Wayne Smith

OK ... I've heard that by pulling the cable in the fender well you can open the frunk I an emergency.

I was going to extend my cable so I wouldn't need to remove the wheel and fender liners to get to this cable.

But I see no way this cable can work (see the attached pictures). The cable ends near the center of the car with an eyelet that wraps around the plastic sheath that routes the solenoid cable to the latch.

Any ideas on how to make this functional?

Thanks in advance ... Wayne

ADias

That is odd. I thought that the cable was under the passenger side wheel-well cover (on a C2S).

Wayne Smith

Yep. This makes no sense to me either.

Coming in from (pulling from) the passenger's side (right side) would pull the final release latch. To operate the initial latch requires a pull from the driver's (left) side.

Note that there are two solenoids. The driver's side (left side) solenoid in the frunk operates the initial release (operates from the switch on the car or the key fob). The second solenoid (on the opposite side and to the front of the frunk) is an over ride for the final release lever. The escape switch inside the frunk operates both solenoids.

The cable eyelet is wrapped around the initial release solenoid cable shroud (plastic sleeve). When pulled the eyelet slides along that shroud, but not until after it pulls the frunk carpet out.

I've been impressed by Porsche engineering capability. I'm wondering what I'm missing here!!!

ADias

A simple mechanical latch with a proper cable would do fine. No need for electric/solenoid latch control, me thinks. But ever growing, senseless, complexity is all around us.

Wayne Smith

I don't see a place to hook any cable at the latch and there's no obvious place to attach directly to the cable or the solenoid.

That emergency cable is useless as is. I've got no idea what Porsche was thinking with this.

I guess I've had too much time and now, with everything done around the house and the garage (driveway), I'm down to this. I'd love to have a solution.

Help????? Anybody!!!!!

ADias

I hope you understood that I was not proposing an aftermarket cable solution. I meant a sensible OEM mechanical solution, but that ship has sailed.

Wayne Smith

Frankly, without seeing any way to make the OEM emergency cable do anything positive, I've been trying to figure out what I can fabricate. But the latch itself is very unfriendly toward getting a second cable onto it.

Wayne Smith

I've looked deeper. Mine is not unique. See the attached picture.

I think the philosophy is that the solenoid will never fail but we (speaking for the Porsche modern engineers) must respect the old guys in the room who still want a mechanical over ride.

So the way this works is if you pull hard enough on the cable you will pull the frunk carpet out which will then allow the floating solenoid to pull over until you pull out the grommet going through the frunk to the latch area and then the latch will open.

Once open you can repair the damage the cable created and replace the solenoid ... that's the solenoid that will never fail anyway!!!

This is definitely not an opening device you would want to use if not absolutely necessary!!!

Anyway ... Time to button this up and call it done. It may not be right in my mind but if the wheel and fender liner need to be removed to gain access to the cable, so be it. You wouldn't want to be pulling that cable through a hole in the fender liner anyway given the required forces to make it operate. In the meantime, keep your lug lock in the glove box.

PS ... Still thinking about pulling the latch apart, milling a slot in the side, welding an extension pin onto the cable mount, and running another cable through a hole below the headlight to above the wheel. But ... NO!!!

Vince-

maybe you could hook a cable on the abduction safety lever instead
or it's electric too?

Bruce In Philly

2009 C2S 157K miles

Maybe what happens when you pull it, is that the white cable sheath, the cone end, pulls away from the housing and therefore the cable becomes extended. You/we may be assuming the cable sheath is solidly attached. Try just pulling the sheath cone directly away from the latch. I bet it pulls off easily thus extending the cable length.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Wayne Smith

That handle trips a micro switch in order to operate. Other than tripping the switch there is nothing mechanical about It. It requires a good battery and two good operating solenoids ... The normal solenoid plus one to bypass the secondary safety release handle. I thought about paralleling onto that micro switch but if you need an alternative opening method it's because the release solenoid isn't working in the first place.

And I considered that method to be fraught with unnecessary hazards.

Note that if this switch shorts (or a secondary release using this switch activates) then the frunk lid could fully lift at speed.

I watched this happen on a Toyota at speed. Wasted the windshield and endangered a lot of drivers to the rear. The lady driving made a fantastic save. It could have been much worse.

While the common electrics failure mode is to not connect (my concern with the frunk opening solenoid) I've seen it work the other way (shorting or undesired mechanical activation).

This entire frunk design seems like a risk assessment concern ... Foreseeable use and misuse and failure modes. Perhaps I've spent too many years designing machines that can amputate or worse. And spent sleepless nights concerned about keeping people from bypassing safety circuits and eliminating redundancies. Maybe I'm over thinking this.

It seems like this should have been a two switch system with contact monitoring or at least include a lock out so it couldn't operate at speeds over 5 mph (maybe it does, but if so this should be controlled by at least two different circuits by two different computers and the single switch should still be monitored).

Anyway, I'm not about to touch that already potentially tenuous assembly!!!

From what I see Porsche decided on a mechanical over ride (good) and believed it would seldom be needed (accurate) and decided it could be unwieldy (I guess I can live with that). The more I think about it the more correct their decision feels.

All I can say at this point is to realize that if you ever need to use this cable you will need to pull (a lot) harder than you might expect.

Meanwhile it makes sense to hinge hoods on the leading edge ...

Wayne Smith

One of the first things I did. I know you like to play with this stuff. I've been waiting for your report. Let us know what you discover and if it's different from my experience. When I finally decided to yank hard enough I was able to release the latch without pulling the grommet out.

You will want the eyelet to be down where the sheath broadens out.