Programbo

The top hinge on my passenger door completely broke away at the weld and I need to remove my fender to get the best angle to go in and weld it back. I looked through the Haynes manual and it all seems fairly straight forward. Does anyone whose done this before have any pre-advice? I heard all the little nuts/studs that hold the black plastic fender flares on snap off easy. Thanks

Cherockee

Yes they do, but you really only need to take off the one at the top center- there's a bracket attached to that one. If it breaks you might be able to drill it out and put a bolt through it.

Also, the antenna wire won't go very far, so you may need to unplug it under the dash and pull out the gromet behind the fender.

There are a few bolts attaching the header to the fender, make sure you get them all.

gpeade

Your bolts holding your flares will ring off. No matter how hard you try to save them. They are a stud welded to a metal rail that actually holds the flare. They are easily replaceable but not sure you can do one without removing the entire thing. Maybe see if you can get the other end of that bracket loose. I just removed my flares to paint them but I never looked to see where that center bracket was attached on the other end.

Programbo

OK to save time Saturday I started messing with my fender and successfully removed the black plastic fender flare. Only snapped off 2 of the 8 or so bolts! Now I have one quick hypothetical question. If I remove everything holding the fender on EXCEPT the 2 bolts which hold the grill/header to the fender from the front do you guys think I could pull the rear of the fender away from the body enough to reach in and hit the hinge with the tip of a welder? It wouldnt require a huge amount of room and the fender is kind of long. Just a thought. Not removing those 2 front bolts would save a lot of time. Or would it?

Programbo

Just a quick update for anyone doing a search down the road and coming upon this thread. I don't know if my antenna cable is an oddity or not but it hung way down inside the fender and gave me at least 3+ feet of movement so I just sat the fender on the ground while we welded. Needed to remove the whole front grill to get at all the torques holding the fender on from the front.

Birdcr125

You should not have to remove those bolts I had the same problem with the hinge there difficult to weld because the thin body metal I got a piece of slightly thicker plate cut out were the hinge fits welded in the heavier plate then welded the hinge to it.