Took off driver side 16V fender today - BIG PIA!!!

[scirocco16v_1986@yahoo.com (Jeffrey Lowe)]

My god, I was warned about the glue crap that's there
to help bond the fender to the rest of the car, but
come on VW! Heard of overkill!?

I jacked it up, took off the tire, took off that black
fender lining, took off all the bolts inside the
fender well and top of the fender, took off the driver
side headlight assembly. Take heat gun and start
warming up the top of the fender so I can slowly pry
it away, actually worked like a charm and was able to
pop the fender off all the way to the door area with
little effort. Now the fun starts, I spend the next
hour cleaning 17 years of dirt and bugs, & cutting the
1/2 inch thick rubbery undercoat crap away from the
rear inside of the fender well. Now that all of that
mess is out of the way I continue with the heat gun
and am able to pop the rear side of the fender away,
except the very bottom. I'm standing there trying to
figure out why the front of the fender won't come
clear of the car, looks like the bumper is preventing
further progress. So now I try to figure out how to
remove the bumper skin, thought maybe it would be
easier then removing the whole bumper, wrong! If it's
easy I'll have to learn later. So I move on to plan B,
remove the damn bumper. Now, looking at the under side
of the bumper I see I'll need a 19mm socket, but can't
tell if I'll need to lock down a nut above, I soon
find out that I'll need to do so, but this proves an
incredible pain, getting a 19mm open end wrench to fit
into the grove was no fun. After another hour, and
breaking the four plastic clips that hold the top two
parts of the bumper onto the car, I finally get the
bumper off. Now, removing the front side of the
fender, I've discovered what the hold up really was,
the black glue on the 16V body kit up front was
preventing the fender from coming loose. I get all
that black crap cut and the front pops right off. So
now I figure cool, everything should break free now
right? Nope! After pulling and tugging a few times I
decide to have a look up under the body kit between
the fender & door area, you've got to be kidding! One
more stupid ass damn near impossible to reach screw
holding the fender portion body kit to the car, and in
getting to it the paint started to crack on the kit,
oh well, the fender is off now. Step back and look at
the mess that took me almost 5 hours to create, it
reminds me why I put this project off for so long.
That's enough for today. 

Now, unfortunately, since my replacement fender came
off an 8V I need to remove the 16V kit from the old
fender, oh yeah, should be tons of fun. And just love
that friggen antenna hole I don't need, I do have a
plug on it's way though.

Should be a lot easier to put the new fender on with
the bumper out of the way. Question now is, should I
stick the 16V kit onto the fender while it's off the
car? or after I put the fender on the car?

Sorry this was so long, just wanted to share. 

Later...

=====
Jeff Lowe
Garland, Texas
'59 Euro Spec Beetle (Waiting it's turn for resto)
'64 Type-34 Karmann Ghia (Got parts?)
'86 Scirocco 16V 
'98 Ford Explorer XLT 4X4

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