I had a chance to work yesterday on 09 997 turbo. It was just small ding and I thought this will be easy as always. We service Beverly Hills Porsche dealership so we work on turbos all the time. But this was first time I did quarter panel. Some panels are aluminum (hood, doors) but this was metal.
Ding with reflection
So I lift the car up and knowing that Porsche already has factory opening in quarter panel I thought I just go through there. Well I find out that instead of inner metal structure there is something else.
Inside of quorter panel there are 2 plastic peaces with screws. I thought this will be easy I just remove these and i will have big opening. So that is what I did.
On this picture you can see how big opening is. What you can not see that even if you take this off completely you can not access skin on the quarter panel because there is vent house. LOL I was thinking. " I am not gonna be out here as fast as I thought ;-)" And also "Great I learn something new today"
So I took a vent out. On Boxster you know if you take vent out you can easily pull robber out and you have wide access. Well turbo is not a Boxster. And performance, price and design of that car is the proof. When vent was out I saw that house is really tight and it was hard to try to slide tool between skin and housing.
Trick is to loose those two screws which give you about 1/4 inch room and I could slide there tool easily
I did use the smallest tool from this picture. All those tools are from http://www.dentcraft.com/ and I try them all for this access point. I didn't need to use bigger then the smallest one. But I did wanted to know if dent is further from vent if I will be able to access it. And yes, I could slide there green tool as well
This is the after picture. Ding was easy to remove.
What you want to pay attention when you removing vent is how to start. There is no screw like on Boxster. the Porsche 911 model 997 turbo has only clips. Easiest way was to use window wedge and dissaseble from front. If I do it from back I will brake clips because those were reverse clips. First you pop out from front and then slide it back. So those back clips don't brake.
You also loose the bottom. I point it out where are clips which pop out. The back side has reverse clips.
On this picture you can see front straight clips
On this picture you can see (not so well ;-) those reverse clips. You have to slide it back. All this is common sense. Nothing difficult but I thought it will be nice to share.
Have a good day everybody and I hope all your dents will be nice and smooth at the end.
cheers David
