Engine Cover

I've been waiting for the body shop to replace the rear trunk hinges that they lost, but they're not the fastest guys ever, so I decided to mount the engine cover back into place.  I hope it's an easy job to mount the hinges with the engine cover in place otherwise I'll have to unbolt it.  The installation went pretty well, but there isn't a lot of spare space to maneuver in.

First I mounted a bolt from underneath, through the hinge and into the nut welded into the bracket on the left and right side.  Note that you have to remove the battery cover to get enough room to get a socket wrench underneath to tighten up the bolt.  I wrapped my wrench with several layers of electrical tape so I wouldn't get zapped by touching a battery terminal.  To avoid rattles and scratching due to paint-on-paint, I put a small piece of 1/8" rubber between the brackets.

Stealing a great idea from Richard Rodriguez, I used neodymium magnets from K&J Magnetics to hold the cover in place, since the spring bar and latch assembly is long gone.  These magnets are very strong, to the point where they can hurt your finger if it gets between two magnets snapping together.  I used a pan-head bolt through the hole in the magnet, small spacer, large washer, rubber washer, through the mounting bracket, then finishing with a nylock nut underneath.  In a bit of a happy accident, I over tightened  one of the magnets and broke it in half.  I used half a magnet on each side as it fits perfectly into the shape of the corner of the underside of the engine cover.  I epoxied a small piece of 1/8" rubber to the underside of the cover to avoid scratches and rattling.  There's also a loose captive nut that I epoxied into place.

The cover fits flush with the side trim and looks great.  It takes a tug on the handle to raise the cover, just like I was hoping for, and it snaps down perfectly onto the magnets.

Engine Cover and Grilles

Bodywork re-installation is starting now, well except for the rear trunk lid, which I can't install since the body shop has had the hinges for a year and a half!  I call every few months asking for them and the Targa top.  Tom says "Well Mike I screwed you again...  I'll paint them this week, call me on Friday."  I went this week and he told me that he lost them in his shop!  A guy who used to work there "moved" them and now they can't be found.  Tom is buying a set from his parts dealer, will paint them and drop them off at my house.  This is the first time Tom's shop being a complete mess has let me down.  Oh well, as long as I get the hinges...  After all of the hassle with ElectroAuto, nothing can throw a wet blanket on this project.

So that leads me to working on the engine cover and the metal grilles that go into them.  There are small fixed grilles on the left and right side.  A long time ago, I cleaned, sanded and painted all of the grilles gloss black and then sprayed with lacquer to keep the paint in good shape.  Here are the left and right installed into place.  Don't worry about the marks and dust...

The big effort was getting the grille into the engine cover, and then the P O R S C H E letters into the grille.  I bought a bag of "speednuts" as the original ones were all shot from the disassembly.  The grille goes in with a thin gasket along the top edge and a U-shaped gasket along the bottom edge.  The pins on the grille fit nicely into the holes in the cover and then gently held into place with speednuts.

Placing the lettering was an effort in measuring and spacing.  Finally I got it to look good and fastened them down with speednuts.  I'm not going to install the rain-catcher under the cover as I don't think there's enough clearance between the bottom of the cover and the top of the battery box.  I think I'll like the white top of the battery box showing through.

I'm holding off installing it into the car because I want to make sure I have enough working room to install the rear trunk hinges first.  I will also be using Richard Rodriguez' magnet latch method.  I have the magnets, but don't want to install them until the cover is in place and I understand the clearances.