Four tabs on rear shelf? Needed?
 

There are for metal tabs on the rear shelf. I'm in the process of putting sound deadening back there and an RS carpet set, and I'm wondering about these tabs. When I bought the car, it had a stripped interior and two big boxes of parts, so I'm not sure how it all went together originally. The rear shelf itself had four holes in it that fit over the tabs, but there wasn't anything attached to the tabs, the original shelf was just loose in there.

What were those tabs meant to be used for? Are they needed? Without cutting holes in my RS set to fit those through, its not likely the carpet will fit nicely back there. Can I just slap a cutter wheel on my dremel and lop them off? Thats where I'm leaning, but I'd hate to discover they were important after the fact. :D

A second unrelated question -- are there any good spots back there to run wires into the engine bay? I have a 3rd brake light I'm mounting back there, and I'm not having much luck finding a good route to get wires into the engine bay to tap the brake light wire.

I'm trying to get a picture of where these tabs are.

Are these the four metal "bridges" on the vertical part where the back seats are, or are these tabs on the horizontal part of the rear shelf, under the rear glass?

Sorry to be so clueless,
John

The latter. On the sheet metal under the glass, there are four metal tabs that stick up towards the roof, maybe 1" square, with a hole in the middle. They fit through slots in the vinyl covered "shelf" that goes back there, and its unclear to me what normally connects to them. They almost look like the kind of anchor you see in cars today to hold child seats, except there's four of them, and I can't imagine a 37 year old 911 had child seat mounting brackets for two seats back there!

I am going to take a guess that you are looking at the tabs that the luggage "U" brackets are screwed to after the rear deck is installed.

So you'd put the rear deck in and screw four screws into the four tabs that you find there. Each "U" luggage strap item requires two screws, so you'd have two luggage "U's" on the rear deck and of course two on the front of the rear seat vertical area (if you were sitting in the rear seat you'd find these touching your ankles).

Am I right folks?

John

EDIT: I just measured the legs on one of the luggage brackets. Each luggage U-shaped bracket has a distance of ~53mm/2and1/8th" between the screws. If the distance between your tabs' center holes matches this than I would assume that is their purpose.

John: you are exactly right with your response; these are where the lugguge strap mounts get screwed into the top of the trim panel

Dotorg: I cut mine off with a dremel to get the RS carpeting to lay flat. Years later I wanted to reinstall the original interior, and these mounting strips were missing. So if you do cut them off, you might want to save them for that one day in the future ....



:D

What timing I was just wondering about cutting these off. Here I come zizz wheel!!!

Just to further complicate matter, the luggage strap U-shaped items are not used on the "later" speaker decks. I am currently trying to find a way to get these luggage strap U's on my retrofitted speaker deck setup ('78sc).

I will probably fashion up a set of metal spacers after measuring the distance between the current deck and these tabs (using putty as you would for a valve-to-piston clearance check).

John

Dotorg-
I think the others answered your first question. As to the second, there should be a small hole in the back left corner (driver's side) at the base of the window where it meets the rear deck where the wires for the rear window defogger pass into the engine compartment.

Once you know its there, you should be able to spot it in the engine compartment (its up near the left lid hinge). I used a coat hangar and (gently) pushed it up into the passenger compartment, then taped the wires to it and again (gently) pulled the wires for the third light back into the engine compartment. Due to the angle of the glass, it was easier for me to attack this from the engine compartment than from the passenger side.

Do a search on third brake lights - there was a pretty extensive discussion on this, complete with the radio shack connectors to hook into the left rear taillight.

Yeah, unfortunately in the 68 it seems the light wiring runs on the other side of the engine bay. Not the end of the world, but it means running 5' of extra wire for it. I was hoping there was a good spot on the passenger side.

I'll be taking a look for that spot when I pull the sound deadening I've got layed down in there right now out tomorrow to start doing the carpet. I figure, rip everything out at once. Do 3rd brake light, finish the radio install and do the carpet in one epic sweaty Saturday afternoon. :D

I would imagine that you can tap into either taillight - on my '85, the left side was more accessible, since I didn't have to contend with the oil filter and such. Also, the rear fuse box is on the left, so I ran the wire under and behind it. I just used a couple of cable ties to keep everything nice and tidy; I doubt anybody would spot it.