One of the things I will need to do to the Buick LeSabre is patch up the passenger side fender, that’s the metal part of the car body above the front wheel. There are a couple of rust spots, including a hole, as well as a long but shallow crease. The hard part of the fix will be getting the car into the garage in a way that leaves enough space to do work.
The Buick doesn’t fit well in the garage. The length leaves only a couple of inches at each end. The width means I only have a little space on the driver side and just inches from the wall on the passenger side. If I back into the garage so the passenger side is on the more spacious area, it’s still a bit cramped for safely grinding, welding, and painting.
Late one February evening, I made a mistake. I pondered the question, “How hard would it be to take the fender off the car?” The reason this was a mistake was because I was already in bed and should have been trying to sleep. Instead, my compulsion made me search the web.
Wanting to get the search done quickly, I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and used it. An eight-minute YouTube video later and I had my answer. Undo a handful of T-35 Torx bolts and a couple of 10mm nuts and the fender would pop right off.
This is an issue, of course. On that particular night, an arctic air mass had dropped our temperatures to nothing. Working on the Buick in any way would require waiting until warm weather. I really wanted to get started right away though. A tantrum wouldn’t help, so I just had to wait.
The good part of this eventual fender removal is that I was already going to be dismantling things in that area of the car to change the bumper cover. The bumper cover is the decorative plastic part of the bumper on modern cars. If I planned things correctly, I could do it all at once, once summer finally arrived.
I could remove the fender and move it into the garage for its repairs without trying to get the whole car in. While doing that, removing the bumper cover would be easy and I could take the time to paint the grill with plastic-friendly chrome paint.
There are these plastic shields that go inside the fenders and over the wheels in the car. They protect the engine and other things from all the rocks and debris picked up from the road. In my Buick, these are shredded with very little material left. A web search found I could get replacements for just under forty dollars for the pair of front ones. It would be a good time to replace those while I had everything apart.
While surfing, I also checked the price for a replacement fender. A reproduction would run about eighty bucks. I should be able to fix the original, even the rust hole, but it’s nice to know I have reasonable options if I need them.
Now, all that is left is to be patient until summer. What a nuisance that will be.