Mongo

Well....ok it wasn't that bad

my car developed a wonderful air brake this morning by deciding to slow me down at 80 miles an hour by dropping its front belly pan after working on it yesterday Luckily it wasn't a rod bearing....*BIG KNOCK ON WOOD*

Nice way to scare the sh*t outta myself. Now to clean off my boxers with some tissue....

Red UFO

So you worked on it and the next day that part falls off?

How did you fasten it with electrical tape and twistees?

Mongo

no but that usually works

No smoke from the lines today, looks like it was excess from last night still burning off ont he exhaust, or the liberal amount of PB Blaster I used on the exhaust bolts

Gretch

Those front fasteners are a major pain to get installed correctly, but they are absolutely necessary, as you now lnow......I am surprised at 80 mph, you didn't tear it completely off the car......cheap tuition bill.....you won't do that again.

Mongo

problem is I think there aren't any threads left for the fastener to the body. They are probably all stripped in that hole.

I've heard of these plates helping aerodynamics wise. What happens if I run without it?

Red UFO

The whole shark will blow up.

perrys4

The worst thing is you can take in something from under and it can get caught up in the belts ect. I havent had one,(PO took it off) and have intended to get one but never have. 928 sells anice replacemement.

Mongo

well thanks to the helpful technique called swirving, I might be able to avoid that. Nevertheless i'll see if my buddy's new shop where he got hired at would trip if I threw the car on a lift to fix 2 bolts.

the flyin' scotsman

Had a similar big scare on a m/cycle. The rivets holding the front mudguard to the brace between the forks all broke (4) and the said 'guard now only supported by the rear stays now pivots to the rear and hits the ground. I'm on a motorway in England doing +70mph, wife on the back and luggage for a 2 week camping trip. Now if that 'guard had slipped under the front wheel I probably wouldn't be typing this today........triple yikes.

928 content...........I removed the belly pans when I first purchased the car to do an oil change etc. The front one was in such bad repair from the PO hitting whatever I never put it back and have run the car without both pans for +4 years with no worries.

Then again most of the highway crap in this part of the world is animal generated............not fallen of the back of a truck............YHMV

Randy V

Stripped belly pan fastening points can be repaired using a variety of threaded inserts.

Such as:



Here's more:

http://www.boltproducts.com/tinnerma...retainers.html

Mongo

First I need bang the tweaks out with a hammer. The belly pan has a nice 60 degree angle on it

Gretch

If I am not mistaken, the front fasteners attach to (4) strips of metal bent in the shape of two "L"s

L
L

(close as I can get with the keyboard) that are attached to the bottom of the radiator frame. The front lip of the belly pan goes in above the edge of the front bumper cover and the fasteners (screws) go through both pieces and into a hole in the bottom horizontal of the metal strip.

dr bob

The original center three front fasteners screw into tinnerman nuts that hang off of some springy steel straps that are in turn screwed to the rear edge of the bottom radiator support. I suspect thsat they are made flexible on purpose, so that impacts won't break the supports.

The front of the pan at the corners has brackets formed in the plastic that reach up to the frame. A screw on each one holds them to the frame. At each lower corner in front, A screw drives into tinnerman-style nuts that are formed into the front plastic belly pan.

On my car, the bracket on the driver's side has been fractured. The front corner was cracked too. My solution is a crossbar made of 1 1/2" wide aluminum stock, 1/8" thick, from the Home Depot metal supply rack. I bent the metal to duplicate the contour of the front of the tray, then drilled holes in the new bracket to accept nut-sert threaded inserts for the five front screws. The bar now fastens to the frame at the front upper corners using the same screws the original tray used. It has five holes in it with the nut-serts, so five 10-32 machine screws go through the engine tray, the rear lip of the front spoiler, and then into the nut-serts. I use flat and lockwashers on the screws to make sure they stay put. The nut-serts have a more positive thread on them, compared with the tinnerman nuts, but they require that you get the screw lined up perfectly before you can get them started. Be that good or bad?

I have the dimensions here someplace. The new crossbar support is a little stronger than the original plastic parts made into the tray. So far so good.

I could snap a picture or two if there's interest.

Bill51sdr

Andy, you're leaving out one major detail here... you actually don't have a complete belly pan, just the rear metal section. You really do need to get the forward part of that pan, the front of the engine is quite vulnerable to FOD without it. Pretty cheap insurance as compared to a cracked oil pan!

m21sniper

Stig: 'I've heard of these plates helping aerodynamics wise. What happens if I run without it?'

Having run mine for almost three years without one in one of the worst areas of the country wrt roads, and sans timing covers to boot, i can report:

Nothing.