Smitje 928

1987 928 S4 Auto

Hi guys,

Busy on finishing everything on the underside of the car:

- Torque tube and gearbox are back in
- Front and rear suspension fully mounted
- New drive shafts
- Refurbished brake calipers back on
- Fuel tank and tank strap back on the car

Here's a pic I took a few days ago:




I wanted to share the problem I encountered when trying to put the cover in place that protects both the fuel line and wire harness in the right rear wheel well:




When I took the old cover off the car, it was filled with dirt and sand which also ended up in the bottom of the tank strap causing quite a bit of corrosion.

As you can see on the picture below, the radius of the curve in the cover is off, leaving a gap between the body and the cover.
In addition, also the tank strap and position of the fuel line pushed the cover outwards, thus adding to the gap:




The solution I opted for is 4-ways:

1. First, I slightly worked the tank strap so that the threaded piece is in a better position.

2. Next I used tie-wraps to get the fuel line and wire harness a bit closer to the strap.
The insulation on the fuel line looks compromised but the cracks are superficial:




3. We heated the cover and then deliberately cracked it open to get the correct radius in the cover. We then used liquid plastic to fill the cracks:






4. As you can already see on the pictures above, I used a generic seal on the front and top edge of the cover to close the gap.
As most dirt will probably come from the wheels I wanted to close off the front as much as possible:




I still want to use some foam to close the top a bit better, but I'm already very pleased with the end result:



Any commends and tips are more than welcome


Cheers,

Manfred

Strosek Ultra

Manfred, I have changed the cover on my cars due to cracks. I do not have such a large gap between the cover and the fuel tank.
At regular intervals, I usually remove the cover in order to get the dirt out.
Åke

Smitje 928

Hi Åke,

This is a new cover, unfortunately the old one got lost during disassembly. Could it be that the new one is just out of shape?

Cheers,

Manfred

P911c

Great Idea with the seal but as another member noted the gap on ours are not as big as yours, mine was pretty tight fitting. Removed lower cover to change fuel filter yesterday, continued to remove that side piece as amount of dirt removed was significant so removed to blow out that section with airline.pile of dirt was massive so any solute is a bonus

Smitje 928

Thanks for the feedback, can't deny it is puzzling me why my cover wasn't a better fit. Doesn't surprise me however that there was a lot of dirt in (the bottom of) your cover: any gap, even a small one, will likely take in in a lot of dirt coming from the wheel.

Cheers,

Manfred