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REAR TRUNK LID

I'm in the process of re-working my rear trunk lid. I felt it was too heavy and needed to be cleaned up.

Originally this was a AIR unit with about a 4" lip on the back. I changed it to have about a 8" lip which I made out of 1/8" wood covered with fiberglass and molded it in. I ran it for several years like this but now that I have changed the rear fenders to be removable I need to add about a 1/4" to one side to fill the fender to trunk gap. I've always through it was too heavy so I decided it was time to put it on a diet.

The part that was adding the weight was the inner supports ribs. They are the same size and shape as the ribs in a stock lip, but they are f/g. So the plan was to cut them off and add something simple and light. Once I began cutting the ribs out I found that they were not bonded very well to the lid. I could almost just pull them off with my hands. Overall I would say that this lid was a piece of crap when it left AIR. It also had one rear corner which was not inline with the other one but I fixed this years ago. The first picture shows the inside of the lid before I cut out the ribs.

The next two pictures show the new ribs I added back on. I used 1" PVC pipe that I split in two. You have to take sandpaper and rough up the surface to get the resin to stick to the PVC. The split pipe is flexible enough to bend and take the shape of the lid. You have to use clamps to tighten it down and hold it. Than you take 1" x 3" f/g mat strips and wrap it over the pipe. Once the strips cure you can remove the clamps. Than you can add f-glass the entire lenght of the pipe. It makes for a very strong support and lightweight! It takes several operations to get all the pipe ribs on there but it's done now. It is much lighter and actually stronger (stiffer).

I also plan on removing the f/g covered wood lip pieces. These pieces also added some unneeded weight as I had to use bondo to get it to look right. I currently have my oil cooler mounted in a cut out in the middle of the lip. I don't run the stock oil cooler on my engine, I only run the sandwich cooler. But now with a new RAT engine I going to change my thinking on oil coolers. I'm thinking I should run the stock cooler and delete the sandwich cooler. I only run autox's and I don't build up a lot of heat in the oil. The stock cooler will have constant air blowing through it from the fan. Also I can delete that heavy braided oil lines and block off plate and fittings. I've decided not to have a lip on the back at all. It is just going to be a stock looking lid. I don't think they really do anything anyway. OK they look cool but it too much work for no gain. I've done a little research and very feww autox 914 run them. The fourth picture is the oil cooler in the lip as it is currently. The fifth picture is of one side of the lip cut off.

Pictures 6 & 7 are of the rear edge being shaped. I had a template of the raduis of the stock lid edge and I'll use it to work the f/g down. I weighed it and it is 6 pounds.


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