The rust in the sills and the mudguards demanded such if I was ever going to do a proper job of them. Removing the motor and transmission would be a whole lot easier that way as well. In a perfect world I would like to have got it to fire up, run well and not have to removed any body parts, but it didn't turn out that way for this car. It may have been from a 'desert' area of the country, but it still has rain. Never have i seen so much built up dirt and mud on a car. And that = RUST.
I will do a walk through of how I removed the front clip. I hope i don't have to pull it apart more, as I like the idea of not pulling apart anything that does not need it...which brings me to a very important part of the job. BAG AND TAG every nut bolt and cable
First order was to remove the bumper bar. 4 bolts on the chassis rails, I managed to get one undone and had to take to the other three with a cut off disk. 52 year old rusty bolts need that at times you know. If you have had experience with skun knuckles and bruised fingers from pulling cars apart you will understand...
Second was to remove the bonnet (It can be done with the bonnet still in place but for 4 bolts it saves weight and flopping around by taking it off.
Third step was to remove the radiator itself
Fourth step was the front radiator support bolt. Angle grinder job again, it was so banged around that nothing would undo it.
In the case of this car, I also removed the radiator support panel before removing the front. Bugger of a job with the usual rusted up bolts and tricky locations that also required removing the battery tray. To be honest it would have been easier to have removed it after taking the front clip off.
I removed it so as to fix rust in it.
Fifth step was to free the mudguards from the body. 6 bolts each side. On this car, the RH side lowest bolt was rusted off and the guard was held on with...yep, more fencing wire! The RH side middle bolt was also just not there, either someone forgot to put it there in Broadmeadows or the guard had been off or attempted off and removed then. Either way, it made me miss that bolt on the LH side and it wasn't till it was loose but not loose enough that I had to go hunting (say hello read the manual first)...
On each side there are 4 bolts that hold the mudguard to the body and 2 that hold the inner guard on.
Bolts 1,2, 3 and 4 are the guard to body bolts. Take note of the number of shims in place so you can put them back later. Bolts 5 and 6 are the inner guard bolt locations, also shown in the next image as 5 and 6 as well.
Sixth step is to disconnect any wires that run from body to the front clip, including the radio aerial in this case.
By now, the whole front clip should be loose.
Seventh step: You will need two or three people. I had one at the front and one each side. This is the be careful part if you are wanting to protect paintwork on your doors. The front clip will come forward about an inch at which point you will need to pull the bottom of the mudguards out so they can come up. Pull the clip forward and up. The rear of the clip will need to lift high enough for the inner guards to clear the suspension upper arms. There will be no need to disconnect the fresh air flexible tubes, they just sit over the pipe and will slide free.
I forgot to mention, take off the front wheels and support the chassis with stands. Not a jack but actual proper stands OK! That lets the A arms drop lower so that inner guards will clear them better. Then just walk off with the clip, it is not very heavy.
That is the process that worked for me. The challenge will be putting it back on haha!
And if you want to remove a mudguard itself, after taking off the bumper bar, after taking out the grill, after removing the front valance panel, after disconnecting the air vents, and anything else I have missed, there are 20 bolts each side for the mudguard itself...
And here is what you will have...
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