Topic

Ive not been able to find guidance on changing a front wing in the How To's. How difficult a job is it to do. Does it, for instance, need the front bumper and the door to be fully removed ?

Ive just bought a new good 2nd hand wing in black, which i will repaint before i fit, to replace the NS on my 135. It was touch and go whether to repair or replace as the old one has some small filler cracks at the front from a previous repair. It might have made sense to rub this down and fill it but with no sign of a knock that would have caused the filler to crack it seemed safer to change the wing given the current availability of really good 2nd hand panels.

I now need to understand what I have let myself in for and how much time i'l need to change it over once the new one is painted.

Good afternoon, I recently removed both wings as they had rust where mud flaps had been and a few random spots, i purchased the best possible one I could find on ebay and used a classic car place to make two good wings from three bad ones. You might to use the oportunity like i did to refresh some of the rust you'll find underneath. Narrow belt sander was one of the bets tools i ever purchased.Remove the wheel arch liner, other than that the removal and refit was very simple, be ready for rusted bolt and C clips on the front bumper. I snipped mine rather than spin them into the bumper.

Thanks that has given me confidence. I will start on removing the wheel arch liner this evening.

You are right. It's surprisingly easy to change. The wing support bracket was the biggest challenge as the stud holding it to the body sheared when i tried to undo the nut. Although this was a blind stud I drilled it out and just fitted a nut and bolt through from the inner wing. The rest was really easy.

Well done buddy, yeah both mine needed clearing out and refreshing.

My old girl is long time keeper and coz she's not a daily driver I could take the time to tidy up the inner wheel wings. Dumped a whole can of Waxoyl each side as I hope not to be back in there for a while.

I'm thinking that not being able to get drivers wings new might take a few cars off the road

Well done again.

Thanks. The new wing is in place and i just have to wait for the weather to improve to show it some 1200 and 2000 grade wet and dry and buff it with G3. An extra day or so for the laquer to harden more will be no bad thing.

I have just done the same job and had the same bolt snap with very little force.
Thank you everyone this thread was very helpful.

Im not sure why they chose to use a blind stud in that position which is impossible to extract but it's thankfully straightforward to work around

Getting the height aligned with the bonnet took a couple of attempts.
Once I had it aligned at the front it looked too low at the windscreen end, the rear corner of the bonnet was a good 3mm higher than the wing here.

The bonnet hinge isnt height adjustable so no easy way out there. After a bit of head scratching I removed the screws on the top edge of the wing and then firmly but gently pulled the rear corner of the wing upwards a couple of times. With the screws back in the height now matches.
Time to put the badges back on now and its finished.