Recently my 95 dakota baby was in a battle with a guard rail and sustained some injuries to it's rear bumper and its front driver's side fender! I was told that I could go find these at a junkyard for cheap and replace them myself. I just wanted to find out how hard this is to do and if there's any guides or anything to show me how to do this? I take it the rear bumper won't be that difficult but the front fender looks like it might pose a challenge but I keep hearing these things are just bolted on, so basically i'm just unsure of waht tools I need to do this and how hard is it? Thanks for any help you can give me!

 

It's been awhile since I removed my rear bumper. I think it was only 4 bolts in the frame.

As for the fender, which one? Driverside has a bunch of junk bolted onto it.. no big deal. Fenders aren't that hard to pull on these.

Check with local junkyards for a bumper, these things are easy to find. Or just check E-bay for a rollpan.

 

It's the driver's side fender, the only thing is whether or not i'm going to have remove the front bumper to get to it or not? Would that make it harder?

And 4 bolts for the back bumper dont sound too bad, the only thing i'm worried about is whether or not the bolts are dealer only bolts or if I can find the tools myself to remove them. (had prob with steering wheel once where one of the bolts was one that only a dealer could remove I believe)

 

They should be regular bolts, maybe 9/16s?

The front bumper shouldn't have to come off to remove the fender. Just all the junk that's bolted to it.

 

If I didn't have a lift off hood, I'd go take a quick look and tell you exactly on the fender.[]

 

ah ok, thanks for the info!

 

You do have to remove the cowl cover and unplug the hose to the wiper mist, and you'll have to remove the bolts that hold the hood bracket to the fender, having a partner helps but isn't required to hold the hood up while you remove the fender, as I remember there are 2 bolts underneath the truck by the door, 4 or 5 under the fender's arc 2 or 3 behind the headlamp/marker bezel (that piece has to be removed too, remove 4 screws for the portion of the bezel and 2 or 3 on the grill for clearance to wiggle it out, unplug the bulbs to remove), and maybe 4 at the top of the fender, unscrew all the crap that's hooked to it and wiggle it off, real easy, takes 1/2 an hour for removal and just as long to install the new one.