Fender Replacement

[OhioGuy82]

Today I received my new fender today. I have it all painted up and ready to put on. I removed one fender screw and now I can't seem to get it tightened again. Do I need to purchase new body panel clips? I'm kinda scared to make my way to the hood hinges I don't want to take those out and not be able get them tight again. Anything I should know about replacing the fender?

 

[rubydist]

The fender bolts have a nut that is held on w/ a clip to the inner fender/unibody - these will often break loose if the fasteners are rusty - in that case you will need to replace them. On my parts car, I had to grind off a couple of the bolt heads to get the fenders off because they were rusty and the nuts broke the clips and the nut would just spin, and there is no way to get inside there to hold them... As I recall, the hood fastener nuts are actually welded into the unibody, but I still broke one of them loose...

The only tricky part is that you need a couple of assistants to get the hood off and back on without screwing up the paint on the hood and/or the fenders. (I actually used 4 people - one at each hinge, one at the front of the hood, and one wrenching.)

 

[Calypso]

Hmmm. I never had any problems taking my fender off, but like he said, they are just clips in there that might break due to rust. Use some PB blaster or something just to be safe. And I don't think you'll have any problems with the hood hinge bolts. They are pretty big, but just make sure you don't break the heads off when you are taking them out.