Removing front facia?

[santo]

Can I remove the front facia off of a 2001 RT/10 without raising the car? The car is currently in storage and I would like to remove the front fascia to get it painted. I just don't have suitable ramps and I can't take it anywhere because I have suspended the insurance. I'd like to remove those four bolts that hold up the bumper, as others have indicated is easier.

Thanks in advance,
Santo

 

[FrankBarba]

If you can crawl underneath the car then you can do the job. I would suggest raising. DO you have a Jack?

 

[santo]

If you can crawl underneath the car then you can do the job. I would suggest raising. DO you have a Jack?

While I have trimmed down a little, there's no hope of getting under the car without raising it I don't have a decent jack available to me other than the factory jack but I'd rather not raise it, if at all possible.

I saw a picture of a fascia removed last night in the image gallery and I've gotten lower than those bolt locations through the top when I mounted my "make-shift" license plate holder. I'm just not sure you can get to those bolts and it only occured to me last night after seeing that picture that it might be possible. I'll have a look later today but I wondered if anyone had done it.

Thanks for the help anyway,
Santo

 

[Neil - UK]

*** removed my front fascia no problem without the aid of a jack in about 20 mins without removing the bumper, got some pics if you want them

 

[santo]

*** removed my front fascia no problem without the aid of a jack in under 20 mins, got some pics if you want them

I would LOVE them. Thanks very much. I'll PM my email address.
Santo

 

[Neil - UK]

 

[Neil - UK]

mine had to come off for headlight adjustments, the whole headlight unit had been set to far forward and the hood was rubbing on both them, so *** pushed them back 1/4"

 

[Supercharged Vipermad]

Santo,
Taking the front fascia off ranks right up there with filling the winshield washer tank. The hardest part is getting them damn "christmas tree" body push-pins out!! NOT hard when you have the tool...or are a tool....I digress.....

You can get all the bolts without lifting the front...but it is easier if you can get under there. I am sure those who have taken theirs off will agree that the first time might take 30-45 minutes. After that, 10 minutes, tops!

PM one of us for details. Mine has been off more times than I ever thought it would be. It is comeing off this next week for a complete reowork of the front...maybe I'll take some pix and add to the "How-To" area.

 

[santo]

Thanks for the help and it's great to hear I can do it. There was some talk about removing the fascia from the bolts in the bumper support and taking that off complete with the fascia. Would those bolts be accessible? From the pics that Neil put up, ot looks like 6 in total (two on top and four on the bottom?) I guess I'll just have to try it later today.

At least I now know what I drilled into to add my license plate bracket. Thanks again for the pics Neil.

Santo

 

[AviP]

As long as you don't have Popeye arms, you can remove the front fascia without jacking.

 

[Neil - UK]

the xmas tree fixings are a pain, I recall the ones close to the headlight are the most awkward to get at, you can see their position on the fascia pic I posted

 

[Dixter]

Just took mine off for a refresh...

Very easy...

1) remove the bolts under the facia.. ( I jacked up the car as the earlier facia's are lower to the ground than the latter cars, (mine is a 97))

2) remove the push-in buttons from the top and upper slot.. there are 9 total.
5 at the top (near the intake) and 4 more in the slot just below the top area
you took the 5 buttons from.. You should get new buttons ( at least I did ) for
replacement as they can get deformed during removal if you don't have the proper tool. (you can get the buttons at any auto supply store and they are cheap)

I used a large flat tip screw driver and a small piece of wood. I just put the
blade of the screw driver under the button and then slid the wood under the screw driver to use as a lever... the bottons just pop out this way.

3) Remove the wheel well bolts that hold the facia there.

4) Slowly peal back the facia from the wheel well and you can reach your hand
in there to un-hook the turn signal lamp. Just grab the plastic where the wires
enter the lamp and turn the plastic.. its slotted and after turning it you can
pull it out.

The fog lamp can be un-hooked by seperating the connector from the housing.
Just pull enough wire out to see the connector.


5) Now just pull the facia off of the car...

6) If your going to have the facia painted you'll want to remove the turn signal
and fog lamp housings... just remove the bolts and they come out easy...

7) The front emblem should also be removed, take a hair dryer and blow on the
emblem until its a little warm... now just take some fising line and slide the
line between the emblem and the facia and use it as a saw to cut the double sided tape that holds on the emblem....

8) For those with fog lamp protection lenses. Locate the protection lens and
find the tab that faces the center of the facia. With both index fingers, one
on each side of the tab, pull down (don't pull outwards )with your fingers pretty forceful and the tab will come out of the slot in the facia, after you notice that the tab is clear of the slot just pull back about an inch and you can now just pull the lens cover out of the facia.. It does take some strength to push the tab out. They go back in the same as they came out,
don't use a screw driver in an attempt to get these off of the facia as it most
likely with result in the tab breaking off...

Thats it... like mentioned, the first time will take you around 30 minutes,
after that you should be able to do it in around 10 minutes...

Side note: folks who do not need to refresh the facia... but you may have this situation...

If you get down and look straight into the facia and you notice that the runner
of the facia looks bowed or warped there is a very very easy fix for this...

What has happen'd ??? The runner on the back side of the facia has a structure foam piece inserted into the runner channel, this foam is put in the
channel and is only held in place with double sided tape, but the tape does
not run the entire length of the channel and is only held in place at a few spots. Where the tape does not exist is where the facia runner will bow or warp
over time. When the facia if off of the car is the perfect time to fix this.

