Elite rear window

[Pete Boole]

Good work Tony - love to see problems being ironed out!

Pete

[richardw]

I take your point Richard that this is impractical for most of us to make in a professional looking way. In my minds eye, I can see a neat little anodised widgetty thingy, about 40mm long and maybe 30mm diameter clamped on the end of the main gas tube, castellated and machines at one end to provide a pivot for a short SS lever plate doing the job of the lock.

On the other hand, I can see a piece of wood clamped to the tube, two gash plates screwed to the side and a piece of steel acting as the lock plate via an M3 cap screw as a hinge.
It looks something like this :-


I can report that this lash up works a treat In first pic, gravity is holding the plate square(ish) and rod moves in and out freely. On second, gravity tips it to an angle. You can pull the rod out, but it locks when pushed in.
Problem is, I'm sure there is not around 20 - 25 mm of clearance between the glass and the gas strut on an assembled car

If someone with such a rare beast as an assembled Elite can measure the minimum gap available ( not sure if it will be open of closed condition), I will see if I can still make it work within the envelope of the available space.

Tony

That is brilliant Tony! My window is out, but looking at the position of the strut and hinge I'd estimate a gap of around 4cm between the window and the top of the strut body when fully extended. My Lotusbits struts have an 8mm rod diameter, and don't have the same rollpin fixing yours do.

If you do decide to invest the time, then I would be happy to buy a couple off you - either a ready converted pair or let you have my struts for conversion! Otherwise, my pipe clips did arrive but are too small and stiff to operate unless I go to a bigger size and offset them slightly. I think the same would go for Trevor's R clips. The other option I'm leaning towards as within my capabilities is Andy's suggestion of some black plastic pipe.

Let me know if you are interested Tony - I think it could be quite a popular conversion.

Cheers, Richard

[MetBlue]

40 mm would be fine - even my lash up to prove feasibility would fit in that space.
I'm guessing that is the clearance when open. Thinking about it, I think it must be smaller than this when closed as the rod eye only stands proud of the glass by the height of the angle plate and the gas tube is very close to the eye in this condition.
The other dimension needed to ensure a design that fits, is the distance from the boot seal to the side of the gas strut (i.e. 90 degrees from the clearance to the glass).

Any body able to check these dimensions?

Tony

[richardw]

Tony, before you go any further I was lying awake last night and have thought of a couple of possible low-tech (i.e. within my capabilities) solutions.

1. Very low tech - use a hosepipe connector to compress 9mm ID neoprene tubing to clamp the rod when open. Will need to fix the connector to the strut body. Will find an old one and experiment!

2. A bit more sophisticated and quick-release - use locking cable clamps to compress 9mm ID neoprene tubing onto the rod. Here are some I found earlier: https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/192092292771?c ... R7EALw_wcB
These would also need to be fixed to the strut body.

In the meantime I have some black pipe arriving to test Andy's suggestion.

This is where I waste a lot of my time! Still, very pleased with yesterday's work - got the headamp lifters fully operational and aligned the pods properly between the bobbins for even shut lines, then did the same with the bonnet. It makes a big difference to the look of the car; I remember when I had a Porsche 944 owners always looked for uneven shut lines around the headlamp pods as a sign of accident damage or bodged repairs.

Cheers, Richard