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The cover for my bonnet latch release has been loose for some time and I would like to secure it in properly. It is currently loosely secured with a long screw (pictured) but when I tighten this the plastic cover is pushed outside of its correct mating position. Can anybody advise, am I missing something here? Thanks!
That is a completely wrong screw to attach the cover!! Check the PET diagram. I changed the broken latch on my car and it is held on with 2 piece, allen head bolts.
Yes, there should be 2 x M6 socket head bolts in the recesses. I suspect the actually handle housing (where they screw nto) is damaged and some has just drilled a hole in the centre and used a long wood screw!
Yes the middle hole with the long screw is an "un-authorized alteration"!
I recently went through this with my '91 C2 Coupe. As r-mm said, the original cover piece is held on by a surprisingly poor (for a Porsche design) setup where two expansion tabs (think drywall screw mount) insert into holes on the main release handle assembly. These holes have to be big enough to allow a hex key wrench through to get to the hex head bolts that hold the handle to the chassis. When the cover plate is installed, the plastic tabs insert into these holes and the two screws that hold it on expand the plastic tabs to friction grip the parts together. The problem is, the plastic gets brittle over time and constant impact from feet going in and out of the footwell eventually break the cover off.
I figured, just buy a new cover, right? Wrong! Porsche redesigned this handle assembly for the 993 using threaded inserts on the face of the assembly as attachment points for the cover plate. In doing this they changed the design of the cover plate but did not change the part number! So the new cover I ordered (964 538 625 00) did not fit unless you replace the entire handle assembly. I explained this to the parts manager at the Porsche dealership when I returned the part but they had no solution (or explanation).
Here are pictures of the old and new handle parts. Look carefully and you can see the different inserts. The original 964 has brass inserts with no threads while the new 993/964 part has steel or aluminum inserts wit recessed threads.
Original 964 Handle
New 993/964 Handle
Being the cheap bastard that I am, I decided that a couple of hours of my time was better than forking out hundreds of dollars to replace a perfectly good hood latch handle assembly. I used some spare vacuum hose ground down to just fit into the handle inserts along with nuts also ground down to fit into the holes. The now-circular nuts are crazy-glued to the bits of hose which in turn are glued to the back of the handle cover. The net result is this can be inserted into the existing holes in the original handle assembly. When the matching screws are inserted into the hole, through the rubber tube and threaded into the nuts on the end, they can be tightened to compress the rubber tubing and create a strong friction fit for the modified cover.
Modified Handle cover
Hope this info is useful.
Cheers!
Jim G.
Last edited by C24FUN; 06-15-2022 at 04:56 PM.
Reason: Clarity
Do you have the PET page handy? I'm curious to know if the "drywall anchors" are available as spares or if they're sold as part of the presumably NLA 964 handle ?
06-13-2022, 08:26 AM
Frunk bonnet cover help!
