How-to for fender removal/reinstall?

[AaronE]

Hi all, I've searched high and low for instructions on removing and replacing the front fender on a Model S. I've heard the side-skirts have to come off (and I found Unplugged's awesome guide here) but nothing about the fender itself. Anyone have any pointers? Thanks in advance!

 

[airborne spoon]

Its super easy to pull off the bumper. On each side in the wheel well at the merge of the fender and the quarter panel there is a small torx screw. remove it and then under the car pop off the plastic body pins there is like 6 or so of them. open the hood and in the front there is a black plastic bit that pops out with a little force, its just held in place with more plastic clips on the bottom side of it. this will expose 2 bolts take them out. remove the front nose cone and disconnect the parking sensors. then just work your way around and pop off the bumper piece as one big unit. there is 1 cable that powers everything that connects under the frunk liner on the passenger side. If you have small enough hands you can get to it without pulling out the plastic frunk liner but your prob gonna have to pull it out, and that's it. super easy and like 10-15 min of work to get it off of there.

Curious, why are you removing it in the first place?

 

[AaronE]

thanks airborne spoon, I appreciate the reply, but that's how to take off the bumper, not fender!

as for why, it's this:

 

[ThomasD]

Most likely there are bolts in the door pillar, Inside frunk, at bottom of fender behind tire that bolt to inner rocker and bolts behind headlight. There maybe bolts under the inner fender also

 

[AaronE]

Thanks! I just watched the guy at the yard take one off and it wasn't too bad, especially since he just yanked back the rocker to get to the bottom bolts. I'll probably post a write-up and/or video when I get to it since there doesn't seem to be one.

 

[airborne spoon]

thanks airborne spoon, I appreciate the reply, but that's how to take off the bumper, not fender!

Ohhhh the front quarter panel… when you said fender I interpreted as bumper.
That thing comes off pretty easily too. Just pop off the tire and the inner liner. And follow the bolts on the inside and along the edges by the door and frunk. There's some on both sides if I remember correctly, but it's been a while it'll come right off.

 

[captjoemcd]

Ohhhh the front quarter panel…

In all my years I've never heard someone call a fender a front quarter panel. I guess according to wikipedia some people call it that. Learn something new every day!
Quarter panel - Wikipedia
Fender (vehicle) - Wikipedia

 

[AaronE]

haha, yeah. it's funny, there's another thread (the only one really) about a fender, and they actually meant bumper. They were eventually called out on it.

 

[DerbyDave]

This manual looks like it might be helpful: Service Manual Repair Procedures

 

[AaronE]

Ahh, it's back! Thanks Dave – I was upset that fixmyev.com disappeared when I went to look there first, but this looks like the same content. Scraping now!

 

[Halonoonan]

Any luck figuring it out @AaronE