Front Bumper Removal

Last updated: August 25, 1999

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:01:00 -0700
From: "Jim LaBreck" (jimlab@earthlink.net)

Not hard, necessarily, just time consuming...

  1. Jack up the front of the car, remove both front wheels.

  2. Remove all the plastic screws and clips with a 10mm socket or wrench and a screwdriver in each wheel well to remove the wheel well liner.

  3. Remove the belly pan by removing all the 10mm bolts and screw head clips holding it in place.

  4. Raise the headlights with your headlight button on your dash, (not the headlight switch) and remove the four Phillips screws holding on the black plastic headlight trim bezel.

  5. Open the hood, if you haven't done so already. You should now have access to all the bolts and screws which hold the front bumper on.

  6. Remove the Phillips screw on each side of the bumper, just in from the wheel well which holds the bumper sides in place. It's located towards the wheel well, and right at the seam between the bumper skin and the fender, and the head of the screw is pointing down.

  7. Remove, with a long extension and a 10mm socket (and more than likely a "wobbly") the three 10mm nuts on each outer corner of the front bumper skin which are accessible through the headlight opening or from below through the wheel well. If you look through the headlight opening towards the outside edge of the car they should be fairly obvious.

  8. Remove the four (?) 10mm bolts which hold the aluminum insert in the bumper to the front core support at the center of the engine bay. The bumper should now be free to be removed.

  9. Have a friend help you remove the bumper slowly, working on the outer edges at the same time. The three 10mm nuts which you removed were on studs which are a tight fit through the mounting tabs on the fender, so in order to avoid damaging the bumper or the paint of the fender, it helps to have four hands on this one.

  10. Do whatcha gotta do. Replacement is the reverse, of course, of the removal process.

Note: I haven't had a front splitter, fog lights, or any of the other OEM stuff on my bumper for a long, long time, so any omission of unclipping the wiring harness for the lights or any other parts attached to the bumper was unintentional. I simply have the process memorized for my car.

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