Front fender removal

[johnd]

My front fenders (some would say wings, but the car sure ain't flying now . .. .) are tired.  At great expense, of course, I have replacements.  I have drilled a number of the welds along the engine compartment side, but the vertical row of spot welds at the rear (in the door opening) are going to be hard to drill as the fender gets in the way.  Anyone have any experience here?  Do I just break out the air chisel and have at it? 

Many Thanks,

John
Houston, TX

[Shvegel]

Hi,
Generally when removing the panels I just cut close with an air chisel or grinder being carefull not to ravage the inner structure and then attack the spotwelds on the remains with the edge of the grinder and peel it off. It pretty much eliminates the risk of overdrilling through the inner structure. Hopefully the upper reinforcements will be OK when you get it pulled apart.

The bright side is the trunk floor is much worse to do. It took me about 5 hours to cut it out. It was a really bad day.

[johnd]

Thanks for your input.  That sounds like a plan.  As for the news that the trunk floor is worse . . . well, we'll see if that is good news when  I get that far . . . Many thanks!   john

[waltklatt]

My, my, first the doors would be removed.  The door cams and hinges can come off too.  Mark the positions of the two hinges and door cam before taking them off.  Will be easy to line up the doors again when reinstalling them.
The weld points are dard to get to and I used a cold chisel and hammer and gently broke of the welds.  Slice the fender skin around the weld if it gets too hard and then grind off the scrap.
Then when welding the new fenders on, put the doors on first and then you can line up the lines and gaps with small spot welds and then remove the doors to complete the welds.
The welds on the top of the fenders near the windshield, require the windsheild to be removed and the trim.  Then use a wire brush to remove the bondo, filler or tin or lead at the joint.  I used a torch to melt/burn it away and you have the welds there too.  The front nose panel is a whole another job.
Easy to do with plenty of time and patience.
Walter
1967 220SL-diesel

[johnd]

Walt -

Many thanks.  The door, windshield and most everything else on the car is, well, no longer on the car . . .  Good idea about using the doors for alignment, instead of making alignment impossible later . . .

May get back to them this weekend.

Many thanks!

[mbzse]

.../..The door cams and hinges can come off too.  Mark the positions of the two hinges and door cam before taking them off.  Will be easy to line up the doors again when reinstalling them.../...

A useful trick when welding the fenders on is to make yourself a tool, to ensure correct alignment of the fenders.
To make the tool, find an un-welded (un-restored) W113. Take the headlights off that car, and make two oval metal plates which correspond to the
oval frames of the headlight assemblies. Mount the plates on, with same screw holes as the headlights attach with. Then weld a bar on, connecting the two plates.

Use this to tool align (the front part of) your fenders, as you weld them on. This procedure corresponds to a M-B factory tool
/Hans in Sweden

[reign16]

Here's some info how to removed the front fender:
1. Remove wheel from car.

2. Inside the wheel well, you will need to remove all the quick snaps. Use your flat head to pull the pin up, then remove the snap from the fender. Remove the liner.

3. At this time, remove the blinker from the fender.

4. On top of the fender, remove the 10mm bolts holding the fender to the chasis. Also remove the black snap connected in the rain tray.

5. Remove the two screws under the side skirt. Also remove the first two screws from the bottom of the skirt.

6. Carefully pop off the triangular cover in front of the mirror and unscrew the last 10mm bolt.

7. There will be some adhesive holding the bottom of the fender in where the two screws were. Also, you will need to pull the snap from the skirt out of the fender to remove it. Be careful and you'll get it.

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[waqas]

I get this in Google search. I hope it can help it with you man...

Yes, but for which car?