Hood at Speed

[Ekapol]

On mine the rear lifts up about an inch at around 65mph+ They said the Elan was designed for driving pleasure in "fair weather".

Is it possible to still have the hood on the car at over 100mph?

Many thanks in advance

[Dovey]

My hood starts to wobble and lift at 130mph. At the front though. And its fine up to that speed.

Sounds unusal. Get it checked out.

[ailwyn]

Actually this seems to be a "feature". This question has been asked a couple of times before.

My original S2 hood did not lift at all.

Since having a refurbed frame and new hood fitted by trim tech at ~80mph the back of the hood starts to lift off the deck, at ~90mph it's about an inch of the deck and the hood material at around the mid point of the door also lifts off the seal

I have noticed that the material seems to be looser on the frame than I remember my old hood being, so I can only think that this is related.

On a slighty re-assuring note, I have had the car to ~120mph and although the noise and flexing of the rear screen is annoying, the hood has not come off (yet!).

Ailwyn

[surfboardfiller]

My hood sits pretty at 145, it's the original and seems to 'lock' in place when the front is dropped down to the front seal.

Maybe there is an adjustment in the hood mechanism?

[johnbenk]

Hi

The problem is caused by the door glass edges at the top of the hood near the catches. The Glass moves AWAY from the RUBBED A POSTS on
left and right doors. This causes the flow of air into the car to be altered

You can adjust this flow by altering the amount of air by droping the door glass each side a fraction to balance out the air flow at speeds in excess
of 100mph.

Also the problems is sometime caused by the seating of the hood into the
Header rail seal, some Elans are two big a GAP some to SMALL. Big job
adjusting the fore and aft movment of the WHOLE HOOD though to bring the Front part of the hood so that its SITS EQUAL BOTH SIDES INTO THE HEADER RAIL SEAL.

GO and LOOK at YOUR OWN CAR is the gap at the CORNER EDGE the SAME.

You CAN ADJUST THE SEAL FITTING AT THE REAR TO STOP THIS by lowering the angle of the rear section of the hood inside the FOUR BOLTS
that the hood pivits.

The PROBLEM THEN is the HOOD RUBBER SEAL at the rear scratches the REAR DECKING as it is then to TIGHT.

It is a catch 22 situation.

[theelanman]

jon
looks like your having that problem with your caps button again.....
Ive got an old spare keyboard that works if you want!!!!

[Kevin]

I did 200km/h, and no problem.
The hood makes alot of noise from the wind, but staise in its place.

[johnbenk]

jon
looks like your having that problem with your caps button again.....
Ive got an old spare keyboard that works if you want!!!!

Hi My EIGHT YEAR GRANDSON DOES All the typwriting as I have small joint finger problems and can not bend any of my fingers. I tape record the postings and then he comes and types for me

Does that answer you question?????? I am 72 years old.

[Paul.P]

And very well you do on it John, you keep going mate !

[lotuska]

I had the same problem with my hood lifting at the back when driving down the motorway, lifted about an inch and made a hell of a noise.

It looked like the bars at the rear were not locking in place correctly, so the rear could lift.

I tracked the fault down to a bent rod in part of the folding mechanism, unbolted it bent it back into shape, problem solved.

[Elanlover]

I've done up to 160km/h so far (close to 100 mph) with no roof issues at all. Stays in place nicely and is quite tight.

[Ekapol]

Thanks all for the reply. I've been reading/looking around the service manual for hood frame adjusting. They don't tell me much. Or there might be the clue hidden there that I wasn't able to decrypted. So now I know that mine need adjusting. Will try to look more around the frame

Have you tried adjusting the bolts as in service manual? What do they do exactly?

[johnbenk]

Hi
The hood is held either side under the big spring by 2 x12mm bolts.

You need to strip out the back panels each side to gain acess. When striped down you need two sockets to gain access to the two bolts.

ONE TO UNDO THE CAPITIVE NUT AND THE OTHER TO HOLD THE OTHER SIDE.

You then screw a 12mm bolt in to the section that adjusts the canterlever of the spring which moves the hood forwards or backwards.

After releasing the hood front catches you can start the process of adusting the for and aft movement.

