Porsche 911UK Forum

Welcome to the @Porsche911UK website. Register a free account today to become a member! Sign up is quick and easy, then you can view, participate in topics and posts across the site that covers all things Porsche.

Already registered and looking to recovery your account, select 'login in' and then the 'forget your password' option.

Fitting wire mesh to a 997

Maxie

Well-known member
Joined
11 Mar 2007
Messages
8,436
I have seen a few members starting to protect the side radiators of their 997s so I thought I would resurrect a portion of a write-up I did earlier. This post is adapted from an earlier third radiator fitment I wrote in 2013.

Tools needed:
Torx screws T20 & T25
16mm socket
WD40 spray
Aluminium mesh (check Halfords, eBay, etc)
Wirecutters
Glue gun if accessible. Tacks if not.

Lights removal:
Headlight removal is straight from the car's manual. It will help to have this removed because it allows for a greater working space.







Take out all the lights from the front bumper area including auxiliary and indicator units.





Front bumper removal
The best guide I found was here:

http://www.renntrack.com/forums/showthread.php?116-987-997-Front-Bumper-Removal

I don't think the instructions are crystal but they give a good idea of what is to be done. Some extra notes for 911uk I have added here:

If your car has the washers, then just simply press down on the jets and remove from the bumper prior to taking the bumper off.







The sliding pins that are located behind the headlight aperture can be a little stubborn to take off so spray with plenty of WD40 before sliding them inwards towards the bonnet aperture. These need to be slid off because they contain retaining pins to the top of the front bumper. Contrary to the above guide, I found that a curved hook made for a better way of coaxing these pins out.









Of course, remove all the torx screws as mentioned in the guide.

And voila, the front bumper is now free of the car:



Whiulst you have the front bumper off, best to clean out any debris in there. You can already see some debris kicked up from the road in there:







The next steps assumes that the central aperture is going to be meshed but if you don't need to do that, the same principles for doing the side intakes apply.

Fitting mesh to the intake apertures:
I bought this piece of aluminium mesh from Halfords for £25.





Alternatively you can order from Zunsport a ready made mesh grill for £107

zpr22309.jpg


30f0caea-217d-4440-bf72-1611a4ed5811.jpg


I might have been tempted to do the latter but, for me, I don't like the way the centre grille is 'pushed' out to the front. I personally prefer a recessed grille as in the following steps:

Using wirecutters, cut the mesh roughly to the shape of the side intakes (mine follows the shape for the centre grill because I already had the sides covered):







Using one of the pieces, place behind the air-intake and roughly cut off the excess





This pics shows me using a smaller cross section of mesh than in the pic above.



Now I am just cutting to measure to get a good fit.

Cutting around the corners to give the following rough shape (it doesn't have to be exact).



Attaching the mesh onto the intake can be done in a variety of ways. I didn't have any glue handy at the time but what I did have were these tacks (small pins) which I had left over from a B&Q trip some months back. Many forum members have used a glue gun.







I pushed/gently hammered these tacks into the back of the mesh against the border of the intake like so:





Go all the way around until you have completed:



From the front it looks like:











(the side grilles you see are from Zunsport which I had attached a couple of years back - something I regret doing as this mesh method is far more satisfying to do and a lot cheaper to purchase).

All nice and recessed.

Re-fitting bumper to car:
In principal, the job is done now. It is (almost) a reverse process of re-attaching the front bumper back onto the car. A few additional points to take heed:

First, place the small torx screws (T20) back into the side-repeater apertures:





Second, latch the bumper on to the metal bracket (that is attached directly to the chassis) and place back the washer jets in postion by clipping them back into their retaining sockets (this will prevent them from slipping).





Third, pull the bumper wiring (for the lights) through the auxiliary lighting aperture. The use the guide (link posted above) for taking the bumper off in reverse order.

Once done, hopefully looking like this:









~ Maxie
 
Great stuff Maxie!

I also much prefer your look than the Zunnsport - it looks a lot more OEM - and just like Porsche add to the newest cars now.

One thing I've noticed with the Gen 1 GT3 Zunnsport set is they still allow leaves/ciggeretes through the smallest intake on each side.. seems pointless then, as you can't get in to clean if you cover all the other intakes with mesh..

Anyway cheers - I look forward to doing this myself soon - where do we order the black mesh from?

:thumb:
 

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
124,354
Messages
1,439,460
Members
48,712
Latest member
golfguy11800
Back
Top