'69 - '73 Headlight Hardware?

[jluetjen]

Does anyone have a picture of the hardware holding in the headlight frames? During my car's repaint we replaced both front fenders with Dansk replacements. They fit great, but all of the holes are in the wrong places. There are 4 tabs inside the fender's headlight area where the headlight frames attach. Did the factory use sheet metal screws, speed nuts or a welded on nut to hold the frames in place? Or something else?



In the absences of any better information I'm leaning towards drilling new holes and using sheet metal screws. But if there is a reasonable way to replicate what the factory did, I'm up for that. At this point a welded nut is out of the question.

Thanks!

[SCadaddle]

Been a while since replacing the headlight bucket in my 69 912, but I want to say they were originally drilled and tapped for an M5X? machine screw. Probably what you will need to do is fit the headlight in the housing, then put it in the fender and put the sugar scoop/light bezel with the rubber gasket between the bezel and the fender, move the light around until it fits right in the scoop/bezel then while holding the light in place remove the scoop/bezel and mark the holes in the bucket so you can then drill and tap.

The PET should confirm what is required.

http://www.porsche.com/all/media/pdf/originalparts/usa/911_USA_70_73_KATALOG.pdf

Look in Section 9 for the exploded headlight assembly diagram and parts list. I think it is the M4X10 Cheese Head screw with a 0.70 pitch. The pitch for the tap I seem to remember was an odd one to find, and I want to say my friend in the fastener business said the pitch was odd on anything other than what you would find on a vintage firearm. I think the 0.75 pitch is the standard.

I'll also add, and remember, this has been a few years ago since I went through this, the thick "foam" type headlight ring/sugar scoop gasket that fits around the lip on the fender before you put the sugar scoop on the car was just too thick for the original fenders on my 912. The correct gaskets aren't the same as the later ones that are on my 911SC. At the time, I sourced the correct thin rubber gasket from International Mercantile. Wayne (Pelican) may offer them as well by now and I would certainly suggest you check into it as he provides us this great message board!

[jluetjen]

Thanks. Since this car is a "driver" rather than a "Concours" car, I think that I'll go with the nearest available machine screw and tap combination. Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Also the tip about the gasket is good to know too. I'll check and post here what I find.

[jluetjen]

Surprisingly - My Craftsman metric tap set included the M4-10 0.75 and the 0.70 taps. So I just ended up cutting the threads, and widening the holes on the frame a little bit. No matter what I was only going to get 3 of the 4 screws in place. Curiously on the right side, it was the mirror image screw that I wasn't able to fit.

As far as the gasket is concerned, the two that I had on the car still looked fairly reasonable, so I'm not going to change them for now.

Thanks SCadaddle for the guidance on the screws and holes.