If you need to remove the headlights for any reason, or any number of other projects that require you to expose the front mechanicals, you'll need to remove the front fascia. It's an intimidating thought to most people at first, but I hope to show that there's not much to it at all. There's a total of six nuts and bolts, a handful of plastic fasteners, and just a bit of creative wiggling.
Your first time, this may take 45 minutes or so - but once you know the locations of things and what has to happen, it goes very quickly. I've had mine off four or five times, and I can go from "wheels on" to the picture above in about 15 minutes.
So first off, a starting point. Jack up the front end, and place the car on two jackstands. Remove the front wheels (but remember to break the lugnuts loose while the wheels are still on the ground, but not before lifting the jack up enough to support the weight just in case).
Remove the black plastic bellypan that goes from the front lip back. I didn't include this step in the write-up, as I haven't had mine on there since the day I bought it. Once the car's up on stands, you should be able to get underneath and see what needs to happen.
Here's where we begin:
There are eight two-piece plastic push rivets along the top front of the fascia:
Go ahead and remove these. It helps to use a large flat screwdriver, with a pair of pliers or something to use as a fulcrum.
You're prying only the INSIDE part of the two-piece rivet. Once it's up, you can pull the whole thing out:
There are three Christmas-tree type push rivets along the front outer edge of each wheelwell:
Go ahead and pull the rivets from the edge of the fender liners. As shown below, I've replaced the Christmas tree-type push rivets with three of the two-piece push rivets, same as the others inside the wheelwell. These are different than the eight on the top of the fascia. I recommend you do this as well, as they're cheap, reusable, and hold much better than the stock ones at this location. If you have the stock rivets in there, just pry with the big flatblade between the liner and the fascia - they'll pop. If you have replacements already, and you don't need to save the stock rivets, just get under them with your sidecutters, and kill 'em.
Now I mentioned before that I haven't had the bellypan on since day one. If you choose to run without it, as many of us have done, you MUST do something like this to secure the front of the fender liner to the fascia. Otherwise, the airflow at speed will cause the fender liners to pull back into the front tires, and ruin them. This is especially true if you're still using the Christmas tree type push rivets. Simply run a good zip-tie through the fender liner and through a corresponding hole on the fascia. At this point, though, stuff's coming off, so clip that bad boy with some sidecutters.
Inside the wheelwell, there are three more two-part rivets as shown below. The easiest way to remove these guys is to use some side-cutters to get underneath the sides of the inside piece - not to cut them, just to get underneath the "mushroom head" and pry them up. If the inside part pops out of the outer part, don't sweat it - they pop right back together.
The ESP/BAS sensor connector shown below also needs to come off.
That one pulls right out if you simply pry the wire clip out a bit, like this:
Once he's loose, just tuck him out of the way down in the other brake lines.
At this point, double-check to see that all the plastic rivets and the ESP/BAS connector have been removed. If so, you're ready to start peeling the fender liner back. Look at the top of the wheelwell, and see how the liner fits into some channels in the sheetmetal there. Here's where a little bit of creative wiggling comes into play, but look at what you're doing, and it all makes sense. Start at the ESP/BAS connector hub, and lift the liner away from that point first. Then pull the liner toward the inside enough to pull it out of the channel.
Don't worry about the rear of the wheelwell, just the front half or so, and the object is to be able to move the fender liner behind the front hub, and out of the way, like so:
So far so good - grab a beer and a 10mm socket and a ratchet.
:grin: :grin:
