Removing a Front Clip is No Joke
 

About two years ago HardcoreZ28 said it would take me 2 hours to pull the front clip off. I had those words in my head when I set out to do just that.

Three hours later, knuckles bleeding, hot, tired and really pissed off, I pulled it. I don't want to do that again anytime soon. And I still have the rest of the ground FX to pull and replace.

The pics speak for themselves - apparently there was a front end collision, with the bumper, hood and cover replaced or repaired. You can tell because of all the red painted stuff underneath. Someone actually repaired the spot around the foglights, but then cracked again when I moved the car around. I found tape and resin on the inside of the old bumper cover.

Before (This is before all the damage to the GFX around the foglights from moving he car around. The GFX around both fog lights are completely cracked.)



http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...583_7_full.jpg


During

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...83_26_full.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...83_27_full.jpg


and After. Now I need to realign the hood and I have no idea how to do that.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...83_28_full.jpg

Dirty work!

beginner...lol...
takes me 30 min or less to get the whole nose w/fenders off. but i have had some practice. :-D
and i can turn a car into "bite-size" pieces in less than 24 hours

but regardless, looking good lol

True dat! :nod:

But I'm proud of myself for getting it done. Looking forward to the finished product.

do you still have the bumper cover? If Your going to trash it, ill take it, I need something to practice painting..


I tried to pull my front clip off, the damn corner bolts where a pain so I just gave up.. I need 2 new fenders, and a bumper, after paint now too.

I have the cover, but I pulled all the metal off in case I need it someday, or want to sell just those pieces. You can have the cover, however the corners where the foglights are, are cracked.

The top corner bolts were definately the hardest. You need a 7/16 deep socket for a 3/8 wratchet. Took me a while to figure that out because I had to do it all by feel. It's not gonna be easy for someone with big hands - expect bloody knuckles. Also, open the lights by hand so you get a little light in there and some more clearance for the wratchet.

would it have been easier If you removed the headlights?

No Ididnt need to remove the headlights since you can just open them all the way up. You cannot get to the bolts from the top down, you have to go under the car and reach up. That really is the fastest and easiest path.

With the engine out you may have enough clearance to just crawl under there and reach up to find the boilt. Try fitting the 7/16 deep socket and see if it seats well. If not, go bigger or smaller as necessary. The biggest pain in the butt is it has to all be done by feel, you cant see anything well enough to judge by sight.

The easiest way to re-align the hood is to try to line up the hindges with the old markings. That is what i did when i had to put the old hood on my GTA b/f the junk man picked it up after the accident. I just used the old marks and the hood lined right up.

If it was/is a new aftermarket hood; you could try to messure the markings on the old hood and transfer those messurements to the new one.

it isn;t hard, it just might take some trial and error until it lines up correctly.

So the part of the hinges that attaches to the fenders have to be completely taken off then moved until the hood lines up? The bolt holes allow for such realignment?

Sorry, complete noob here with this.

yeah me too, are 4th gens easier than 3rds?

ah mna, it only took me 45 mins to pull the old one off, and another 30 mins to put the primered one on..

all u gotta do is get a 10mm socket, a 10 mm wrench, and a 10 mm deep socket.. and spin em

Yeah it is a lot easier if you pull the headlights, then you dont have to do the stuff from underneath... this is usually how people get the front end off in less than an hour

yea, for sure remove the headlight bar