This has been bugging me since I got the car, so I took my phone and took some pics to show you guys. So far from pics of everyone elses' bays, I haven't seen any other examples of it. I shrank the pics to save on some bandwidth, but you get the idea.




~Cheers~

 

I had the same thing on my engine cover.. i'm still not sure exactly what caused it.

 

i have that too but i believe everyone has that with a 3.2tl

 

the pics aren't coming up for me... but from what i gather you have little rub marks on the center of your engine cover??? i had the same problem also... but i sanded it down, bondo and painted over it... but i can see that it wants to start it again... doesn't make sense for me b/c i have a legend bar that sits higher than the cover with no problems...

 

I have a couple of spots like that and have it figured what causes it, but am still working on what to do about. This is caused by the liner of the hood rubbing on the engine cover. If you look at the liner when the hood is up, you will see rub marks on it.

Still working on a satisfactory method of tying the hood liner in place that doesn't require bondo, screws, glue, angel sweat, small animals being sacrificed, or the use of large power tools. It may require ritual sacrifice of some type, but I want to keep it small and not harm the little woodland creatures.

Any way, I think there are some clips in the center part of the hood liner that come loose or break, and I haven't had the time to really work out a solution to this one. Make sure that the thing doesn't rub a hole in the engine cover, since that would obviously be bad. If you come up with an answer, let us know

Duck

 

dude wtf kind of phone do you have?? thats some clear pictures.

 

thats what i was thinking also.. nice pics on a cell phone.. my digi cam looks the same Lol!

 

I doubt the hood brackets actually contact the valve cover, but rather vibrate against the cover while driving due to wind and road forces actiing on the hood. I looked for TSB's on this issue for years 97-99 3.2TL's, but found none on my Mitchell-on-Demand CD.

You might try applying a thin (~1/4") piece of adhesive-backed rubber foam over the contacting points on the hood. This may stop the denting of the softer aluminum valve cover, but will probably need replacement after a year or so.

If you can determine the gap between the hood contacting point and the valve cover, you could install a much harder and durable rubber bumper to the hood w/ either adhesive or screw if mounting to reinforcement structure.

Another fix might be a thick buildup of polyurethane underbody liner in the contact area. Not very eye-appealing, but probably easy to do.

good luck

 

Look at your heat shield on the underside of the hood... that is what is causing the rub... mine has it too... try raising the height of your hood using the little rubber twist things on either side of the front of the frame

 

I have it too...and I believe ljmushock explained the correct reason for this!!

 

Thanks for the ideas guys. Anyhow, I knew that it was rubbing from the hoodliner, not too big of a problem for me really, just curiousity I guess. The shots were taken by one of my NECs. Binky should know about the specific model; it's an N900iG from DoCoMo in Japan. One of the few from DoCoMo that'll work here in the States. My Vodafone phones aren't all that good but they do their job, hehe. I pick out a phone only based on what I need to take a photo of. Close-ups would be between my Sharps of my NECs as they have macro modes. Shows how far ahead Japan is compared to the rest of the world!

~Cheers~