Front Bumper and Fender Removal
 

Hey im havin a hell of a time gettin my front bumper and fenders off, i think ive got all the bolts off cept 4 that connect the bumper to the fender (2 each side) theirs not alot of space to work with when trying to get them off, their under the headlights. any real way to remove these easily? their seems to bee a bar thats blocking access to it, dunno what to do, any thoughts?

Are you talking about the ones on the bottom near the ground or the ones that you have to move the inner fenderwell out of the way to get to? If the latter, there are actually 6.(3 per side)

i know just the thing for you.

there are 3-4 bolts connecting each side of the bumper to the fenders..to get to them you have to get the wheel well cover out of the way..and reach in...you gotta feel for the bolts since you can't peek to see. take as much bolts as you can reach in there...on both sides.....then there's bolts under the bumper itself....then there's bolts on the top of the bumper connecting to the radiator area.

tell me if you need more info.

~ken


[edit]

haha i didnt get to read the first reply but he said it before me. just reach into the wheel well cover...for me i just pry it to the side to get my arm in.....don't be scared to bend it and stuff.

yeah I removed my wheel well cover, and I have some crazy long extensions that I got like 2 years ago thinking, "these are cool... I might need them someday." That day came. However I still never got them off all the way.... but I just finished installing my clutch and wanted to drive it (2 months down).

becareful with the bottom bolts, both sides snapped on me

+1

those bolts suck ass .. .you need to be a contortionist to get em out

yeah you need to invest in some really long extensions for your ratchet for the fender well to get the 3 nuts out. I think there were 10 or 12 mm. The long extensions come in handy. you dont need to completely take out the water guard, just slip it out a bit and sneak the ratchet in..

oh yeah,

when you put teh bumper back on, you dont need to use all the bolts again. just need to use liek 3 bolt on teh top engine bay, and 2 on each sides of the fender wells. dont worry about the bottom if your not running a oil pan gaurd.. I actualy just use zip ties all the way.. takes me 15 seconds to remove my bumper...;) lol

haha thanks for help guys i can see it now and know what ive got to do,
im kinda recovering from a lil crash :( you mighta seen it on youtube acutally got into the top 10 a few days ago :P was drifting at a track and kissed the wall a bit.
hah thanks though got a parts car so let the swapping begin!

hey dale im like 90% thru getting my front bumper off, it is frustrating...i ended up calling it a day. :wallbash:

but yeah, pop the fender plastic out of the way, and use a 10mm with extension if you got it. The only reason im not done is my right hand side is a little bent, i can't access 2 nuts. You gotta use a deep socket too.

Can you post the link?

Yea i figued it out when i took the inner fenders off my red car i could see what we needed to do there, Ugh terrible job, but gonna need to be done, next weekend though cuz i visitin my bro this one :P and as for links here ya go its a few shots of me drifitng, first time out really, Thanks to Dugan For filmin it and puttin it up.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7hhLZk0Shr0

dug's got tons of footage up of ppl drifting so check out his youtube acount if you wanna see more, some more shots of me too but theirs my crash :( ill post some pics o my car after some swappings been done. see the multi colored fun :P

Its very easy with the headlights up.

+1 on removing the wheel and wheel liner. I know this is obvious, but sometimes one takes bad shortcuts. I was completely lost when I did this the first time until I saw the hidden parts.

To help visualize (for anyone who'll do this in the future), I'll describe what you don't see at the front corners. The bumper has a lip around the sides with holes. Next, a wavy bracket in the shape of an arc is pushed from the inside and held on by two clips from the front. This reinforces the corner of the bumper to hold it on. You don't have to worry about the bracket nor the clips. The bracket has bolts (spot welded?) permanently attached to it. Nuts are threaded on from the inside of the fender, which sandwhich the bracket, bumper and fender in that order.

Other than the three nuts you have (at least - I'm going off memory) one accessible near the headlight from the outside, the ones at the top, two at the back rear, one near the bottom of the A-pillar (corner of the windshield - have to open the door), and another one near the front of the door behind where the side moulding goes. Hope this helps others. BTW, sig below has links to the FSM (pictures!).

Search terms: ( How to remove fender front quarter panel bracket removing bumper)

I had to remove my front bumper to get my engine hoist all the way in to pull my motor & tranny. I couldn't get to those bolts inside the wheel well & was really frustrated so I just used a saws-all & cut them off between the fender & front bumper after removing the headlights & the other bolts. It was really tough to get some of them out going through the holes in the headlight area. It went back together just fine without the ones I cut off.

Ramses666

Thank god for this thread.

I got 90 percent of my trashed front end off.

What really sucks is my se hates me now (put battery in backwards and fried something. Shit was mislabeled so it wasn't completely my fault but the point is, now i have to manually take care of my headlamps.

Fucking car.

As much as i'd like to go back outside and work on my car, i'm done for the day and have to do some baby shopping when the old lady gets home on top of taking pictures for my part-out.

I WILL be using zip ties to put the bumper back on. Screw getting pwnd by those bolts next time i have to do some body work.

Thanks for the info on the front bumper. I need to do some minor rust work that may require me to remove the front bumper. Now I know what to expect...

Make sure you check the front of the chassis rails to. You really need to make sure that the front member are still straight. I would definitely check your bottom suspension arm on that side as well they are aluminium and not that strong....

That's completely unnecessary.

The four studs/nuts that hold each side of the nose to the fender aren't really that difficult to get to once you know where they are and can be prepped to make future removal quite simple.
BTW, the very top nut is best accessed by raising the headlights and removing the plastic surrounds. A short 1/4" drive ratchet can then be used from inside the headlight opening to get that last nut.

With the front bumper off, run a 6mm die over the studs to clean them up.
Before installing, slather the studs with anti-seize and finally, once the nuts are installed, slide a piece of tubing over the remaining exposed threads to protect them.

The problem people have is not that the nuts are so hard to get to, because they really aren't, it's the rust/grit that freezes the nuts on the studs.
Prepped as above, that problem goes away.

Stupid kids with their drifting and gayness

ok, a little off topic, but i am trying to remove my headlights and i have all the blots off that i can tell and the lights move freely but wont come out...

am i missing anything?

sorry to threadjack, i searched, but i didnt find anything for removal of the headlights, just removing the fender and bumper, thus my post...

ha! I hit that same corner of my car my first time drifting, mind you it was a 1/4 mile banked track. I didn't hit nearly as hard and my headlight and hood (maybe bumper) are savable. boy, getting the bolts off the crashed side for the bumper was a bitch and trying to straighten up the fender/bumper metal support (part that the fender and bumper bolt through to hold in place) was crazy hard because I don't have body tools and just had a hammer, some pliers, and a block of wood.lol

mymmeryloss- there is a bolt down on the headlight motor for one arm that raises the light. you can get at it with the lights up. that should be the only bolt left. should have only been 4 others that hold the light assembly to the car besides that one. I think its a 10 or 12mm. DON'T FORGET to disconnect the headlight! I was so concerned with getting the light out, I forgot and bent a contact right off the light. I feel stupid.j/k.

ah, well i have no power to the lights. i have a front clip that i bought just for the engine...

atleast i know where its at now! thanks a lot...

To add to this, my bumper took 5 seconds to rip off the car, my bn bumper that replaced it is full zip tied.

My fenders are held on by ONE bolt, the one that's in the door hinge area and a single zip tie to keep the ting from flopping in the breeze because i dont have fender liners.

Makes it soooooo easy to pull stuff off the car to work on it!