You have to be extremely careful not to strip the front holes. Compression straps come in handy to help in aligning the bar and making sure the bolts do not cross thread (btw, there is no need to turn down the first 1/4" of the bolt as in the OE bolt). If the threads in the body do get damaged beyond repair you would have to drill out and use a timesert to get full strength back.

 

I only screwed up the first 1-2 threads and was able to fix that with the tap. Does one bolt in the rear points first before doing the fronts on the floor?

 

I carefully threaded in the front bolts first by hand and did not fully tighten. The fronts are much harder to align than the rears due to their length. Then I threaded in the rear bolts using quite a bit of muscle to make sure the holes aligned properly. This is where an extra set of hands or compression straps come in handy. After all the bolts are in place and you can tighten them to the specified torque of 37 ft/lb.

 

Not to disagree with any previous posts, but I have put the TE bar in and out of my car ('03 TT) three times now. Never had any help, although it would have made it easier. Yes, the seats need to come out. The rear view mirror does have to be removed if it is the self-dimming model. It does not come off like the non-auto-dimming model. You have to take the plastic trim pieces off the mirror stalk, and then gently remove the two steel clips (one on each side) that hold the stalk to the support that's glued to the windshield. Of course there's some wires and connectors for the auto-dimming function and amber LED that's in the mirror housing.

In terms of having to remove and trim down the plastic "bolster" pieces on each side of the car inside the door jamb, I think the results and frustration of NOT doing it will far outweigh the benefits of doing the job properly. The installation instructions that come with the bar include a small template that shows where to trim these pieces and how much material to remove. The most difficult task is getting the pieces out of the car so you can trim them. Actually cutting them is pretty simple. If you elect not to cut them, you WILL have to crush and/or deform them to get the bar to bolt up properly (at least that was the case in my '03).

I found that using some ratchet type tie-down straps made the bolt alignment go a lot easier. Once the bar is in the car and ready to be bolted in, I use a strap oriented horizontally around the lower forward legs and gently pull the legs together (less than an inch should be more than enough). This will give you a little more clearance to move the bar bottom around and get the bolts started without cross-threading them. Before putting the spacer inside the bar, look inside the hole where the spacer goes and get a good idea of where the bar needs to be positioned to get the bolt to align. The bar will actually need to be raised about 3/4 of an inch off the floor of the car to get the bolt to align with the hole. After I get one forward side bolt started, I go to the other side before tightening the first one. After the other side is in, I use another ratcheting tie-down to gently pull one of the rear legs slightly forward to ease the alignment of the rear mounting hole. This may only be an issue on my car or with my particular bar, but that's the way I have to do it. Once I get one side in, I do the same thing on the other side. Only after I get all 4 bolts started do I go start tightening things up.

One other thing I found that annoyed me was that my forward seat belt ends rattled occasionally against the round spacers in the forward mounting points of the bar. Even with the bar mounting bolts torqued properly, the ends of the belts should be able to rotate for proper alignment. I solved my "noise" issues by using a large diameter thin neoprene washer (found in the plumbing section of my local Ace hardware store) between the seat belt and the round bar spacer.

DON'T let the bar rotate forward into the windshield or from what I have read, you will be needing a new windshield. I have not tested this out myself, but can certainly see where if you don't exercise enough caution, you could easily crack the windshield.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for all the suggestions and info everyone. I'm in the throes of aligning up the rear bolts. Got the driver side rear bolt threaded. Now the trimming of the lower bolsters awaits. There appears to be a wire harness in the vicinity of the passenger side front lower mounting point so cutting that part must be done extremely carefully. Also the 997 differs from the 996 chassis in having a high central hump holding a console compartment behind the handbrake lever that makes use of the strap to compress the front legs of the T-bar more difficult.

 

OK, finally got the bolts all in their respective holes. A nice trick which worked for me is cutting a piece of 2X4 and notching one end to help push the bars arm away from the leg to help align the holes before threading in the bolts. See posted photos. The bottom bolsters were cut after I cut a bit of the carpet and I never tried to remove them. I used a long drill bit, a saw, and chisel to make the appropriate cuts to clear the way for the legs to slip into the groove. So my procedure differs from the others in not having to remove much trim at all.

 

More photos posted.

 

OK, having done this (it took about 10 h researching and doing the fitment and bolting this first time), I think it should take less than 2h doing the same car again. The only damage to the interior trim were light gouges on the floor trim and door sills (plastic replaceable items), cuts in the carpet (to expose the bolt holes) and near the floor bolsters). A small scratch from the seat rails on the painted top of the door sill that needs to be sanded down and touched up (this could be prevented by taping over those parts before starting the seat removal stage). Those that find this info helpful , please award me some rep points. Thanks.