Bill Ball

Prior to 90 or 91, there was no right side liner installed at the factory. My left side is in fine shape. However, I don't believe there are any mounting tabs on earlier cars like mine for a right side liner.

Jerry Feather

I have to thoughts about making more for the left than for the right. One is that the way my process is designed and made I can only make the same number of lefts and rights. Take a look at the initial forming I showed a few days ago and you can see that it has an inner half for the left and one for the right. The only way to make more for one side or the other is to simply throw away half of each sheet of plastic formed.

The other thing is that the material I am making these out of is about 100 time better that what the factory used and since they are being made in two pieces for each side they will be much less cumbersom to take out and put back in.

I think that I would not be bothering with these if I didn't expect them to be substantially better that whatever else is available, factory or elsewhere. In addition, this ABS plastic is not only very formable, but it is also readily repairable. Therefore, I think these liners, when fully developed and provided are going to last a very long time. If they fail over time it will be because of road rash or something that happens like a crash, a fire, or throwing one of your tire chains. You do use tire chains in the snow in the winter, don't you?

Jerry Feather

Jim M.

I only want a left . . . oh and definatly a right too! :-)

Jerry Feather

I got the form revised and put back together this evening and am now ready to try another blow. I may not get to it until Wed evening because tomorrow in my little girl's birthday, so I'll be spending the evening with the family and her guests for ice cream and cake.

If this blow works better, I'll be able to start working on the mounting system which will be primarily related to to inner half. I kind of expect to mount the inner half firmly in the car and then hang the outer half off of it, at least for the most part. I think there is going to be one mounting point in the car that the outer half will fasten directly to and that is in the lower front. There may also be one in the lower rear to mount the outer half to. The rest of the outer half is going to be simply fastened to the inner half from front to back over the top with some temporary snap fasteners that can be removed so the outer half can be taken out easily from time to time.

I am hoping the the guys with the GTS can service the PSD by just removing the outer half each time that is needed, but I don't know much about what is involved in that service.

Making haste slowly.

Jerry Feather

SteveG

I'm pretty sure the GTS access panel is close to the center line of the liner. I don't have a pic showing the panel. If you are just checking/adding fluid that small panel is useful. If you are flushing the system, IIRC you need the whole liner out of the way b/c if you don't have the Hammer you need to attach 12v jumpers and open and close bleeders. I don't think you can do that through that small panel.

I don't quite understand the production procedure and why the two sides are blown simultaneously, but I'm not questioning you; my feeling is for going to all this trouble, you should sell the liners as a pair, assuming you cannot re-use the passenger liner in the production of another pair. I say that not knowing the price as a pair. If the difference is $800/pair and $400 for just the driver side, I might feel differently. My passenger side is fine, the driver's side will probably fail completely around the fastening points the next time I touch it, which hopefully won't be for another 2 years, I flushed it a year ago. Second pic shows flashing I inserted/glued to what is left of the liner.

Jerry Feather

Thanks Steve. Interesting picture of all the PSD stuff in the rear of that wheel well. Overall great picture because it shows a lot of detail about mounting that will help me shortly.

I haven't blown the second prototype inner half of the liner yet, but I have the form complete to do so except about a dozen screws to install after I get the form set on the next sheet of plastic on the oven. Probably will wait until saturday to do that, mainly because I have a friend coming over, I think, who can help me do the lifting and because I will then also have to time to carefully trim the new form out for more fitting.

I was going to try to do this next blow on Wednesday as stated before, but I had a lot going on at the office that pretty much took up my mental time. Too, my little girl (12) had a birthday this week and that killed one whole evening.

I'll hope to have some pictures later about the next blow.

One thing I did get to do this week is quite a bit of design work, which I do mostly in my head, and I did that while I was traveling for work. I had several trials this week, for some reason, and two of them were out of town. One was 85 miles away and the other about 100 miles. One took all day and the farther one today took only less than half a day. Oddly, they were both in front of the same Judge. Anyway, the travel time, particularly on the way back when my mind is not on the case, gave me the chance to think through some of the mounting ideas I have been working one for a long time. I think I came up with some useful ideas which will help a lot in getting these liners set up so that they will not take so much effort in the field to get them installed. We will see how that plays out as soon as I get some proper inner halves formed and trimmed accurately.

Steve, I have also given some thought about your puzzlement about how therse are being formed. As it turns out, given the nature of the forming oven, it is efficient to form two halves at one time. A system to form only one half at a time would not be at all efficient. However, with two being formed at a time I have to choose which two would be formed at the same time. My initial choice was to form two inner halves at the same time--one for the left and one for the right. They will therefore be symetrical and therefore will be fairly easy to be made symetrical. The outer halves will be formed similarly, but that form will be made convertible to make either the S4 and earlier car liners or making the GTS outer half liners.

That means basically that I will be able to get by with two basic forms with one being moderately changable.

Another way to do this would be one form to make two inner halves, but two for the same side. Then I would need another form to make two for the other side. Then I would need two forms for the outer halves of the liners and esch would have to be changable.

I think I have selected the most efficient way to do these liners even thought that will probably dictate that the end product will only be available, except for some unusual circumsances, and that may also not be accomodated except for greater cost, in sets for the left and right sides together.


So far, my cost projection that I posted earlier in this or the other thread is going to hold true. I responded to an inquiry from Roger that I thought I could do these for $300 per side, and I think that is going to play out pretty closely. The factor of sound insulation will be on top of that for those who are not interested in doing their own and if I can develop that aspect adequately. That will later be offered as an option for some additional cost.