Quite easy, with the facia off the car now just insert a few double sided
tape strips where the bowing has happen'd. Just make sure that the thickness
of the tape is correct to straigten the runner, too thin and you will have the
runner bowing in the the opposite direction, easy to make the strip the correct thickness, just double up the tape or tripple it until you get the right thickness...

The original tape is wrapped around the foam piece.. just leave those tape pieces and fill in the gap length wise and squeeze the facia down to meet the double sided tape, you'll want to fill the gap's on both top and bottom sides of the foam to fix it correctly.

This will fix the bowing, makes the overall area stronger and shouldn't bow again if you take your time and do it correct...

hope this helps

 

[JUCD VPR]

As long as you don't have Popeye arms, you can remove the front fascia without jacking.

DANG IT. I knew i wasent going to be able to fit my arms down there GRrr, see sometimes working out isnt good especially when working on cars ahh i guess i'll have to have one of my puny friends undo a few bolts huh?

 

[Supercharged Vipermad]

Ah yes......I recall those push-pins that are WAY under the outboard part of the headlight!!! As luck would have it...mine were NOT there!! I seem to recall that most who have managed to get those OUT...never put them back (and have been none the worse for it).

 

[santo]

Dixter,

Thanks for the instructions. I followed them to a "T" and my fascia is now off. I started taking pictures to go with your instructions but it got dark and the pictures weren't going to come out good. I will take pictures when putting it back on in case you need them, Tony. Thanks for the encouragement.

This is what my fascia looked like after three or four weeks of driving. I don't generally go off-roading We are in a new subdivision and they paved the driveway about a month ago (bless them). Before that, I was scraping pretty bad. I also touch parked in the garage with a snow blower in the front of the car and the paint cracked. I went to remove the cracked paint and it flaked pretty bad. I'll never do that again. I'll hang a tennis ball if I have to

I may just get the lower half painted so I don't have to worry too much about colour matching. I'll find out what the paintshop says.

On a side note: Below is also a picture of my handywork "McGiver style" on a home-made license plate holder. I bought a 1/2" x 5' flat aluminiumn rod and used it. It looks bent because I had to angle one side due to the hood release mechanism. No part of the fascia is touched by it.

Luckily I must have girly arms to be able to do it, AviP. Tony, I used a flat crow-bar to remove the plastic "christmas tree" plugs. Worked like a charm and they were all there. I first pryed them up a bit with a flat screw driver.

Thanks for everyone's help.
Santo

P.S. If anyone is looking at my car mat, my car is not dripping oil. I had it undercoated and that dripped.

 

[santo]

Neil,

Are those big holes in front of you front tires normally plugged? I dodn't recall seeing a hole there because I was thinking it would be a PITA to change a fog light bulb or side marker bulb as I'd have to take the whole fascia off. It was dark by the time I got around to that part but I'm sure I would have remembered it.

Thanks again for your pictures. They really helped.
Santo

 

[Big Medicine]

It's easier to remove the entire bumper, 4 bolts holding it to the frame rails. @ each outboard through the grill and two upper bolts beneath the air dam assembly.

 

[Leslie]

hey that looks like MY front fascia Santo! must be a different material than the body of the viper if the paint peels that easy...?

 

[santo]

Hi Leslie,

I honestly don't know why the chipping and flaking would happen unless it was repainted and not done properly. Some parts have rubbed on other areas of the lower portion of the fascia but they are intact (around the outer corners). That's why I'm thinking I won't get the whole thing done but just the lower part under the line (lower portion).

I'm guessing it is too clean to be the original paint because I only see one paint chip on the front fascia. Maybe a good paint shop can tell me more. Good luck on your paint.

Santo

 

[Neil - UK]

Neil,

Are those big holes in front of you front tires normally plugged? I dodn't recall seeing a hole there because I was thinking it would be a PITA to change a fog light bulb or side marker bulb as I'd have to take the whole fascia off. It was dark by the time I got around to that part but I'm sure I would have remembered it.

Thanks again for your pictures. They really helped.
Santo

the holes are usually plugged, check your front fascia they just pull out for access to lamps and to fill the overflow bottle. Just took them out to release the side markers

 

[santo]

Thanks Neil,

I took a look this morning and mine are covered.

Santo

 

[snampro]

I'll bump this thread to ask a question:

does the facia need to be re-aligned when you put it back on or will it just go into the same place? I'm considering pulling my facia to access the coolant overflow bottle...

 

[Big Medicine]

If you remove it bumper and all,(not by separating the bumper fropm the fascia), it's pretty much a snap.

 

[snampro]

can you give me a better explanation? here's the microfiche for the area in question:

 

[Ulysses]

I'll bump this thread to ask a question:

does the facia need to be re-aligned when you put it back on or will it just go into the same place? I'm considering pulling my facia to access the coolant overflow bottle...

Depends on how you removed it. If you removed it by removing the push pins then no. If you removed it by removing it with the bumper and you dropped the shims, then yes. If you removed it with the bumper and were careful not to drop the shims or remembered where the shims went, then no.

 

[snampro]

thanks for the info, what's the tool called that makes pulling those fasterns easy? I definitely don't have one of those and I love buying new tools...

 

[Ulysses]

Door/panel fastener removal tool.

 

[snampro]

awesome, I'll be picking up one of those...