The two bolts going through the spring are "overcentered" which means that the HOLE is bigger than the 12mm bolts.

As you will now see that the pivot will move forward or back wards you have get the header rail seal to sit in the front windscreen frame either side into the lip.

You need to recatch the front section of the hood but NOT LOCK DOWN
after doing this you move the roof forward or backward from the spring with one person on the otherside.

When you are happy with the Gap at the front you have LOCK ON THE TWO BOLTS EITHER SIDE to stop the hood moving.

when this has been done you can now adusting the tension of the rear decking seal by moving the hood up or down its seating with the 12mm bolt that fits into the hole provided.

You now have to adjust the door glass angle to meet the header Rail
seal at the front. If have taken the trouble to read this so far you will see that you could be looking about 4 hours work.

My advice after watching one being done is "LEAVE TO THE LOTUS DEALER

[Ekapol]

Got your IM John.

4 hours work.

"LEAVE TO THE LOTUS DEALER"

I agree but with your information I will try to see what I can do... probably not much

[chrisP]

Mine seems fine at speed, but you might want to look at the cams that are fixed by allen bolts to the back of the frame, they make the hoop that lays on the fibreglass softtop cover press down, so adjusting these should prevent the hood lifting

Chris

[Ekapol]

Thanks Chris, John and all.

I think I got good luck adjusting the end-point-adjuster (my way to call it) for the hood over the weekend.

I jumped into my Elan with a caliper and start to measure distance of many bolts, noted that down as my starting point. Then started to play with those 10 mm nuts and bolts. You will see one 10 mm bolt each side with 2 x 10 mm nuts fixing the hood frame in place. The head of the bolts serve as the stopping point on each side. I increased this distance so the whole frame shift more to the rear hence more rear pressure shifted. At first I tried 2 mm forward then later found that I couldn't close the front part of the hood as the tension is too much and held the front part (A-pillar) of the hood up (pointing to the sky). Ended with 1.2 mm as my final number to get the tension more to the rear while I still can latch the hood.

Your number will be different as all Elan were made unique

Don't know if this is the right way to do. But the rear hood stays connect to the rear deck just peachy. 1" lift at 65 mph was gone. The whole car seems a lot more quieter -- insert BIG grin here --. Very quiet at 75 mph. At 90 mph the rear lifts up around 1 cm, 2 cm at 110 mph. That's the point where the hood starts to rattle and go crazy...

[ailwyn]

Very quiet at 75 mph. At 90 mph the rear lifts up around 1 cm, 2 cm at 110 mph. That's the point where the hood starts to rattle and go crazy...

I think you're hood is about the same as mine now - Fine to 90 then off it goes.

Still very frustrating that the hood was fitted by an expert yet....

A.

[Fubar1764]

BTW, Ekapol, some Lotus dealers will no longer service the M100 b/c it's a "classic" and thus Hethel isn't supplying any more parts!

[Ekapol]

More luck on my side

Been playing more with the frame adjustment. Last episode ended with more rearward pressure to the rear deck with more efforts required to latch the hood.

Adjusting my new found allen bolts allow me to add a little more "give" toward latching position, at the same time, I can move the side window rubber seal towards the rear side of the windows. Originally, I had almost 1 cm gap there now on the passenger side, it catches and even seal the window with the rubber trim -- there working at last

You know it's adjustable because this is the allen bolt that has "horizontal groove" for you to adjust the locking position. Once loosen, to tighten it back, you would need another 10 mm open-end wrench to hold the bolt at the back in place.

On the driver side, I would need to realign the window a bit for more downward angle.

Waterproof for the passenger rear section of the window. Top window corner goes up and seals with my Sikaflex custom work. Still have the gap right in the middle of A-pillar though. I have to see more Elans to find out how the mirror sits on A-pillar seal. Inward mirror adjusting might do the trick.

90 mph cruising, rear deck shows no gap in my rear mirror

[surfboardfiller]

I'm having the exact problem now, after 'pushing' my hood lid shut with the hood inside; the back of the hood now flapps about (at 70 mph).

Having tried the main adjustment bolts to no avail I think I may have bent something in the hood mechanisms.

I am not sure if this arm is supposed to lock in a strait line or remain angled?

Cheers,

Phil