Retrofit Ski Hatch

[notorious]

Great writeup. I bet it was fun laying in the boot It'll be more fun putting liner back in place with those clips

If you have Audi touch up paint I'd also paint areas of bare metal where the cuts are.

[HPsauce]

Those clips are horrible to get back in, as I remember from my PF S8, but there are only 5 to do. I might just use Velcro strips glued in place.
Edit: No Velcro. The trick was just to get the alignment right, not easy lying on your back in a stupid uncomfortable position.
You need to see the fixing hole clearly through the hole in the material (sometimes 2 layers) before carefully pushing the "split" component in smoothly and squarely to its full depth. Then the locking "mushroom" goes in without much pressure and finally press the whole thing in firmly.

[steamship]

Good writeup. Glad I was able to help by supplying the hatch.

[notorious]

Strencil for boot liner hole.

This is photograph of genuine Audi PF liner with basic dimensions. I used this stencil to cut hole for my FL car.

Liner will hide two screws in two alu brackets behind it. Two blue dots designate spots where two screws in two alu brackets will touch liner from behind.



Hope it makes sense.

[notorious]

Andrew,

What are you going to do with screws in alu brackets? They are attached from the inside.



This is picture of PF car.



Liner just covers two brackets with screws:





This guy **uninstalled** ski hatch without removing rear seats. Brackets are pried off and left in place.

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by notorious

What are you going to do with screws in alu brackets?

Not sure what you mean, no pictures that I can see in your post: Confused:......

What I did is pictured in stages in the thread. The only brackets are in the top of the hatch frame and screws go into those from the inside as shown in my photos. Easily accessed with headrest raised and flap/curtain below unclipped.

The cutout I made, using the removed metal panel as a template, is exactly the same as shown in your photo, just a couple of mm smaller all round the main section.
Except I then, for simplicity, enlarged it by 30mm (as noted) along the top edge to clear the brackets AND the two BIG bolts (probably FL only) securing the seat back.

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by notorious

What are you going to do with screws in alu brackets?

OK, found those pictures on the forum in Russia. They are from a PF car.
FL has a different seat back and screws are accessible from inside as I said earlier, so no problem at all.
My hatch is from an FL car and I fitted it into an FL car so I have all the bits.

If you were working on an PF car you probably would have to take the seat out, both to remove and reinstall.
BUT because the FL also has extra bolts to secure the seat back, you need to cut round those too - I just sliced off 30mm at the top for a quick & easy solution.
(think I'm repeating myself a bit here..................)

[notorious]

Understood. Thanks.

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by steamship

Glad I was able to help by supplying the hatch.

Not only the hatch, but the invaluable explanation of how you removed it.

For the education of others the PF pictures Notorious found are attached to this post.
As you will see the 2 big bolts for the seat back (FL) are not there, though the third picture shows two holes roughly where they go.
Not sure what that third picture is of though, doesn't look like a D2. And obviously those brackets are supposed to come off still attached to the hatch.