To Flare Or Not To Flare

There are two schools of thought on whether one should flare the guards of the lotus elan?

The purist would never become involved in this kind of project, and one can understand the thinking behind that.

But what if you acquired a car with a body that had been considerably bastardized, molested, and altered, (For racing purposes) that the only thought was to repair and rebuild, and make do with the body you were presented with, as was the case with this project.

Looking at the photo above, it would be difficult to say that you’d actually like the big ugly duckling square shaped flared guards, but in order to cover the extra wide race rubber, what else could the the said owner of the car have done? It certainly gives the elan a very boxy look.

Following is a short over view about the rebuilding of a fibreglass body of a very sad S2 Lotus elan – Circa 1982 – If the same project was being considered today, a new body would be the most practical, cost effective option – But as an aside, it will be rather nice to tell the next owner of the S2 that this is THE original lotus factory body, even though the rebuild work has been quite extensive. (The car also still has the original factory chassis).

We’ve received countless emails from people inquiring about the pros and cons of grafting a set of flares onto the elan body.
The most common reason for the consideration of flared guards is to accommodate wider wheels and tyres.

I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t disagree that the elan when fitted with flared guards and wider six inch rims/tyres gives the elan a very sexy road stance, the flared guards seem to fill out the elan body and it takes on some well deserved street cred… as well as taking on a bit of attitude compared to a standard elan.

So lets imagine that you, the reader, want to modify the body of your elan and add some wider flared guards.

I will make a side note here and mention that the S2 body seems to have the shape that looks the best out of the elan models, whether that has anything to do with the 26R being based on the S2, I’m not sure…. just my opinion.

This project should come with a BIG warning – IT IS ONE HELLUVA JOB.

Adding flares is performing major surgery on the elan body – Nothing Less.

It is much more than just cutting/removing the old guards, and grafting the new wide flares onto the body.

The most important tool or device to acquire or build before undertaking this project is a rotisserie or body rotator.

If you have never had the luxury of one of these rigs, you wouldn’t understand how amazing a rotator rig can be, just having the ability to roll the body on its back or side, or set and hold at any desired angle, is nothing short of brilliant, it will also help you to produce first class fibreglass layup repairs, joints, and a nice professional finish on the fibre glass body.

If you don’t have a rotisserie – Then I suggest that you either; Build – Beg – Borrow – or Steal (joke) – Because they are so great for doing fibreglass body repair and restoration work. They enable the worker to reach into every nook and cranny, and then some… to do repair work.

The shot above was taken before the rotator was painted, later photos show the rig painted in a nice blue colour. This rig is described in detail on another part of the blog.

We’ve been asked for the drawings and dimensions several times, but the truth is, there are none.

All measurements were ascertained from the mounting points on the chassis, body, and the chassis drawings in the factory manual, it was built as we went along – The cost – Less than AU$100.00 because it was mainly built from scrap or found metal.

I should point out that when the flared guards were grafted onto the elan body, the writer did not have the rotator at that time. And to carry out any fibre glass work on the body, it was either placed onto the chassis, or the bare body was rolled onto its back, or it was leaned against the workshop wall on its side, or the right way up, or sitting on trestles, it was bloody hard work, and required assistance from friends and my wife, it was a very long, slow pain full process, but we persevered managed to get there in the end.

There are no photos to show the terribly cramped conditions that this work was carried out in, some may even disbelieve it, even the writer on reflection wonders how the project was ever completed.

To blend and graft the wider flares onto the elan body requires major (Surgery) cutting, note how the entire fibre glass of the front wheel arch section has been removed.

Don’t fall into the trap of simply fixing or glueing the flares over the body and blending into the body line with bog, and cutting away the original wheel arch body sections from underneath… that’s total red neck.

To do this job correctly, the original body panel and the flare guard panel has to be on the same plane, (See sketch below) then the proper shallow joining “V” shape can be prepared for the new fibre glass layup.

The offering up and fitting of each flared guard section takes hours and hours of work, there is a considerable amount of cutting and grinding, a common black lead pencil is a valuable tool for carefully marking out where cutting of either the body or the flare shells in order to get everything to fit correctly.
A neat edge fit of the new and old glass is difficult to achieve, but gaps can be filled with lay up material…get used to carrying out lots of grinding and smoothing, followed by more layup, sanding, etc, until you get it right.

