All,
I am unsure who our Prime Minister is at the moment, they seem to change for no reason but we do love everyone anyhow…
Tony W
That was out of line - The archive comment if warranted , should have been directed to the original poster , not a new joiner ! Maybe somebodies having a bad day ?
George -
Lotus14S2 - Merlyn MK4a ? That’s a rare one at about 10 built and makes for even a smaller club when you consider that only 4 or 5 are here in the US, one on east coast , 1 ( or 2 ) in Texas and I think 2 in California, of which one is owned by a chap that is also elite owner …
Many thanks everyone for your thoughts- a topic that arouses both passions and passive (well fed up with trying) acceptance.
The argument about orginality (well thats how they were) doesn’t really hold up as some Elans don’t have overhanging doors. So I am going to cut and shut mine so that my car looks right. Looking forward to seeing the write up on method and I just might buy Brian Bucklands book.
A wonderful piece of advice I once heard was “always listen to advice”, you can then decide what you like and what you don’t like-seems very sensible.
I love driving my Elan(s) cus they are such great fun.
All the best
Jim
Just below the bit where you log on to the forums on the home page is a section called technical tips, which contains … technical tips, rather surprisingly. The very first section is called “body”, it being alphabetical. in this you will find how to fix the doors; by Brian Walton.
Here is a link:
if that makes it simpler. 
Also… there really IS a ton of stuff in the archive.
Next… paint colours?
Pete,
Paint…nahhhhh tyres maybe…
Tony w
Just a thought, but could it have been the door seals causing pressure that caused the distortion? I always found it curious that the distorted area was only clear of the hinges and latch.
EDit: We bugger me, someone started a paint thread only on the 16th July… amazing. 
My 1969 S4 had perfectly fitting doors…until I put door seals on.
Part of the problem is most of the door seals available today are thicker and therefore they push the doors outward.
I keep meaning to try to find door seals that don’t take up as much space, but life has been too busy to get door seals and rolldown windows for my wife’s former racecar Alfa Berlina let alone try the experimental jets in the Elan.
Rob
Another word of caution about getting the snip done on the door skins; I’ve seen one car where the outer skin of the door had been made to fit perfectly but in the process the the alignment of the window frame was thrown out, to the point that there was a gap between the window frame and the windscreen at the top of the door frame. 
MM could do this job but I’m not sure that anyone else is as experienced. What you want to do is not to bring the outer skin inboard, but take the inner skin outboard, thus giving more clearance for the seals. I wish that I had paid more attention when Mick told me this. 
Hi
I suspect that some of the distorted door problems are due to the fibreglass being taken out of the moulds green - before it had cured sufficiently - this would tie up with Lotus making the most - the S4. I saw some very poor mid fronts from Lotus back in the 70s, the Plus 2 seemed to be the worst - and is more difficult to align than the Europa or Elan.
It certainly pays to check the doors with new seals in place, some seem to be too big and exacerbate the problem. The seals I bought from Sue Miller a few years ago seem OK.
Gray
I recently replaced my boot seal and now find one side is a bit high when closed. The reason for replacement was to keep water and fumes out and it seems to have done that so I’ll live with the slight misalignment for now.
I’m in the midst of renovating the body on my 66 S2. The original doors were quit warped especially at the lower rear corner, extending toward the lower pivot on the lower edge and the door latch assembly on the trailing edge. The other defect was at the notch in the door where the door surface stood proud of the cowl surface by about 3/8-inch.
It appears that most of the warpage was caused by the seals pushing against much of the perimeter of the door. The latch assembly was probably adjusted to get the best surface and gap fit and consequently probably compressed the seals too much to accommodate this fitment tradeoff. Fixed at the pivot points and the latch, the reactionary force of the seals distorted a good portion of the perimeter of the door. This probably happened over a long period of time through a process of creep.
I took a try at reshaping the door by taking most of the bow out of the lower edge and tucking the lower corner in a bit. This was done by cutting through the inside surfaces of the box section, wedging the opening to get the desired curvature, and rebonding. The one part of the door I did not try to mitigate was the notch area, which still stood proud of the cowl surface, but by a lesser amount, now only about a 1/4 inch.
Some years back I purchased a set of NOS doors off Ebay. Recently, I resolved to fit at least one new door to see how it fit, so I purchased an extra pair of pivot brackets and pins. I didn’t want to disturb the original door settings. It took about 3-tries, on and off, for each bracket to get them to fit in the door, protrude through the openings, and seat on their bobbins. As delivered, the doors have a circular opening on the front corners that needs to be trimmed, to enable installation of the brackets. Fitment to the body took about 3-tries, on and off. Each try required removal of some more fiberglass material from the door corner openings to allow adjustment of the pivot assembly. As fitted, the door fits very well except for that pesky notch area. The surface of the door at the notch still stands proud of the cowl surface by about 3/16 inch where the rest of the door fits pretty well, about as good as the door I removed. The other thing is that the lower edge of the door, at center, bows out slightly, about 1/8 inch. In this area the sill crease on my car is pretty straight so the surfaces blend at the lower corners but the door bends out a little in the middle. I think I’ll get a final fit by moving the front door in about 1/8-inch. This should mitigate the bottom edge mismatch and really help at the notch. The down side is I’ll have to lay 1-2 layers of cloth and resin to blend in the front 6-inches of the door to match the fender (wing) surface.
During this multi year process, I made a series of templates and a reference frame for measurements. This measurement frame still sits on top of my body. My measurements show some interesting distortions, so far only the back half of the body. The rear of my S2 body was blessed with a slight banana shape if viewed from above and with more of a pucker on one wheel arch than the other. The body surface adjacent to the rear door edge was displaced inwards at the rim of the cockpit about 3/8-inch and about 1/4-inch at the sill bottom. So there was a combed displacement and twist.
Bill