OK, accepted the fact that this Mr. Murphy is a regular visitor of Lotus owners, but why now?...

I took my Elise out for a ride and combined that with a visit to one of my customers. After talking to the customer, the guy asked me for a ride, so I asked him to get in. Turned into the first corner at hand, drove through a small but very noticable pit in the road and heard <POING!!!!> in the dash. After that.. all kinds of sounds of pieces of metal running around in the dash of my car. Darn! Why me... just had my car ready after all mods.. mmm... And ofcourse that customer, asking me if these kind of sounds were normally heard in a Lotus.. aargh!

Asked some people and got confirmed of what I thought it would be.. the Spring Steel Clips used to stop the Dash Top Extrusion from rattling and... got a warning from Lutz... "Get that spring out as soon as possible. Now, it will be travelling from left to right and vice versa. If you wait long enough, it'll fall in the sill and it'll be travelling from front to rear of the car"
Getting the spring out is more or less easy to do when it's still in the dash then when it's in the sill. :(

What you see below is a cutout of the dash from the Elise Workshop Manual:

This Spring Steel Clip is a piece of stainless steel (YES... one of the few parts that have been made from stainless steel in a standard car and the only part you would like to pick up using a magnet..)
The only function of the clips is to prevent the Dash Top Extrusion from rattling and popping open from above. When it falls off, there are two things that can happen:
1) It falls off and stays in the same compartiment as it was, when this happens, you run the biggest risk to hear it falling down in one of the side pillars into the sill.
2) I slides through the hole where the cables come in the dash. (behind the radio) It will then probably stay there (I couldn't see if there are open connections to the sill there)

The very first thing to take care of (if you think the spring has fallen down in the lower part of the dash) is to put the spring at the right side of the car... Drive up to a corner (left of a LHD and right for a RHD) and let the spring travel to the right side. If it's at the wrong side, it'll be a hell of a job to get it out!

Next thing to do is to open the dash itself. Normally, you don't have to remove the radio. I did it because I wanted to modify the cables at the same time..

Remove the plastic insert panels by squeezing them. (you can use a small plastic part like a credit card to do so.) When you sqeeze them, pull them towards you and they'll pop out.

In the picture at the right, you can see one of the inserts and the edges in at the back that hold them in place.

Next thing is to remove the screws. There are three in the vertical part (in the picture at the left they are black) and two in the Dash Top Extrusion. This would get all screws out.

Now I was starting to fiddle around with the Dash Centre Extrusion but couldn't get it loose.. Stupid I suppose, because the way to open the dash is to remove the Dash Top Extrusion. You can do this by carefully pulling the end which is at the outside of the passenger side towards you. Be carefull not to damage the Dash Finisher End. When you start pulling, you can push the extrustion towards the Stack Display a little bit to make way and let it pop out.
When it pops out.. you'll probably hear more of these springs falling in the dash. No problem because the car isn't moving so you can pick them up from the dash right away.

In the pictures above, you can see the Dash Top Extrusion pulled backwards and the right picture displays the dash without the Dash Top Extrusion, completely opened up.. (and my shiny black shoes in the picture at the right ;)

Don't forget to take the springs out which fell down while you opened the dash!

When the spring has fallen in the lower dash, some sort of long 'catch a screw' device would be handy. When you start digging around you'll here the spring moving and as soon as you hear it moving you can start pulling it towards you. Patience has to be your middle name here!

In the left picture below, you can see the actual springs as they come with the car ...

Now what's that picture at the right?? Well.. it's the pillar in the dash that could also eat your spring and distribute it into the sill making it travel from the front of your door to the end of your door every time you brake and accelerate.. It didn't happen with the spring that popped out of my dash, but if you're the lucky one that hears it traveling from the front to the rear and vice-versa, you will have to raise the complete car (using a bridge or so), remove the under tray and try to get the spring out from the sill... quite an operation :(

So why not prevent from falling in? And why not prevent from traveling anyway?

I used foil to close the opening to the sill as you can see in below picture. For the lower dash, I used some pieces of an old shirt to close the extrusions in both ways. If something falls in now, it should be possible to catch it even without opening the Top Extrusion again. Just remove the radio and grab the part out of the hole behind the radio (it'll only work if you have small hands...) But then again.. you might like to read this story again and start all over again every time ;)

Before closing the dash, you might consider to to have a look at the wiring loom for the radio. I always seem to struggle to get that darn radio in the dash. Ofcourse caused by a wiring loom that's too thick to just push in small open spaces between the radio and the heater controls.
To prevent rattling (My radio didn't only come with a wiring loom but also all kinds of small boxes that prevent interference of any kind) I've put the loom, including the small boxes in an old cloth.

Time to close the dash... but how? When everything is in it's place, you can choose to use a Spring Steel Clip again or not. It's really up to you. I've tried it in both ways (in both ways using small pieces of doublesided tape on the surface that connects the Dash Top Extrusion with the Upper Dash Tray!!!)
If you want to close the dash without the Spring Steel Clip, you might end up with a Dash Top Extrusion that itsn't completely shut tight at the connection to the Upper Dash Tray.

I decided to use a Spring Steel Clip again but wanted to find a way to prevent it to come loose again. Simply use highly adhesive tape as I did it. (see below picture)

Remember... be patient, there's a lot of easy to damage materials in there!

Have fun!