Time to find out what these mystery antennas are. I proceeded to the passenger a-pillar cover that housed the two mystery antennas. The removal of the cover should be fairly simple. Remove the screws that where clearly holding the cover in place, and slide the cover off with ease. I removed the screws, which were more difficult to remove than expected, but the cover was not able to come free. A quick forum search suggested that the central interior panel that the visors are mounted too should be removed to ease with the removal of the a-pillar cover. Removal of this interior panel was a bit of an eye opener to the manufacturing quality at Porsche during the production of the 968. The panel stretched the width of the car and was about 6 inches wide, but weighed about 5 pounds. A similar panel in today’s vehicles would weigh about a pound, maybe two. The panel is made from steel that is then shaped with foam and covered with vinyl. This is what I would consider old school craftsmanship. If you think about the number of steps and time it took to make a panel like that, the MSRP of $45k (equivalent to $80k today) for the 968 begins to make sense.

With the central panel removed, the a-pillar cover was able to come free. This freed up access to the mystery antennas. I pulled on the upper antenna, and it came free. To my surprise, the antenna came out but the cable attached to the antenna was cut. I can only suspect that this antenna was to a previous aftermarket alarm system. The second antenna was not cut and I hope it is attached to the current aftermarket alarm system.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have removed the front passenger carpet but did not remove the rear carpet as it was aggressively glued in and stretched the width of the car. Seeing that the next day is supposed to be a warm day, I figured it was time to remove the rear carpet so that I can wash it when it’s warm. I removed the driver’s seat, which came out with more ease than the passenger seat because the correct fasteners appeared to have been used. The rear carpet section runs the width of the car extending from under the front seats to the rear bulkhead section that supports the rear seats. Being such a large piece of carpet I knew this would be a daunting task. I came armed with a box of latex gloves and high hopes that the glue would be kind to me. I started with the passenger side and began the long battle. As predicted, the glue was quite difficult to deal with.

I worked my way in towards the center of the car. In the low lying sections of the carpet, the glue changed to more of a goo, probably due to the coolant that was pooling there.

The driver’s side, although a little easier to break the glue apart, had the parking brake that posed some difficulties. At the overlapping seams I used a small flathead screwdriver to break apart, or gently cut the glue by sliding the corner edge of the screwdriver back and forth between the two pieces of overlapping carpet. The latex gloves were not very durable and I needed to spay the goof off on the gloves before touching the glue as the glue would stick to the gloves and rip them.

There was some sound proofing foam at the wheel well section which partially remained attached to the frame and partially to the carpet. It took about 2 hours and 25 pairs of gloves to get the section of carpet out.  Luckily the carpet came out with minimal damage, with the only damage being in a small section at the overlap between the carpet sections, which will not be visible.


To remove the steering wheel I purchased a 15/16” socket to loosen the retaining nut. I tried to break the nut free with a long breaker bar but I was not able to hold the steering wheel from rotating. Some people recommended holding the wheel with the free arm and knees, but since I had the seat removed that was not possible. Luckily my breaker bar was long enough to reach the floor of the car. I wedged the bar into the corner of the floor and used my hands to rotate the wheel. This worked with surprising ease.

Once the nut was off I marked two lines on the threads and wheel with a sharpie to ensure I can align the wheel correctly. I removed the plastic housing that surrounds the steering column. This allowed access to three fasteners that were keeping me from removing the plastic fascia that holds the switches. I’m glad I didn’t assume there was it would come free if I pulled hard enough.

Next up, the dreaded aftermarket alarm removal…