Replacing Defender Front Wing

On or around Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:15:58 -0000, "grege" enlightened us thusly:

Well, I did mine in 2 bits. The inner wing/headlamp panel was already assembled by the nice people at Paddock (or, as is more likely, their supplier) and I'd recommend that as a procedure if 'tis not so. The outer (vertical) panel was separate. The inner panel etc isn't held on by much - couple of screws from the headlamp panel to the wheel arch, couple of bolts at the bottom front corner onto the chassis. Leave 'em all loose until you get it all lined up...

Most awkward bit is the attachment of the inner/outer wing to the top of the wheel arch, right sod getting the bolts and nuts in there.

watch the wiring harness, mine frayed on the replaced wing and kept blowing the ignition circuit by shorting until I got a Dealer :-(( to sort it out.

Most awkward bit is the attachment of the inner/outer wing to the top of the

I'll second that - they are a real pain.

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

Thanks for the replies. On a follow up, my Defender is a 200TDi and so the engine air intake is situated on the side of the left wing. I can't see any obvious screws holding the exterior grill on over this intake, and the diagram in the parts manual doesn't show any. Is it just a friction fit - should I just prise it off, or is there something subtle going on?

Thanks,

--> Greg

Hello,

Well, I managed to do the job this weekend despite it being so cold. I went down the route of putting the inner wing on first, and then the outer wing, but I suspect that I could have put the wing on pre-assembled in hind sight.

--> Greg

Doing it that way how did you get on doing up the top outer skin bolts as I've always found that to be the worst (ie most fiddly) aspect of the job.

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

Ahh, the trick I think is to use the correct 'special nuts' as specified by the Land Rover parts manual [part #302532, available amongst others from Paddocks]. These are essentially clips that contain a rudamentary nut into which you can screw the appropriate bolt. You can clip these on to the outer wing before offering it up to the inner wing to attach it to the vehicle. By reaching around from the inside with the appropriate ratchet & socket combination, you can do them up. I found that, at times, I had to use various socket extensions depending on where I could swing the ratchet in the engine bay. Also, with the plastic wheel arch extensions removed, you can just about reach up inside to adjust the position of the special nuts or verify that the bolt has correctly engaged.

For attaching the inner wing to the bulkhead, I found that temporarily moving the air intake housing and the heater matrix allowed enough access to the various bolts [I didn't have to remove either from the vehicle to do this, just moved them].

--> Greg

On or around 19 Jan 2004 09:10:44 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comknujon (AN6530) enlightened us thusly:

tis, innit. I had fun with those. about 4 or 5 of them can't be pre-fitted as they also go through the bit on top of the wheel arch.