Getting internal access to the door striker plate

[Pjr]

Hi all,

I've had a fun afternoon taking off the bumper to replace a cracked light and am pausing for a cup of tea!

My next job is to fit a spacer to the passenger door striker. When messing around, I inadvertently loosened one screw a bit too much and heard the clank of doom as something headed for the bottom of the void next to the rear passenger seat.

I have read other posts about taking out the speaker to get my arm in. I don't have huge arms but I certainly can't get my hand to the correct area! Was the idea posted by Mr Tickle! However, my car is an early narrow bodied car and I did wonder if the trim was different? Looking at the parts manual and service notes it does seem to be a bit different. So my question is, what is the easiest way to get into the void behind the door striker on a narrow-bodied car please? Do I have to remove the whole quarter panel? If so, are the fixings different because mine seems to be very (an I mean very) well attached!

Very grateful for any help!

Phil

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Not familiar with the area but it sounds like a job for a magnet on a stick - available everywhere in shops theses days or from ebay ...

Magnet on a stick from ebay

or I have one of these too so I'd definitely be using this....

boroscope with magnet retrieval tool

..or cheaper ..

Inspection camera for laptop (usb)

or cheaper still

dirt cheap usb camera on a long cable

[barker_001]

I had a hint for exactly this problem via a friend from a Lotus dealer...

No need to remove the quarter panel, just remove the rear speaker. Of course a magnet on a stick would still be very handy!

[Pjr]

Peter, thanks for the ideas - but ultimately I think I will need to get my hand to the area to hold the plate in place as I refit the striker plate. But longer term, I seriously need to invest in the kit you suggest.

Bryan, I have tried the speaker route, but the aperture isn't big and the moulding it fits into seems to stop me being able to get my hand near the door striker area. The only other thing is that perhaps the moulding around the speaker is also removable? If it is, I can't see quite how to do it.

I think I may just have to take out the quarter panel, but I'm just worried about damaging the fragile old trim in the process.

Thanks,

Phil

[alanbell]

if I remember rightly the screws holding the striker plate go thro' the body to a female plate, I cannot remember if they screw directly into this plate or pass thro' it to retaining nuts. either way you can get at it thro' the speaker hole and get your spacer into place easily provided you only undo one screw at a time allowing the one in place to keep the internal plate and nut from falling into the void.

[Pjr]

Thanks Alan,

I've been looking carefully at the parts manual and comparing the pre and post 1986 rear quarter panels because I just can't get my hand in the right place via the speaker hole. It looks like the speakers are further toward the door and less recessed on the later cars. So I think I might be unlucky.

In the grand scheme of things it won't kill me to take out all the trim, it's just that with screws having rusted away to nothing in the floor, a simple job will become a bit of a pain! It would be interesting to know whether lotus redesigned the panels because they discovered that door alignment issues required reasonable accessibility. I can't see why they would rework the setup otherwise!

Many thanks for your help, phil