Body panel removal

Bosch

Registered User
Short backstory, I was out visiting some friends at an apartment complex and when I was going to leave, I noticed my door was making a bad noise when I opened it. Looked closer, and there's a hand-sized dent in the driver's side fender, near the doorjam. It wasn't there when I arrived, so some worthless scumbag is going around kicking cars. Door seems undamaged, and there's no paint scuffs or gouges or scratches. I've ordered a paintless dent puller(the hot glue+slide hammer kind) but on the off chance I can't get the dent out satisfactorily, could someone provide a handy dandy guide to removing the fender panel so I can gently reform the dent from the inside?
 
In that example, I'd try removing the fender liner first and seeing if it could be 'persuaded' from behind with the proper tools, such as deer antler, longer shoe horn, tire spoon, etc. You can also try the trick of getting it cold using chilling spray such as decal remover (google how to freeze and shatter a bike lock for hints), then hitting it with a heat gun/hair dryer on high to see if it will reform on it's own.

Be sure to eyeball inside the fender before going in, I think there are some components in there that can be damaged if you're not careful such as cruise control vacuum pot?

Factory manual goes like this:
- Remove inner fender liner
- Remove two retain nuts attaching parking lamp
- Remove retaining screws attaching bumper cover to fender (no count)
- Remove two retaining screws attaching fender to brace (I think this is at the front). Remove one retaining screw attaching grille opening reinforcement to fender.
- Remove two retaining screws attaching fender to rocker panel at lower rear attachment.
- Remove one retaining screw attaching fender to tab on body (lower horizontal attachment).
- Remove retaining screw attaching fender to body tab ( I think this and the one just before it are from the rear, on the back vertical section of the fender).
- Remove four retaining screws attaching fender to uni-body (under hood)
- Remove hood hinge forward retaining screw hinge to uni-body
- Remove fender
..note there may be spacers at the rear lower most bolts...don't lose them, document all mount point with photos, etc. before dis-assembly. The use of the word 'screw' can also mean 'bolt'.

To install, reverse the above.

Otherwise, see this ebay item for a look at all bolt/mounting points:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fender-LH-...e:Ford&hash=item3b2609795a:g:qocAAOSwGrBdndja
 
Very helpful, thanks a lot Ken. I'm expecting snow tomorrow and I'm not sure how much I really want to be out in the cold garage doing this so I'll report back in a couple days.
 
Update: dent puller worked fine. There's a couple very small warped areas that I wasn't able to take care of but I'm satisfied enough. I'm still mad about it though.
 
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