944 rear panel removal

[Hallsy]

My Turbo has a little rust around the taillights and number plate lights, but more of an issue is a little bit around one of the hatch pin locks. It looks like someone has cleaned it up and filled as it looks like the filler has blown.

As this area is double skinned and not easy to get to the back of I will proably look at repairing with a good clean part panel.

But whilst eyballing the job, I wondered if it would be that much work to replace the complete rear panel.

Has anyone removed this panel before? Is it straight forward?

Obviously it is welded at the seam lines you can see along the top panel and at the corners below the light apertures - but as the panel is double skinned does this make access more difficult? Is it designed as one complete double skinned panel, or would i need to remove the inner skin then the outer?

I have not had the carpet out to have a proper look yet, but thought someone might have some previous experience

 

[colin944]

I think if you buy the rear panel you get both skins. If not it's a job of looking for and drilling spot welds out in order to get the panel out in one piece. If you follow the factory spot welds then its much easier to replace the panel.Invest in a good quality spot weld drill.The bits are only about a tenner each and if you look after them they last quite well.Set your drill on low speed to avoid burning the bit.

 

[Diver944]

Ken has covered this area on the first page of his 'Picture Heavy Restoration thread' here:

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=794133

 

[Kongsodoken]

The inner panel has to be drilled out, then the corner reinforcing pieces which means drilling out the piece that goes up the side of the tailgate with the slots in.

The reinforcing panels no longer available from Porsche

It's a fair amount of work[] but worthwhile


Edited to say, unless you remove the prices with the slots in that go upto the gas struts then you can not get in to weld the rear panel to the side panel because the reinforcing gets in the way[8|]

 

[Hallsy]

Funnily enough I was just looking at Ken's thread as I thought he had been through the same.

Not clear from his pics whether he replaced the outer skin as well, or just the inner but it does look like you have to remove the inner to access the spot welds between the outer rear panel and the rear quarters.

Then again, depending how bad it looks once I attack it with a wire wheel, I may be able to do a suitable repair without removing the outer rear panel, but just the inner to get suitable access to both sides.

Colin - I bought a decent spot weld drill bit when I replaced the sills on my Eunos, but I managed to kill it I'll take your advice and keep the drill speed slow.

I'm just thinking ahead at the moment as I can't really start work until I have sold my red S and bought a new runabout.

 

[Hallsy]

Sorry - missed your post Ken.

Yes, I was just looking at PET and your pictures and can now see that the rear panel is actually made up of three skins!

PET shows the slotted parts that run up the sides of the tailgate as all one piece, is that not so, or did you cut yours?

Item #16 here:

Did you replace your outer skin, or just the re-inforcing plates (9a) and the inner rear panel?

So many spot welds, lol!!

 

[Kongsodoken]

did not replace the rear panel but it was allmost out so it would have been easy to do

item 16 is in 3 peices spot welded together I removed the center piece as this is what i wanted to replace then drilled all the spotwelds out of the side pieces so I could slide in piece 9a