I was surprised that I could not find any examples or videos on removing the front inner fender well, so I thought I would put up some information on how I did my right (battery) side. I have an exhaust manifold to pull (car has AC) and a heater core to replace and I expect the tasks will go easier with the wheel well out of the way. Some folks will pull the fender and the well together, but I’m no body man and expected to have difficulty aligning the hood and fender during reassembly. Also this gives great access to all kinds of parts like the two body mounts, fender to body cavity, blower motor, etc. so you can do other maintenance as well! NOTE: If your car is concours-quality or you hate to scratch any paint on the under body areas – do not do this. You will be pushing and pulling against the inside of the fender and things will get scratched. NOTE: I did this on a lift. You could do it on jack stands as you do not need a lot of ground clearance. Remove the wheel. I removed the battery and tray and the radiator overflow tank. After the fact, I do not think I needed to remove the tank but it did make getting the battery and tray out easier. I removed all the bolts holding the well in place. PB blaster helps! My car has AC so that includes the clamp for the ac muffler under the compressor. All the fasteners are obvious expect the one near the exhaust manifold to head pipe connection. This bolt and bracket must come out to give you room to move the well around. See picture: Normally it looks like this behind the well: Once the well is loose you need to carefully push it towards the engine. The well is tucked under the fender lip on the outside (trim side). You are trying to get the well edge out from behind the fender lip. The well will flex some. I had to use a pry bar to push it the last little bit to pop it free. This will require wiggling, pushing, and pulling. You are trying to pull the back side out. Start at the door side until it looks like the picture below: Once the back is free you need to work the front loose. If you have AC, the AC muffler will get in the way. (If your AC does not work you could just take the muffler out.) The front outer edge of the well will be stuck behind the front lip of the fender. You need to work it loose so you can move the part of the well that is narrow towards the front of the well (near the battery tray) past the fender. Work it towards the back of the car. I had to take out the bolt holding the fender to the lower brace. This gave me the ¼ inch or so I needed to clear the lip. Be careful not to crack your paint by flexing the fender too much. You will only need a small amount to clear the edge. Once pass the front edge the well will basically fall out. Be prepared to catch it! It will rotate past the hub and you are done. So that’s my story. If anyone has a better way to do it please post here!
Right on Ted - I ordered a Parts Place replacement as there is some rust repair needed at the front. I figured that would be quickest/easiest as I do not have the skills to do a nice job myself. I'll follow up with that circus when I'm done!
I'm trying to get 69 inner fenders back in and by myself is a struggle. another set of hands would be...handy.
I've had to do this many times... heater core, then blower motor, then ac/heater diaphragms, etc. Why can't everything just beak all at once? Never had a problem scratching the outside as long as I am careful and put some tape/cardboard on the body first to protect it. I do scratch in inner fenders, but that is easily touched up. I would finagle a watermelon though a garden hose as long as I don't have to re-adjust the hood/door/fenders.
This what works for me to remove inner fender liners. I do not have hoist. I jack the car up with the jack under the engine cross member. I place jack stands under the frame just behind the inward bend of the frame. I then slowly lower the jack so that the weight on the jack and jack stands is about equal. Thus there is no undue stress on the liner. R/R more easily.
Ah yes. The old "Well, if I have this apart already, I might as well..." Exactly how the entire drive train and front suspension from my GS ended up on my garage floor!
Installed a pro6ten last year and got the AC working for the first time in many years with intentions of having it available for running a few legs of power tour. Well 2020 killed that plan but we get a do-over for 2021 and I decided it was time to test the AC and holy cow it still blows good cold air.. for about 15 min then the blower quits! No noise, no drama, just quits. No fan at any speed even if I hotwire it off the battery. Glad to see this how-to, but still dreading the project!
You just cut a "window" in the inner fender. Seen many back in the day, incl. my old GSX, that were done using the ol' "flat rate" method.
Yeah like I said, power all the way to the heavy black and orange wire. Unless the connector at the fan fell off im stumped... the fact that I ran a hot wire off the battery to the blk/orn wire and still no fan.... I'm pretty much stuck pulling the inner fender unless I can put hands on the connector from underneath to make sure its still plugged onto the fan.
I've heard about cutting a hole, and while I would prefer not I'm thinking I may go that route anyway... Any guidance on some coordinates on where to cut the hole ??? Anyone with a picture or template?
12 Lives, thank you for the advise. It actually went pretty well. I don't have A/C & have the engine pretty much stripped down (all bracket ext manifolds off) to paint it, as it was painted hugger orange for some reason. Or should I say top 3/4's was orange the rest buick red. Going to get fender wells power coated now. Any trick to reinstalling them? Thanks Jim