts at the top of the panel and the problem went away.

Moral of the story-if you have your fender liner out, SNUG UP THOSE NUTS OR YOU WILL BE INVITING MURPHY'S LAW TO PAY YOU A VISIT.

Sincerely,

Algirdas

[hatters]

Hi
I dont know if anyone is interested but I work at an E R F truck dealership and we sell lots of rawlnuts due the ERF being made out of fibre glass.
They must experience similar problems to LOTUS when it come to being able to fix panels and suchlike together
The part numbers are SL445/012 this takes a 6mm bolt and is about 12mm in overall width its length is 25mm the 6mm screw to fit this is part number SL445/016
The other number is SL445/038 and that one is the same thread size and the same diameter but is only half the length of the first one.
They are priced @0.95 p each and can be obtained at any ERF dealer in the UK.
I havent a clue what size the LOTUS ones are and whether or not the ERF ones will suffice but if they will then its another piece of the puzzle as to where to obtain obsolete LOTUS material
I hope this info is useful to someone out there
Cheers
Roan l

[gtm100]

I got my rubber nuts from Pro-Bolt (www.tastynuts.com) to fix the A panel and the boost guage. Part number LRN6 Loose rubber Nuts with Brass insert M6 £0.40 +VAT + £1.86 postage. M5 also available but the
holes in the fibreglass were damaged.
George

[Pascal]

Hello from the french newbie,
I am also a cracking noise claimer ...

The front edge of my left door touches the front fender when i open the door; making a bad "crrraaack" ( or crrääk if you are german).
Both door and fender are now injured at this contact point.
I noticed that the fender was not in line with the bottom of the frame (is that the proper name ?) : the fender is 1cm out of line.
I can 'slide' the fender in place just pushing it firmly by hand.
Doing so, the contact door/ fender is easily cancelled.

The reason is that the two vertical bolts (head = 10 mm) fixing the fender to the bottom frame are loose :
Trouble is that i cannot tighten or remove them, even with an angle tool : they turn free (and are rusted).
Can this be done (removing or breaking nuts ...) from under the car ?
I have the feeling of some kind of 'rubber' nuts.

Likely i am not the fist one facing that ... so thanks for help.

Pascal

[Brit-Car-Nut]

The fender is held in by two nuts/washers at the top and the two bolts into jack nuts on the bottom.



If you loosen the top nuts, you can probably pull the bottom away from the car to get past the sill or rocker panel (they are already loose) and then pull down to remove the fender.

Now, you can figure what you need to do to fix the bottom bolts/jack nuts.

Jack nuts are like pop-rivets and expand when installed. Usually, they need to be drilled out, but you might be able to cut the heads off the bolts and use a drift or punch and drive the bolt down into the nut to close up the barrel again. Then you should be able to pull the jack nut out of the hole and replace it with one that won't rust or use brass bolts.

If that doesn't work, you will need to drill off the head of the jack nut - BUT DON'T GO THROUGH THE BODY. The jack nut can then be pushed into the sill area and be lost forever. Replace the jack nut with something that won't rust or use brass bolts.

The Lotus number for the jack nut is A075W3034Z and it is 6mm. You can get jack nuts from a lot of different places beside Lotus.

[Pascal]

Hello,
now i understand the fixing, thanks,
on the service manual, i can see one single bolt/nut on top ( ''your'' number 47 nut) .
Do suppose right that i can have acces to this nut after removing the wheel arch ? I don't see any alternative access.

Pascal

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Hello,
now i understand the fixing, thanks,
on the service manual, i can see one single bolt/nut on top ( ''your'' number 47 nut) .
Do suppose right that i can have acces to this nut after removing the wheel arch ? I don't see any alternative access.

Pascal

There are two #47 nuts. The picture only shows one but the other stud is in the picture aqt the other top corner.

You can see it when you open the door.

Yes, you probably will need to remove the wheel arch.

[Jeemy]

With respect to the other part of the puzzle - assuming unlinked to the A-panel fitment - your on-road vibration; the best (untested on my Elan as yet, but I have a 10-pack waiting to be fitted, and have had great success with other vehicles) thing to do is to fit sound deadening material.

Again this is untested on the Elan, but I did a full fit to a Merc Vito van and the cockpit is now Audi silent!

Dynamat is the big brand - for approx £145 you can get the lightest, thinnest version of their product called I think Supalite in a 10-pack. Its basically very highdensity EVA (I presume) foam, laminated to a thin metal sheet. The foam is adhesive, and you cut it to size and fit it to the inside of door panels, door cards, trunks, bonnets etc.

It stiffens the surface, reducing on-road vibration and although the technology is not sound (the best thing would be high density fibreglass packing the interior - which I have also done but cannot recommend due to water ingress problems - works incredibly well if you are sure you are dry) will audibly dampen down all such vibrations, the absence of hardly noticeable sounds you were quite used to gets quite spooky.

Its months away yet but when I finally rebuild my interior the floors, door ins and outs, rear bulkhead and anywhere behind the dash I can get to will be covered in Dynamat before being carpeted. Scraps from cutting to size will be fitted to smaller parts like A-pillar triangles (which I will be mounting speakers in); to give them some heft. Yes, it adds weight but the Elan isn't really that minimalist of a build anyway and its only a few kg; if that matters to you, you may have to put up with more in-car noise.

Sound treatment is big business for luxury brands like Daimler, Bentley etc - its a big part of the cockpit experience but the science is difficult in cars, especially at the lower or classic end of the market given water ingress issues, bad fitment, and the fact that you can never get an airtight seal anywhere.

Obviously the main sound leakage is through the hood but every little helps. There are plenty of other solutions about - if you go to talkaudio you'll find they've just launched a sister site dedicated to sound deadening, proofing and treatment and may have some opening deals - but the Dynamat is the best product, and the Supalite although expensive, is the most weight-effective.