Dangerous work - involve the police?

[RobFrost]

That’s it exactly. It’s an easy enough job for anyone with a grinder and welder, Paul Stephens would probably do it for you if you wanted it all replated and looking perfect.

I'll do my best to get it perfect myself. I still need to find a good place in the North Birmingham area for yellow passivated galvanising though.

For yellow or 'white' passivate.
Mini Batch plating in Hatchet Street, Hockley, Birmingham. I have used them a lot.
You need to ensure parts are media blasted clean for best results.
PS.
Would not bother asking John at Avantgarde.

Thanks, most helpful.

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[Peter]

I have one of those bonnet catches lying around if you want one. It’s used and would need a bit of a polish, but happy to drop it in the post if it helps.

[RobFrost]

Thanks Peter but I bought one already.

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[RobFrost]

Today I began replacing the latch and upon attempting to fix the new one on, I discovered the bolts into the bonnet were also very dangerous. There was some kind of lightweight rivet / nut pressed into the thinnest gauge of steel, with what appeared to be epoxy glue smeared around. The steel was already bent and it took very little indeed to pull them out.

On a more positive note, the previous owner and garage were sufficiently ashamed of themselves to put their hands in their pockets and give me £600 towards the repairs. I see this as getting off pretty lightly given that it's a criminal offence where i bought the car to modify a vehicle so as to be unroadworthy, punishable by up to £10,000 fine.





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[RobFrost]

Additionally, the keep on the bottom centre panel, into which the hook engages, had been bent back so it no longer trapped the hook properly.

Before:


So I bent the keep back to the right shape.

After:


Then made a two-nut captive plate out of 3mm plate, drilled through and welded two M6 nuts onto the back of it. Then I built a new panel for the underside of the bonnet, to bear the catch and to keep the plate captive.

That's painted up in primer ready to weld to the bonnet tomorrow. It'll be tricky to not ruin the paintwork but needs must.

I can see already the bonnet is very hard to open - you need a thin bit of wood as it won't accommodate a hand to release the hook. I had spoken with somebody who knew the car and they informed me that this was almost certainly what had motivated the dangerous bodge.

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[Nige]

Bet the bonnet cable snapped or wouldn't release so the PO drafted in the garage to jemmy/bodge the bonnet open, which resulted in the catch pulling/damaging it's mounting studs. They drilled the remains of the studs out and rivnuted the latch back in place.

[RobFrost]

Bet the bonnet cable snapped or wouldn't release so the PO drafted in the garage to jemmy/bodge the bonnet open, which resulted in the catch pulling/damaging it's mounting studs. They drilled the remains of the studs out and rivnuted the latch back in place.

It's a backdate so either the long hood or the short body need to be adapted to meet. The last owner replaced the bonnet last year and instead of adapting it properly, it was bodged. It was a pig to open apparently so the safety hook was sawn off and the keep bent up to give you more room to get your hand in.

You should be able to see in the photo, the new studs are about 6 inches away from the factory ones. Those cheap rivets were in there because you can't get to the back to put a nut in without a much more job involving some cutting and welding.

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[32FlatSix]

Just a thought but isn't backdating a vehicle, however well done, potentially to be frowned upon by courts / police / trading standards? I would assume that it would be much more difficult to do in Germany with TuV and I wonder what Porsche's view is on it officially.

[KS]

Why on earth would it be frowned upon? It's only a problem if somebody tried to pass off a later car as an early one, but that would also involve changing VIN stampings etc.

Anyway, remember, DDK is the Maverick Porsche club!

[hot66]

Just a thought but isn't backdating a vehicle, however well done, potentially to be frowned upon by courts / police / trading standards? I would assume that it would be much more difficult to do in Germany with TuV and I wonder what Porsche's view is on it officially.

porsche are now building Singers engines so I think their view on 'backdating' is more relaxed these days

[Hugo 356]

their view on 'backdating' is more relaxed these days

[MarkIII]

Just a thought but isn't backdating a vehicle, however well done, potentially to be frowned upon by courts / police / trading standards? I would assume that it would be much more difficult to do in Germany with TuV and I wonder what Porsche's view is on it officially.

porsche are now building Singers engines so I think their view on 'backdating' is more relaxed these days

Hi James, never new Porsche were buildings Singers Engines.......how did they manage that.......

[hot66]

Just a thought but isn't backdating a vehicle, however well done, potentially to be frowned upon by courts / police / trading standards? I would assume that it would be much more difficult to do in Germany with TuV and I wonder what Porsche's view is on it officially.

porsche are now building Singers engines so I think their view on 'backdating' is more relaxed these days

Hi James, never new Porsche were buildings Singers Engines.......how did they manage that.......

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a3869 ... h-america/

[rhd racer]

Those aluminium rivets are called rivnuts, and you can get them in ally or steel. I use them lots on the race car for lightweight blind fixings, for ease and weight saving. My front and rear bonnet hinges are secured to the fibreglass panels with them, but you do need to be careful fitting them and ensure they go in dead square in a very tight hole. The presence of epoxy is a bad sign, and suggests they were fitted to an over sized hole.

It goes without saying that using them in the front catch would need them to be absolutely bang on because of the forces on the front catch when driving, and the potential consequences. Secondary catches would have been a good idea.

The way my 914 bonnet and boot were made was different. Barrie inserted steel plates at hinge and catch areas, which I drilled and tapped, which is obviously a much better solution.

Glad you are getting it sorted. Really surprised you managed to get a contribution towards the repair, so we’ll done on your persistence.

[Nige]

So you've got an early long bonnet with the catch grafted further back to engage with the impact bumper front panel.

Maybe an alternative option/solution in the future is to have a spare IB bonnet extended to a early long bonnet style, that's what I had done to by Fennlane, who unfortunately no longer exist but I imagine other specialist offer that service. All I did was extend the finger catch an inch or two so I could get my hand up higher to release it.