Okay all. I cannot find all of the bolts for the front fender. I was going to do some body repair, but I cannot figure out for the life of me how I'm supposed to get this fender off. Any help is supremely appreciated! Thanks all.

Ryan

 

Having just gone through this...

Open the door... and look at the back side of the fender through the door jamb. There is one of the bolts.

Bottom of fender, almost underneath, right where it meets the door sill - there is the second bolt.

Open the hood, near the hinge, are two more bolts.

That will free up the top, back and bottom of the fender. Now comes the fun part.

Underneath the wheel well, are about 10 little screws, holding the inner fender liner against the fender's wheel lip edge. Once you get all those out, you'll notice it still doesn't budge. Why? Feel a little further back, and you'll find two more

Then, you have to get the nose of the fender out from between the radiator support "wing" and the plastic headlight support structure - so take off the headlight support structure, then undo the two fender bolts, and now the fender is almost free.

Almost

The cowling piece that's above the bumper across the width of the truck, is bolted two the fender in two places, and also has two plastic "push through" fasteners that more than likely you'll have to cut and replace.

Then get the two bolts underneath the front cowling that the inner fender liner attaches to. Then on the top of the radiator support right at the edge of the fender, are four bolts holding a flange. Undo those four, plus the two holding the flange to the fender, so you can slip the flange out (six in all).

If you're on the driver's side of the truck, you'd have to remove the TFI module if it's a 92+ EFI truck, the overflow/washer tank support bracket, the airfilter box and snorkle, and gently pull the wiring off the fender, being careful not to break the ties.

The passenger side is a little easier on teh inside - the battery box is fastened in two places, and there is a jack holder that you can leave there until the fender is off, and pull the wiring off gently.

And the very last bolts is the hood hinge bolt off the fender. Make sure the hood is supported wth a 2x4 to the top of the radiator support, or when you get that bolt 9/10th of the way out, you're going to lose your fingers.

And your truck will kinda look like this:


Actually, hopefully not quite like that... I'm replacing both fenders and the radiator support, and various other things while I have it apart... so hopefully you won't be making a huge pile on your lawn like I did!

 

Wow, that was a fun trick. I almost lost my pinky... I should've listened. I got it removed, cut out the rust spot, welded a patch in, and did my body work. I sealed it up well...

I'm very pleased with the final product. maybe I'll get some digi pics and see if ya'll can tell if there was ever rust there.

There were so many bolts! sheesh. Anyway, now for putting it back together. I broke a lot of plastic stuff, so we'll see if it'll be safe to drive.

Ryan

 

I spent all day putting little screws in. I'm on the reassembly part of the project now. All the bolts inside the engine compartment are in, and tomorrow I start zipping the screws in the wheel wells, and the under-light, under grille cowling piece should be dry by then so I can zap that in too.

Then, I get to hurt my back trying to put superbumper back on lol

 

alright... ran into a problem on reassembly.

the back end closer to the door seems to be lined up just fine. As I run my finger across the top, and move closer to the headlights, I find the gap between the hood and the panel to grow. At the end of the hood, the gap is probably darn near 3/8". You see, I can tell that my bolts aren't in the same spot as when took them off because the paint isn't lined up where it was. Anyway, I loosened everything, and cannot get the thing to budge upward. Is this a freak case, or are you experiencing this?

Ryan

 

Oh well at least the fender isn't spot welded on like my Merkur. What a joy those fenders are to replace.

 

Nope, it's not a freak case.

To make the gap at the front narrower, to match the rear gap, you take the headlight support plastic off again, and you'll see four 8,, bolts around the headlight area, which you can loosen, and slide towards the center of the truck, moving the fender edge in. Go very slow with those bolts, as they can snap very easily because they are very small. I snapped four on one side, and two on the other, unfortunately, and had to drill them out, retap, and use slightly larger bolts.

I had a heck of a time aligning both new fenders, and the new radiator support to the hood (which I left on specifically to align things to), but unfortunately for me, the taiwan replacement fenders are 3/8" shorter (from the door jam to the headlight area) than the factory fenders, and they slope slightly more as well.

The radiator support is 1/4" shorter than the factory unit, and 3/8" narrower as well. AND the mounting holes on the bottom that go into the frame on the body bushings, aren't in the right place either - they are both shifted to the passenger side 1/4".

So while I've managed to get things aligned reasonably well, it's not pefect and never going to be because the parts are undersized very slightly. When I assembled the nose the first time, I didn't tighten anything significantly, so I could wiggle things around to get it to line up best I could. As I got things in the correct places, I then tightened here and there until everything was set.

I had to use a chain and a crank-winch to align some of the pieces - it was off that bad, mostly because the taiwan replacement parts are undersized, mis-stamped, and miss drilled.

 

You might have stated that the first bolt you mentioned, seen in the door jam, is very far recessed back. I needed a very long socket extension to reach it, and it was the last bolt I found. Anyway, thanks for posting this very useful information.