The Lotus Grand Tourers

So - I'm sorting through aluminium bits to get them ready for polishing etc when I noticed that the parts I have, from two different tailgates, are a subtly different profile and thickness! Now I have to make sure that the bits I get re-anodised will match up. May have to buy yet another tailgate and remove the trim! I've noticed subtle differences in the roof side trims as well. I wonder if the supplier was changed part way through production?

Another complication

Pete

Just fit them. No one will know

Blame Chapman

viewtopic.php?p=88617#p88617.

Guess your talking about the start of this post.
Tony

. I've noticed subtle differences in the roof side trims as well.

Tell more please. I'm planning to use the 76 rails (I roughed up the 74 trims years ago when the plan was to paint body colour ).

Tony

MetBlue wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 10, 2021 23:33

viewtopic.php?p=88617#p88617.

Guess your talking about the start of this post.
Tony

I'd forgotten about that thread Tony! Maybe admin could move this over there?

Pete

I've collected a few different sets over the last couple of years - I have no idea what year cars they came from apart from the ones on my car, which I believe to be original. Mine are unuseable for re-anodising - too many corrosion pits. I offered a couple up to the car recently and none of them fit properly! Most have been "adjusted" with pliers before fitting (where you won't see it, behind the rear quarter glass) - I now believe this was in the factory - they are too similar in the "adjustments".

What I also noticed however is that at the very front of the trim some are VERY subtly angled downward to meet the windscreen corner pieces and some are not, making the corner pieces a reasonable fit or not. What I don't know is whether the roof trims with the straighter ends also had different corner pieces to match, making them all fit together nicely. This whole process makes getting a "full set" really difficult. You could spend hundreds of pounds getting trim re-anodised to find it doesn't fit together - it needs assembling on the car before taking anywhere.

Perhaps if you know your trim is from a '76 car we could compare them Tony - try to build up a better picture.

Pete

I'll take a better look at the roof rail and top windscreen corner. I've got a pretty good idea what is off my 74 and what came off my donor 76 so sure we can compare notes sometime.
Tony

Good plan. I'll come down in the near future as I'm almost at the point of taking stuff for re-finishing.

It's not just the overall shape of the tailgate trim that's different either - the actual outer surface profile is different as well.

Pete