screws for lights

[Dougieboy1]

what size self tappers (diameter and length) are used to fix the front and rear light units to the car? The parts list shows them but they are not listed in the legend for the diagram.

presuming chrome or stainless posidrive?

or is it a different type of fixing altogether?

thanks

Andrew

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Andrew,

I'm assuming you mean the indicator units not the headlamps.
On my 70 car (no idea if 72 is different - I'll leave you to check that):

Phillips not Pozi
They are not self-tappers
The captive nut is a 5mm proper nut, Porsche part number 99950731212. I think they are also nyloc, so quite trick (for a nut).

Hence you need M5 Philips screws to secure. I used M5 x 16mm, seem to work. A4 stainless arguably overkill, but they are cheap as chips of course (compared with the Porsche-tax-afflicted nuts, at least).

Anyway I have tons of the screws - PM me your address and I'll pop some in the post.

Cheers, Richard.

[Dougieboy1]

Hi Richard,

thanks for the info and yes I did mean the indicator units at the front and the indicator/brake units at the rear. I believe the horn grilles were also fitted in the same way which it sounds indeed as if the fixing method had changed by MY1972.

On my car, there were no fixed nuts at all for these units. Instead there are spire nuts for fixing to tabs inside the light fitting openings on the bodywork. I presume the fixed nut was also attached to these same tabs? I presume this was done to confer 2 benefits: 1) I presume the use of self tappers and spire nuts is cheaper than welding fixed nuts which would need to be done very accurately to ensure correct alignment of the light unit and 2) the alignment of the light units can be varied slightly at the time of fitting to take account of any panel production issues.

So for me, philips (i always thought philips and pozi were the same thing but i now realize they are slightly different having looked it up) in Stainless. I think i read somewhere the horn grille screws were 19mm so your view of 16mm works equally well.

Thanks

Andrew

[inaglasshouse]

Hi Andrew,
Sorry, I didn't explain clearly enough.

The horn grilles are indeed attached using spire nuts / c-clips, which take a self tapper. Number 7 not number 8, just to be awkward.

The indicator unit nuts to which I refer are not welded. They are kind-of similar to a c-clip, but are a cage (that clips to the wing) enclosing a proper M5 captive nut. The nut can float in the cage, for reasons you mention.

Thanks, Richard.

[inaglasshouse]

And since a picture is worth a thousand words: here's 99950731212

[Dougieboy1]

Hi Richard, thanks for that detail and the part number. Needless to say, these 'captive' nuts are missing from my car and had been replaced by spire nuts and bolts.

This is a constant education process. I see that these are available from Type911 so will get 8 of them ordered.

Regards

Andrew