Swapping out my original nasty front spoiler for a new R1 piece. Should be a 15 minute job right? Well the 3 screws in the very center that go through the undertray, spoiler and into the bumper just won't come out. They just spin in place. There's no way to get access to whatever's up top as it's sort of inside the bumper, underneath the foglight area. Anyone have any recommendations on how to remove these things? I'm so pissed off I just want to tear the whole thing out, but I know that'll destroy the bumper in the process. It's so frustrating when something as trivial as removing a screw forces you to abandon a project halfway through. @#^@#%@!!!

 

Try wedging a thin screw driver between the bolt and bumper and apply pressure while you're unscrewing bolt.

 

Try and get someone with little hands, such as a child to reach in and hold the nut in place while you unscrew the bolt. I used my 10 y/o cousin when this happend to me. A girl's hand my be small enough too.

 

I tried that, but all that happened was the bumper got scraped and bent

 

So there's a nut on the other end? What's supposed to hold it in place from spinning? All 3 of the bolts just spin and spin so I'm assuming they're all either broken or you need to have some sort of magic to hold them in place. Some of them are completely inaccessible, and I assume the bolt is firmly rusted together with the nut if there is one in there

 

Trust me on this. The exact same thing happend to me. Like I said, on the inside of the bumper there is a nut holding the bolt in place. I believe it is supposed to be held on by adhesive, but over time I guess the adhesive fails. If you squeeze your hand under the bottom side of the bumper skin through the front opening where the radiator is, you can feel it. A small hand can easily get in there and hold it with their fingers or a wrench. I did this and it worked. Not sure of any other way of making that nut stay in place.

 

i don't see how it could be doing that.

are you having trouble with the plastic rivets? or is your lip attached by a bolt going thru one of those bracketed nuts.

if its plastic, rip that thing apart.

if its steel, rip that thing apart! its spinning because the tread are rusted away, so it should give if u pull.

if those don't work, drill it

 

yeah **** it just drill em out

 

You may be able to access the top of the nut by lowering the rest of the undertray. You will have to put the car on jack stands to do this.

Nothing on this car is as easy as it should be.

 

Yah, most likely the nut part on the top is all rusted out.

I had a problem like this on my friends car. Although his bolts just snapped right out haha.

 

Like i said guys...It's not necessarily rusted out to the point of losing tread. I unscrewed mine without and ripping apart. The nut was just detatched from the inside of the bumper skin.

 

gl with the fitting