Inner fender replacement

[jdl71]

Is this supposed to be possible without removing the rad support? I fought mine for 2 hours last night and finally got the old one out by disconnecting the shifter linkage and twisting the bottom tab around enough to wrestle it out. But the replacement (used, not repro) does not want to go back in there. I've removed the everything from the rad support (washer tank, horn, voltage reg, etc..) but just cant seem to get it in there. If I get the firewall side in the front wont go down, and vice versa. I even tried unbolting the rad support on that side from the frame to see if it would move forward a bit and it's froze solid. Put a jack under the bolt and lifted the whole truck. As usual a "30 minute job" is going on 3 days....

[Alan's Classic]

Is the radiator support unbolted from the fender?

[Brad54]

Remove the outer fender... I've removed plenty of inner fenders in junkyards without removing the core support.
The battery tray is usually a *****, because acid fumes have not only rusted the bolts that hold the tray to the core support and the inner fender, but there's one bolt that is in a low spot, and the bolt head is often "chemically milled" down several sizes smaller than what it originally was.

-Brad

[jdl71]

Originally Posted by Alan's Classic

Is the radiator support unbolted from the fender?

Yes. I got the old inner out with a lot of twisting and contorting. Just doesn't seem to be enough room to get the new one in.

[jdl71]

Originally Posted by Brad54

Remove the outer fender... I've removed plenty of inner fenders in junkyards without removing the core support.
The battery tray is usually a *****, because acid fumes have not only rusted the bolts that hold the tray to the core support and the inner fender, but there's one bolt that is in a low spot, and the bolt head is often "chemically milled" down several sizes smaller than what it originally was.

-Brad

The outer fender is off. Battery tray is on the other side I'm working on driver side. The old one is out, just doesn't seem to be enough room to get the new one in without twisting it out of shape. I'm pretty convinced now the core support is bent. Someone ran into a barn on this corner and bent the outer fender, grille surround and bumper but the core support still looked square. I'm almost convinced now this is not the case. Think tomorrow I'm going to introduce the core support to a 4x4 block and a BFH to see it wants to cooperate.