First, thx to @iankarr for giving me an idea of how this is done basically. During the course of this excruciating exercise I changed religion 3 times, pissed my wife off and generally had a shitty day. #1- remove the gas tank and the nut holding the rear tank strap in place; #2 remove the wiper blades, packing nuts and rubber gaskets. Then push the wiper assembly down and to the rear (out of the way). #3-insert the new grille into the new gasket. *NOTE: the easy parts are now over! #4- lub the gasket with liquid hand soap and begin the process of placing the gasket/grille combo on top of the air box. It goes pretty easily until you get to the other end, doesn't it? All I can say is that you will need to massage the gasket before you will be able to get that 4th side seated. And when you do don't let go or it will bow up and walk off like a friggen inch worm. Usually separating the grille from the gasket in the process. If so, rinse and repeat but this time have your rubber bands or zip ties handy so that you can cinch it down once it is in place. Ian suggests using large rubber bands but I didn't have any so I used zip ties. I'm glad that I did because they allowed me to pull the grille gasket assm done very snugly. If you go this route use very long zip ties or if you chain 15" ones together as I did don't have one of the clasping square heads over the top of the grille where it will be captured once the box is bolted in place. At this point it should look something like this:

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#5- At this time you will need to lub the top and side ends of the gasket but before you do now is a good time to do a quick dress rehearsal of how you are going to re-install the box assembly with its new gasket in place. I found it easier to slip the right rear corner in first then push it towards the left (pass side). After a few inches it clears the stud that the rear tank strap bolts to and you can then straighten the box so that it is square with the brackets that it mounts to. After this you can push it back most of the way and it will now clear the lip of the cowl and not be in a bind. This is a eureka moment but don't shit yourself the fun is just now beginning. As Ian points out, the left side (pass side) is the first to be bolted in. So you look at the hole in the bracket (this is no easy task in itself) expecting to see the captive nut that the bolt screws into but it is nowhere to be seen. But if you grasp the box on the bottom with both hands and lift mightily it will appear. Well, half of it anyway. How will I ever get that bolt started if it takes both hands just to get the holes partially aligned? Then I had the bright idea of using a drift to align the holes and in the process discovered that the captive nut is only sort of captive. The %*#@* nut fell inside the box so I had to remove the box during which the grille decided to dislodge itself from the gasket. I'm pretty sure I invented a few new cuss words at this point and unfortunately, for me, this is the time my wife stepped into the garage to ask me how things were going. I can only say things did not improve, for me, after that. At this point I was already several hours into this masochistic endeavor and decided to call it a night. Day 2; My wife had begun speaking to me again, albeit curtly, so I decided to give it another try or find something else to do that took at least half a day. I retrieved the captive (Hah!) nut from inside the box and re-inserted it. Next I had the pleasure of mating the grill/gasket combo to the box and strapping it in place. Once the box was back in place I noticed there was a metal post that holds this wire/rod actuator. It seemed sturdy enough so I place an 8" long 1x2 under it and easily lifted the box into the position that the holes aligned. Hot Damn! I should add that when doing this the back of the box dips a bit but is easily lifted with the other hand. I thought I had an epiphany but it turned out to be gas. I felt I was 1/2 way to completion but nooooooooooo. The right side would barely budge when trying the lift on that metal post. In the end I placed a 2x2 under the right side 2" snout/nipple. It is not very thick so I cut a piece of 2" PVC to wrap around it and spread the load. The wedge only raised it a bit. I wasn't comfortably with that much pressure on the plastic nipple so I added some more 1x2's and a wedge to the left and spread the load. The height was now good but it need to go back about 6mm. You can see the wedge I used against the tank bulkhead that was needed to center the last attach point. I can do this in an hour by myself now that I know how but it was several hours of frustration getting to this point. I'll dump some pics showing what & where. Hopefully this will ease the process for at least some of you.

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Rube Goldberg approach perhaps? How did they do this at the factory when Franz was on lunch break? I guess that sometimes things are far more complicated than first anticipated. Time for a robot.

Glad the video helped. How come you didn’t use the squeeze clamp?

Cheap HF clamp. Plastic hands broke last week.

I was thinking that same thing earlier today. I could envision the first 914 down the assm line and someone walking off the job.

You forgot to add the part where you did this in open toe sandals/flip flops (yes, I can see that in one of the pictures)

Thanks for the write up, and the laugh!

Important to recognize that the factory seal was not like the seal in question here.

The factory would not tolerate the finesse needed to install these seals.

Did this job eight or ten years ago and it easily was the most miserable job I’ve ever done on the car. I can’t remember exactly how I got it back in but I do remember crouching in the frunk cursing it. And then cursing it some more. Then some more.

Getting that cable clamp snapped back on was brutal. There was no video available so it was a matter of figuring it out on the fly. Hope to never have to do it again (this was to replace the wiper motor).

I’d rather swap the dash a dozen times...