Once the layup and fixing on the outside of the panels has been accomplished, then the inner or underneath of guards will need to be done, and you will now realize what I said about having the body mounted on the rotator…makes it easy peasy.

There is much information to be gleaned from the two photos above. Once the guard is correctly aligned, and it looks good to the eye and or when running the hands over the panels to check for evenness, then the tedious job of fixing several short flat wooden strips and drilling and fastening with self tapping screws can begin.

The timber strips will pull and hold the guard in line with the main body panels and when the fixing layup is all done, the wooden strips can be removed so that a complete layup can be done both on the outside, as well as under the wheel arch. Of course the screw holes need to be filled at a later date – but that is a given if you understand this type of work – we are not providing step-by-step instructions here. Space the wooden tabs about two to three inches apart.

This is where your eye balling skill will come into play for judging good fit and alignment. Get it wrong at this stage and the whole job is going to look really terrible – The more time that is spent getting a proper fit and finish between the guard and the body, will pay off when the final coat of paint is applied to the body.

Each wheel arch flare should be carefully installed, set up, and fixed to the body, then the final layup and bonding work can be carried out all at the same time on all four corners. (Setting the body up in the rotator rig)

With the flared guards lightly fixed to the body, a final check should be made by placing the body onto the chassis so that tyre clearances can be checked, now is the time to undertake any changes and or alterations should they be required.

With a bare body, it is difficult to check the wheel arch clearances with the front wheels… but with two or three sand bags are handy to produce some suspension loads, the steering wheel could then be turned from lock to lock, to make sure that nothing fouls anywhere.

If it all looks OK, then work can proceed with the final bonding and fibre-glass lay up work.

NOW LISTEN UP – This is where the rotisserie, or rotator comes into it’s own, you wont believe the time saving factor a rotator rig will save… totally the best thing since sliced bread, to coin an old but very good phrase. It is very important to be able to carry out correct fibre glass lay up along the joint of the flared guards outside and inside (Underneath) of the wheel arches, the rotator of course will make the operation an absolute breeze to carry out – it’s a no brainer.

Illustration above is pretty clear, note the gentle taper created when joining the fibre glass body and flares, this technique will create the strongest joint possible. Lay up is performed on both sides (Inner and Outer).

And the best way to form the taper is with a four inch angle grinder fitted with medium grit flap wheel, and work very carefully creating the taper.

There should not be any need to remind you to wear protective gear, and work outdoors to reduce the dust hazard. If working in the workshop, it is wise to set up a vacuum device right at your work space to suck up the dust and fibres.

As mentioned previously, the job of preparing the elan body to accept flares is very time consuming, it requires a lot of thought before you begin – assemble the correct tools and equipment before work begins.

Then before you commit to the task, ask your self – Do I really want to do this? – Remember, it is a hell of a job, because it will take a long time to complete.

If you decided to take the dive into the deep end, and the job is now finally completed, you should feel proud of what you’ve achieved.

So lets take a look at the probable results after all of the cutting, shutting, fibre glass lay-ups, grinding, sanding, smoothing, filling, primer coat, top coat, and clear coats have been applied.

What does it really look like? Mmmm, I like it a lot.

No one could ever believe the countless number of hours that go into producing a high quality job. The idea is not to leave anything that might suggest that the guards have been retro fitted, everything, and every flared panel must blend seamlessly into the original body line, be prepared to sweat the small details to get it right.

The colour photos of the elan body mounted in the rotisserie rig were taken during 2012-2013, the second time around restoration of the S2, there is about a twenty nine year time lapse between the early B&W images, and the later colour images.

The body was primed, rubbed back, and top coat painted while still mounted in the rotisserie, which again proved that it is worth its weight in gold.

Being able to roll the body over to mask off and paint the underneath of the wheel arches, as well paint the front and rear return aprons without any strain was a huge plus.

There are many different styles of flared guards for the lotus elan. The style above look very nice on the S2, there are road going elans with 26R style flared guards which also look very nice.

The simple truth is that when doing this type of body work, be prepared to put the hours into the project, don’t be tempted to take shoddy short cuts just to get the job done quickly.

You’ll get back out of this project exactly what you put into it.

And the end result after many many hours… Ooh la la.

As we mentioned at the beginning, flared guards are not for every elan or for every owner. But in this case it was well worth the effort and the hard work.

Would we do it again to another car… Yes, but I would choose the 26R type flares next time, just to be different, and of course it would have to be another S2….

Maybe build a very hot road going replica 26R. Now that would be fun.