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1972 Porsche 914

Repair and Restoration - Part 8 - Front Trunk

5/31/2009

I have been working on rebuilding brake calipers at night and (noisy) body work during the day.  I have generally been tired of working on the longitudinals recently, so I decided to take a break and work on replacing the front trunk.  I bought a replacement front trunk from someone months ago (can't remember who at this point) and will be cutting out the old and welding in the new.  This is a common repair for the 914 for two reasons.  First if your car had A/C installed, the dealer would have cut a big hole in the front trunk to install the condenser coil.  If you remove the A/C you need to fix that hole.  The second is that it's a common place for pin hole rust spots to develop.

Here is the bottom view.  You can see some of the rust.

Shot from the inside with no flash.  You can see the Swiss cheese nature of my front trunk.

Shot from the inside with flash.

I marked around the perimeter and tried to mark on a flat surface as much as possible.  I also am trying to make the cut in a flat "plane" so it will hopefully make it easier to fit the replacement.

More cut marks around the perimeter

I used an angle grinder with a thin cutting wheel.  I think a reciprocating saw would also work, but in my opinion it's easier to cut straight lines with the angle grinder.

Now I am putting the old next to the new and transferring a cut mark to the new part.  Be generous and make sure you leave a few millimeters of extra metal on the new part so that you can trim to fit once the part is cut out.  Remember, measure twice and cut once!

 
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