Tension Wires

[DeeAitch]

The wires prevent the sides of the hood lifting away from the window seals. One my wires snapped recently and it seemed OK until driving over 60 mph, there was a gap of about a quarter of an inch between the canvas and the seals.

One of mine snapped last year. At something like 90MPH - track day of course I could get my hand between the seal and canvas, not nice if it is raining
Boat chandlers came to the rescue with some stainless cable and fittings.
IIRC I just teased the canvas away to reveal the pop rivet - into GRP FFS - which holds it to the header rail. Threading it through the frame / canvas was more difficult and I recommend something like heat shrink tubing on the exposed bit of cable.

[enndee]

[/quote]:agree:
One of mine snapped last year. At something like 90MPH - track day of course I could get my hand between the seal and canvas, not nice if it is raining
Boat chandlers came to the rescue with some stainless cable and fittings.
IIRC I just teased the canvas away to reveal the pop rivet - into GRP FFS - which holds it to the header rail. Threading it through the frame / canvas was more difficult and I recommend something like heat shrink tubing on the exposed bit of cable.[/quote]

Now there's a coincidence! A friend of a friend is a mast rigger for a well know yacht builder in Ipswich and being a car enthusiast as well, he did a cracking job with my hood wires with stainless steel wire and fittings!

[mikesimmo]

Hi, the tension cables pull the hood taught over the intermediate seals (above the doors).
I have been replacing my new hood since about May this year, up to present it has cost me £1100.
Anyway after paying an upholsterer (50 years experiance) £360 to make a right pigs ear of the job.
I took car to Lotus in Leeds, they adjusted the roof and improved things only £120.
When i looked at my tension wires, bothe clamp bolts sheared off when i tried to loosen them.
So much for all these experts adjusting my hood, neither have even touched these.
Anywhay i set off with a dremmel and managed to cut the clamp off the back hood frame, then cut lenghtwats to save the cable.
After 3 hours hurray got 2 new cable clamps on.
Bad news was tension wires were still not tought.
Looked at front mounting (what a pain) i had to remove the seal channels at front of hood frame, to get access.
I found the rivet, but cable had broken.
So off to Halfords for a bike brake cable, had a welded nipple at each end, so cut cable in middle, that gave me both cables for my Elan.
i had to drill a hle 1.6mm dia next to where the nipple was mounted on the front frame, with much care thread the new cable through the front frame.
Then i had to ge hold of a lenght of allot welding wire, to tread through the hood seam, then attach the end of new cable with tank tape, then pull through.
So far so good.
Next i needed 100mm of black cable sleve(to cover exposed cable under hood) i stripped some olf 2.5mm twin and earth cable and used the black outer.
Slid it on the new cables, jsut looked like the original.
Next problem was the hole through the rear frame, to cut a long story, i endud up with trusty dremmel with 3mm drill and drilled from rear.
Finally got the cable through and fitted new clamp.
This all took about 3 hours but doing other side took under 1 hour (got hang of job)
I have or will attach photos i took during the job.
Good luck
Mike Simpson

[stonefish]

have just done mine, be carefull when putting the tension on, as it pulled the front end off
you can get to the front end with the roof half undone but all that holds it is a blue electrical ring connector pop rivited to a small piece of ally connected to the header bar
to get it to grip i put on a new ring connector, crimped it then solder the wire to get the strength
poped it with small washers and didnt put it under too much tension..its still holding now so must be ok

[nitroman]

What keeps the tension which presses the bonnet's REAR rubber seal (the seal beneath the rear window which contacts the hard boot) down against the bonnet cover? IE, what needs to be adjusted or replaced?

[dapinky]

Matt,

I have stolen a copy of Rays picture from the previous page to try and help........ (but I added some arrows!)

Frame1.jpg

Just out of shot (follow the green arrow!) is a small offset cam held in position with a hex-socket bolt - it is the position of the cam which dictates where the bar should position itself, as it rests against it.

If you have a gap between the cam and the bar, then you need to induce more tension into the system to get it to go all the way - if you have no gap, then the cam needs to be rotated to get the rear deck seal down.

If there is a gap, try pushing the bar down against the cam to see that it is correctly adjusted, and the deck seal sits flat on the bodywork - if it does, happy days!

All that you now need to do is ensure that all pivots are free(ish) to move and then slightly bend the round bar (red arrow) in the vertical plane. This will have the effect of shortening it, and thereby (using the principles of leverage) allow the rear bar to travel further until it rests on the adjustment cam.

It may be easier (well, actually it IS easier) to remove the bar to bend it slightly, but see how much you need to go - due to the leverage, only a small adjustment is usually needed, a mm or 2 shorter, drops the rear seal about a cm.

The problem comes when you try to manually push the deck seal down and there is too much tension in the hood material to allow it to go - this might be either the wires, or the actual material shrinkage. If it is the wires, they are adjustable, if it is the material, then you will need to either wet it and ease it down over a period of time (not ideal solution) or to do it properly, unglue the hood from the frame and re-fit it (time consuming but fairly easy).

99 times out of 100 there will be a simple fix, like lubing up the pivots and bending the rod - basically, AFAIK, the pivots seize up a bit over time and the frame slowly goes out of kilter, causing the tension bar to deform a bit - just need to get it back to where it should be

[RayD]

...

[nitroman]

Gracias. Excellent verbal explanation and (both) pictures! I'll give it a try.

[tigerdog]

I had Smaug's hood up for the first time in several months and noticed the back edge was lifting. Cam photo helped me realize the bar wasn't touching the cam at all, though it pushes down just fine. I'll try the rod-shortening trick this weekend. Thanks for the write-up!