I had already straightened the fender at the turn signal opening while the bumper is off, but couldn't figure why or how it had been bent. Today I was working on replacing the serpentine belt, and noticed that the RH front mud-flap appeared to have a bulge in it. I decided to remove the fender liner completely as I had managed to knock my favourite small screw driver down the hood hinge hole and it was stuck between the mud-flap/fender liner and the inner fender.
I had to drill the non-standard plain rivets out. The heads came off ok, and the liner came off. It was when I looked closer at the fender, the reason for the 'lump' became obvious.
Due to non-standard rivets being used (i.e. non-plastic coated) and the rivets having a shank that had several depressions/rings in it to grip tighter, the PO had (as is now obvious by other hidden damage covered by the new under-tray) presumably run at least the RH side of the car over possibly a kerb and or one of those concrete blocks to prevent you drawing too far forward in a parking bay. However, clearly the mud-flap had taken a hard hit, and un-like the plastic coated rivets the solid rivet held and bent the 3 upper rivets and the mud-flap outward which in turn had flared the whole RH fender at the rear outward, which bent the front inward and closed the gap up between the inner and outer fenders and breaking the turn signal cover tabs off.
- Damage to mud-flap (1)
- Damage to mud-flap (2)
So, I know the un-coated cheap rivets are handy, but just don't go running you car over a kerb or stone on the side of the road!
The 2nd issue I had was it was nearly impossible to remove the old rivets as they do not collapse like the coated ones to allow removal from the fender. I had to carefully grind them down which took an hour, and all I then found was the paint around the rivets was cracked and flaking off.
- Fender damage from plain rivets
Neil.
P.S. Now have to find a good replacement front RH mud-flap!
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