When I bought my car, besides a bend in the hood, the only body damage was a bent edge on the left front fender.

I didn’t really mind it, except that it would get rubbed against by the door when I opened it, and would make lots of noise. I was going to make this a full how-to post, but given the condition of my car and how many fasteners are broken or missing, I decided it wouldn’t be a good example. So here’s just the basics.

There are a few screws and clips holding the fender liner up, the bumper needs to be pulled back, there are two bolts into the headlight assembly, three across the top, one on the A-pillar, and two behind the rocker panel trim. I’m not sure how the rocker panel trim is supposed to come off, I just pulled until it gave way enough to get to the bolts, then pushed it back on as well as it would. That’s what you get for working on 19 year old northern cars.

The fender I got from the salvage yard had a body-color trim piece, while my car has black. To switch the piece over I just had to carefully squeeze the clips to get it off.

It’s really nice being able to open the door without squeaking and crunching, plus it looks a lot better. The paint on the edge of the door is pretty messed up, but the paint on this car doesn’t matter much to me.

New blog posts every Monday and Thursday, plus pictures throughout the week on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

-Dan