Fitting Trunk Lid MK III, Bodywork question

[timp2]

I am trying to fit the deck lid to the body. The lid on the driver side is about 3/8 of an inch inch higher than the body midway between the forward edge, to just before the lid starts to turn down. If the lid is pressed in the high spot I can hear the aluminum liner flex or "oilcan", the driver side goes down and the passenger side raises up a bit. The passenger side fits fine even when the aluminum flexes. I know that I am not the only one that has this problem; I saw a post on the FFcars roadster forum by tim-in-oakton. msteen replied to that thread that he had a similar situation and cut the liner out of his deck lid and re-attached it.

Any ideas other than cutting the aluminum liner out?

[Brian Z]

Alot of times proper placement of the rubber bumpers and latching the trunk down tight will make the trunk pull into place. Is it possible to post some pictures?

[timp2]

I appreciate your reply Brian. I will send some pictures when I put the body back on the chassis. The body is off for final fit and priming. The rest of the panels fit fine, but the deck lid really has me perplexed.

[edwardb]

Alot of times proper placement of the rubber bumpers and latching the trunk down tight will make the trunk pull into place. Is it possible to post some pictures?

I just completed this fitting on my MK III a few weeks ago, and had a similar problem. The trunk lid was the farthest off of all the panels and the most work to get fitting well. My first attempts were exactly what you describe. The curve of the trunk sides along the top did not match the body, and the lid was 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch higher than the body. My first reaction was that the lid was defective and that I needed a new one. But worked with it and got it to fit OK. It takes a lot of trial and error, but found these factors influence it: (1) On mine, the side-to-side curve across the top of the body was also off. The center of the lid was below the body. I nice stiff bumper right in the middle pushed it up to even, and this actually caused the sides to drop a little. Hope this makes sense. (2) I had to raise the handle location about 3/4 of an inch, pulling it tighter. This also meant cutting some off the bottom of the lid, more than just the usual trim to fit. Apparently the lid was just too big. This meant filling the already provided hole and making a new hole. This pulled the lid down into the opening much better, again dropping the sides. I experimented with this quite a bit. It was possible to pull it down too much, causing the lid to go inside the body around the back corner. Again, hope this makes sense. So you need to find the right tension, and will take bumpers along the sides and back as well. (3) Make sure the trunk latch (and striker rod) are properly centered so that it's pulling equally on both sides. Sounds like yours may not be centered.

Using these steps, I got mine within 1/16 or so. My painter (it's there now) did a little build up on the body with filler, and it's perfect now. The filler isn't very thick. He skimmed it to make the transition as gradual as possible. I would also encourage you that once the lid is fitted and locked onto the body, it seems to take a bit of a "set" and I don't feel like it's being pulled into the opening and changing shape like it did at first. I also can't imagine you should have to remove and replace the inner liner. Yours sounds like it was off about as much as mine, and it wasn't necessary for me. Hope this helps!

[3kcarbon]

I had a similar issue on my Mk 4. The lid seemed to have warped into a tighter than needed curve while in storage waiting for it time to come. It was a very bad fit to start with. I adjusted it as best I could and blocked it into place and placed a 20 lb shot bag on the trunk and let it sit in the hot garage for several days. Over time it was better and I would adjust the blocking and reapply the 20 shot bag. It now fits pretty good. It was warped and I was able to get it to relax. It may not have worked in cold weather!

[Gopher]

I 've read where people have placed a light over the trunk lid after it was wieghted or pulled into position to help the part hood or trunk deck reform itself to improve the fit I guess I got lucky and mine fit really well to start with. A couple of bumpers a skim coat and walk away.

[timp2]

I appreciate all of the replies to help me out with this problem. The final result was that Factory Five replaced the trunk lid and it fits like it is supposed to. Thank you Brian Z and Factory Five for standing behind your product.