996TT02

I needed to get this "cover" off. To access my spoiler lifting mechanism. I read somewhere that I am not the only one to have had problems with something that should take less than a minute to do.

The reason being that the bolts are steel, while the metal inserts in the plastic of the engine hood are made of aluminium. Furthermore, these bolts and fittings, or at least some of them, are open to the elements. So some of them can seize. When you try to undo the bolts, the entire metal insert starts to rotate in the plastic. The other person who had problems ended up breaking parts of his engine cover. Not good, but it's something I was contemplating having to do, too. But it's not necessary.

You will need a dremel or similar. I don't think you have any alternative to this. And a drill and new or sharp drill bits, one in a small size to drill a pilot hole, one around 6mm in size.

Basically - drill the heads of the offending bolts. Drill very centrally, drill them till the head comes off. The bolts steel is not very hard, 8.8 I think, so with a good drill and some patience this will be done.

Having torn off the bolt heads, the under-cover can be removed.

Associated tip - removing (and refitting) the under - cover can be very fiddly and tight and you risk breaking it. Pop off one of the rams holding the engine lid open. At the cover, not at the car body of course. If the spoiler has been removed the engine lid will be supported by just one ram, if not, prop it up. You get that bit more essential space to remove the under-cover.

Now you are left with headless bolts very securely seized within the aluminium inserts. Still not very good.

The inserts are flanged, but should be freely rotating as you inevitably fooked them up when you tried to undo the bolts. This is a good thing.

Use the dremel with cutting disc to chop the flange to pieces. Be patient, it takes time to do this properly without causing much damage. You will inevitably cut into the plastic a little bit. But try to avoid doing so even though this will all be covered up later, by the under-cover. As you need strong undamaged plastic there.

When done, just push the metal insert inwards and remove from the rear.

What next?

Get some M6 flanged nuts. Grind them so that the hex part is round. When you grind them enough, they will fit into the hole left by the metal insert. You need to fit them so that the flange IS AT THE REAR, so that this can take the pull of the bolts. Having test fitted, use some epoxy of whatever sort to glue them in.

Done.

After re-assy with similar M6 bolts there is absolutely no evidence of any repair, and it all goes back together again just like the factory intended it to, no modifications.

Tip, if you don't find black bolts, use the new replacement silver ones to retain the intake air duct, where they are not visible, and the black air duct ones in the visible position. Well, you have two of them at least.

Have fun, and grease all the other bolts!

Oh and even if you don't need to remove your cover - I'd recommend everyone to loosen their bolts and grease them up anyway. If you encounter resistance just stop there, sort out the problem when you need to. But greasing up your bolts today will prevent all your good ones from seizing.

MDKK

Maybe a silly question but are the bolts torqued or just hand tight? Any special type of grease?

996TT02

This is about the plastic lining to the engine compartment lid/hood... your only torque wrench is your common sense and any grease that keeps the threads oily will do. If the bolts don't crack open but turn stiffly, this means that the entire insert is rotating in the plastic.

"02996ttx50

...or if like me, that damn things been on/off so many times! that nothing is seized at all. was a couple mins tops to remove liner and fan etc, lay spoiler assembly upside down, and juice the ends w a 12v source and add green fluid and reinstall fan, lid back on, decklid back on and done.

mines "used" to being removed LOL

DaveCarrera4

Mine and those I've worked on while installing the eRam kit were lightly torqued. Some are harder to turn than others. I used a tiny dab of anti-seize (copper-coat) on them when I reinstall them.

AndyMc

Good advice. I decided to see how my bolts were after reading this thread. My car is a bit of a garage queen and has not seen much of the bad weather we are famous for here in the UK, even so my bolts were just at the point of seizing, I felt a couple of the inserts just start to turn as the bolts broke free and they were stiff all the way out.

I managed to get all of them out bar one. I came up with an ingenious way of holding this last insert from the rear as luckily there was just enough access (see pic) and managed to get it's bolt out too. Then as the inserts work by compression I used two spanners to tighten a bolt and thus re-compress the insert making it a tight fit again and now it's as good as new

Next I repeatedly sprayed penetrating fluid on the bolts and wound them in and out until the threads were nice and free and the fluid became clean, then reassembled the cover with plenty of dry moly paste on the threads.

So all in all a nice little job which may have prevented damage to my expensive Aero kit engine cover further down the line!!!

This is what is so good about these forums, when people share their experiences for the good of all

Edit
996tt02 just thought once you had ground the the old ones out you could just fit new Inserts (Rivnuts) see vid