Jerry Feather

SteveG

Jerry: I think there is some confusion on my part about the "halves" description and I missed that. If you mean that each liner (the driver's side liner) will be made up of two parts, or halves, then I amend my earlier paragraph. It would seem what I need is both halves of the driver's side.

Also I should amend my description of where the PSD access panel is located. I don't have access to the car right now, but PET shows it more toward the inner half. I'm betting it overlaps the centerline. Since it is only good for topping off the fluid, and since incorporating it would probably complicate your process, I can see omitting this panel. I sort of assume that you cannot provide for it with this process.

Good luck with the ACL. Friends who have had that repaired took longer than a week before they were moving around w/o difficulty.

Jerry Feather

"Cannot provide for it in my process" is not quite the same as not making sense to provide for. What I have anticipated is that rather than having the little round access panel to remove for service or filling the fluid, the GTS guys will need to remove the outer half of the while liner in order to get access to the area needed for that service. I think that is going to involve removing about two screws, one in the front for sure and maybe one in the rear, and then pulling out the 10 or so fasteners that are holding the two halves together.


The clips holding them to gether are going to be plastic that will be pushed through the common holes and then setting the center pin which will expand the shaft of the clip to hold it in the holes and hold the halves together. These clips have two slots in the head that allow you to put some kind of puller under the center pin to pull it. They will be reusable for a long time; and I will probably provide about 4 or 5 extras for good measure.

The surgeon says I will be on crutches for about a week with the knee repair. I'm not looking foreward to it.

Thanks for your input.

Jerry Feather

Tom in Austin

Hi Jerry, PSD is on all 928s starting in 1990, so not just GTS.

Jerry Feather

Thanks Tom. I hadn't been paying that close of attention on the PSD since my S4s don't have it. However, it could be on all the cars and the liners will still work the same. Even if they all had it I don't think I would provide the little round opening.

I have some yard work to do in the morning--my version of "mow the lawn"--then a friend is coming over to check this project out and help me lift the form around to blow the next version of the inner halves. I am excited to see how well the first modified version is going to fit.

On top of it I think I have been getting a pretty good idea of how to fasten these liners to the cars that do not have holes drilled for screws in the wheel side of the frame rail like the GTS cars and maybe the GT's have. I think I am going to offer these liners for the earlier cars with about two of the three lower middle holes punched for drilling the cars for mounting. Or, for those that do not want to drill holes in their cars I am trying to devise some method of mounting the center area of these liners to the inner wall of the well without drilling holes. I think I have a good idea of how to do that and not have the liners mounted any farther down than for the later cars. More on that will simply have to wait until I have one of these mounted successfully, otherwise, in one of my S4s.

I have some other projects that need my attention, but I am committed to get this one completed and to satisfy all of at least the initial market, before I shift to another. Even then I'll try to divide my time to help the later guys to meet their needs. I promise.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

My friend came over and helped me with the form and the set-up for the next blow. Here is what we came up with. The pictures show that the new blow went pretty well. I see that I need to blow a little less in the areas that free form because there is some interference at one point with the inner wheel well, but with a little less presssure I think that will cure itself without any modification to the form.

The new size seems to be just right, so I can now work on the mounting system and then do the outer half form.

77tony

Things are shaping up. Looks great Jerry. Keep the pics flowing. Thank you, T

Bilal928S4

Jerry,
Excellent progress. My 90 S4 only has part of the liners.

GeorgeM

Any chance of getting these out by later this month? Would be nice to have new liners for the Porsche Parade concours.... would be glad to test a prototype set on my GT.

Jerry Feather

Thanks Bilal.

The 88 S4 I am fitting these early "blows" to also has similar "splash shields" in the wheel wells. One is in the back similar to the one you are showing and the other is in the front. The mounting points for those shields are going to be the ones I will have to adapt to for mounting the new liners. The one at the bottom on yours will likely be a direct mount to the new liner, and similar for the front bottom mounting point. However, I think the others, at least the ones more inboard, are going to have to have some kind of adapter fastened to them that will then fasten to the new liner. Those will fasten to the new liner at the flange that I am presently leaving at roughly inch and a half wide, but which will be further trimmed to about half inch after the mounting locations are determined, which will be left full width.

I have been trying to think of something similar for the use of the two mounting points that are in the top of the GTS wheel well, and have a pretty good idea for that, but since the S4 and earlier cars do not have those I am probably going to develop the mounting system for the early cars without the use of fasteners in the very top.

When I reached that conclusion then it has occurred to me that we can probably also do away with mounting these in the top for the GTS also, unless someone wants to go to the extra trouble to develop the mount for those points, at least until I can get my hands on a GTS to do the design myself. Even then I think it can be only an option because I think these liners will be firmly mounted without the top two points.

The delima I have now has to do with the mounting of the inner half of the liner along the center bottom edge where the GTS liners are screwed right into the frame rail of the car at, I think, four points. I have felt that many of the early car guys will not want to drill these holes in their cars to mount these, and maybe even only two of the holes, but I have pretty much come up empty for some kind of method to fasten this part of the liner to the car; and I think it might be important to do so.

Depending on just how important that is I still have one idea, but that will only keep that part of the liner from flapping around in the air flow, which may be the main reason they are screwed to the car at these points.

This kind of project is sometimes "organic" in nature, so perhaps this delima will somehow solve itself as the development porogresses. We will see.

Thanks for you input also, George. The end of this month is not likely, for a lot of reasons. Some of them are my character defects, some my physical defects, and some are my time limitations. Stay tuned though for further progress which will be a little slow in coming for the next couple of weeks.

Jerry Feather