Thanks, Hilton That gives me cause to warmly think about the kind of camraderie that my items might help to stimulate amoungst our 928 brothers and sisters in such a case.

 

I've been working with Jerry on an alternate finish idea for his new aluminum belly pan so bought one of his prototype units for us to experiment with.

Let me start.off by saying this is a very nice piece with a lot of thought put into it's design elements - things like the adjustable tabs, which not only make the fabrication easier for him but have other advantages - I'll get to that shortly.

What I wanted to experiment with was leaving the pan natural aluminum, but polishing it to a high luster, then protecting the natural metal from the cars fluids and oxidation, which on aluminum gets powdery.

My go to metal polish is a product called Sharkhide and I got into their polish after using their wipe-on metal protectant.

How good is Sharkhyde? This good - here's a pair of Cayenne Turbo secondary cat bypass pipes I bought used with one done and the other how they arrived as well as a pair of used FVD 997 mufflers I polished up before selling and my new Borla on that car I polished prior to installation.







But back to the pan. So I used some steel wool to smooth out some of the surface scratches then got out the pneumatic drill with Mothers foam polishing cone and the Sharkhide polish and went at it for about an hour. I then cleaned it very well with Eastwood's PRE painting prep (another od my go-to products when refinishing parts) until the cleaning rags were no longer picking up any black from the metal waste or residual polish. I then coated the parts by wiping on the Sharkhide metal protectant. This stuff lasts for years, dries just about instantly, and can be used on all types of metal to protect it. I used it on the polished Borla exhaust too and it's fine for medium heat but they don't recommend using it on headers.





Now that I had the pan looking the way I wanted it (I mean it goes underneath the car, right?), I went to install the pan. The 5 front holes lined up perfectly. I use stainless nutserts in my brackets so I can use stainless threaded metric fasteners which is why my mounting screws look different than normal. I also have the 928MS front bash protection plates installed and non-issue flexing the pan a bit to work it past these fasteners, though when doing so, I did notice it's stiffer than the stock pan, so a nicer quality and stronger piece.

Upon initial installation of the front fasteners and the tabs to the car (leaving the tab adjusting bolts loose for now) I realized that's great idea making those adjustable is.

Here are the adjustable tabs we're talking about





Upon installing the pan and tightening then front fasteners I checked clearances. You can see that the passenger side is very close to the A/C compressor pulley and belt.




No problem...you just pull down on the rear of the pan and the mounting brackets slide in their slots until you get it positioned where you want it, then tighten those fasteners - no bending or reshaping of the pan required.


Inwas also pleased to see that the adjuster bolts don't have any clearance issues with the bash plates mounting bolts and are easily accessed with an open end ratcheting 8mm wrench.




​​​​​​Once I had the A/C compressor side positioned where I wanted it for clearance I went over to the alternator side and adjusted that bracket so the pan was level under the car relative to the oil pan and tightened those two 8mm bolts. Alternator clearance is not an issue at all



So, here's the finished installation - looks just like I envisioned.





​​​​​​Really nice piece Jerry. Thanks for providing these to the community and letting me experiment with an unpainted one.

 

^^^ beautifully done

 

Thanks Pete, for your input about polishing these pans. That is a great write-up about it. I wish I had known about your polishing back in my aviation days when I was polishing my bare aluminum airplane. I don't plan to offer these Belly Pans polished, but I will offer them bare without paint in case anyone else desires. I think I'll take off a few bucks for the lack of paint. Rather than a prototype I sent you one out of the first production run. You will notice that it is SN 031. It may not be the first one I formed, but it might be. I decided to start the serial numbering with a kind of random two-digit number somewhere above 001 so that there would never be a known "first one."

 

Thanks Jerry,. I did notice that it was numbered. Why there was no artist signature etched in below the limited edition run number, I don't understand

 

Looks fantastic like the other items you offer, Jerry! Look forward to availability

 

The starting of the other thread in my business membership pretty much brings this thread to a close. Thanks to everyone for watching and participating.

 

I have just reveiwed this threaad in its entirety and find to my amazement that it does not have a five star rating.

 

Anyone come across aluminum floor plates for a 928?
I would imagine the Rennline passenger side works for a 928?


(please note: not actual photograph/for illustrative purposes only)

 

Rennline doesn't list any floor plates for the 928, I wouldn't expect anything from a 911 to fit. Not aware of other vendors selling floor plates for 928.