camaro350man

I have to put new fenders and a hood on my car soon. Seeing that I did not do much body work in the past, am trying to learn. Do I have to take off the nose of the car to get the fenders off? Or can I just get the fenders off without doing that. How hard is it to remove the nose and reinstall it? Same goes with the new fenders. Any tricks out there I should know about? Any help would be great

89firebirdguy05

no its not hard. you have to remove the hood. then take out all the bolts along the fender on top. then remove then 14 mm bolt under the fender below the door area. then lthe little bolts under the fender for the air damn then theres like..2 10mm bolts holding the bracket on thne i took of my headlight to get to the 4 other bolts that were on the inside. sorry for my typing..i just broke my hand workin on my car.haha...it hurts like a mother but anyways..its not hard to do.

camaro350man

So the front nose does not have to come off the car to get the fenders off? I have to sand blast them and throw on a coat of primer. Is there any primer you guys recommand that comes in a spray can rather then having to use an air compressor. And one that will not have to be completely stripped when i paint the car. The car will be outside though so has to hold up to rain, but stored in the winter

1989karr

From experience, it's a lot easier to remove the fenders with the nose off, especially if you're removing both of them, but it is possible to do

Personally, I like Duplicolor primer followed by the sealer if you have to go with the can stuff.....it sprays evenly and nice.

But if you get a bad can.....it'll splatter and mess up like crazy!

Don't know if it has to be sanded off though...anyone?

camaro350man

How hard is it to align everythign back up to how its suppose to be? Like the nose and everything. Any common problems you guys ran into while doing it? Thanks

1989karr

I found aligning the fenders to door gap to be the hardest...that and the hood. The nose goes on pretty easy in my opinion though

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

Haha. Just got finished doing this. First, take off the entire nose, including the filler that goes between the bumper cover and the radiator support, but this is after you remove the headlights for easier access to the nuts holding the fenders to the bumper cover. Be sure to mark EVERYTHING as to its position before you remove it or you are going to be swearing at it for hours trying to line it up properly. There are little things I have heard referred to as "pop-its" holding the bumper cover to the bumper reinforcement. These are a royal pain to remove and you can expect to break some of them in the process. There may be some holding the plastic parts of the wheel wells (not sure what those are exactly) to the fenders. After the nose is off, then you have to remove the air dam. It's better to remove this in one piece so you don't have to separate the four parts. Next, unbolt the lower fender mount and braces from the fenders. Now, you need a helper to hold one side of the hood as you unbolt it from the fenders (remove the hinges later). Undo the rest of the fender bolts and remove the antenna and its base, and pull the fenders up and off.

The bumper cover HAS to be the FIRST THING to come OFF and the LAST THING to be bolted ON. Do not forget the center brace for the filler. If bolts placed on the filler roll towards the front of the car, then it's not straight and the brace needs to be adjusted. If the brace hits the center of the air dam, it's not adjusted properly unless the filler is level.

P.S.: Like I said before: MARK EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU BEGIN to avoid alignment problems. If you can line everything up with your marks, then you are at least CLOSE to proper alignment.

:edit: Forgot one thing. If the lower fender mounts are not straight and do not point straight at the ground, you will have alignment issues with the door gaps.

stalin05

Another thing to remember is to have your doors aligned right or your fenders wont go on right.

camaro350man

So its a big pain in the A** to realign everything. I have to do my rear hatch sometime soon. Its way off.

stalin05

i heard the hatch is the worse though.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

If you want to do the hatch right, you need something to grind off some metal in the hinge mounting holes. The two outer holes (one on each hinge) have some adjustment, but the inner ones don't for some weird reason, kind of like the door hinge mounting plates...

eagle_eyes

iTrader: (3)

you don't have to remove the bumper cover from the rest of the bumper, so you don't have to worry about the "pop it's". there are 4 bolts on each fender that go into the bumper. take the headlights out to get to them. then there are 8 bolts that hold the bumper assembly on. they are in 2 square patterns. then there are 3 bolts on the bottom of the fender(i think) and the 7mm(i think) bolts for the outer deflectors that attach to the air dam. and then there are the bolts running along the top, which hold on the hood as well.
just take a marker and outline all the bolts so you know where to line them up at. if that doesn't work enough for you, put the bolts in loosly and allign the gap at the door by opening and closing the door and sliding the fender around.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

The bumper cover itself weighs almost thirty pounds. The reinforcement weghs more than that. Why would he want to move something that weighs that much and is that bulky? Although this is a good idea, lining up the bumper reinforcement properly again can be a real PITA, depending on how rusty the bolts and nuts are and how many he breaks to get them off, and if you don't get the reinforcement properly aligned and it's too high, you can have problems with the headlights.

If you were to consider this, then I would suggest that you get someone to help you out with this because the front bumper assembly is so large and heavy...

BTW, can someone nab a pic of one of the air dam outer bolts (to the fender and bumper cover) so I know what to get at the hardware store?

eagle_eyes

iTrader: (3)

the bumper cover does NOT weigh 30 pounds in any way. when i rebuilt my front end, i left it all assembled and put it on all at once without any problems. the entire assembly may be a little heavy, but it's manageable.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

I beg to differ with you. Someone on here put it on a scale and it came up pretty close to 30 pounds... There's a pic of it somewhere...

stalin05

Wait, what bumper are we talking about? THe front bumper lip is probably 10-15 lbs. The back skin bumper is probably 10-15... But the MAIN bumper on the back side, the one between the car and the skin, is probably close to 40-50

1989karr

Are you guys talking about the impact bars? Both front and back?

eagle_eyes

iTrader: (3)

i had one shipped to me and i have a firend that works at fedex and the entire package, which had the cover, both headlights and motors and turn signals, didn't even weigh 40 pounds.