Need repair insight

[Morrison]

I want to try and repair as much of this as possible. The car is not mine; it belongs to my roommate, but she is a poor graduate student, and doesn't know how to work on cars. I was not in the car during the wreck, but apparently it was at low speed in town.....the other car suffered no visible damage apparently. I already had to replace the diving board itself, since the passenger side mount (that is weled to the back of it) was shattered. It looks to me like the frame part of the car where the bumper shocks attatch may be tweaked due to the angle of the bumper. I'm not sure what I can do about that. However I would like to take off that passenger side fender if I can and pound out the dent, maybe bondo a little. Basically, I've taken on this car as a project just because I like to do this kind of stuff, and have done numberous other little projects on the car, but have almost zero budget, or at least very little.

If I did want to take off that fender, is there a writeup anywhere on how to do that?

[rede30]

find a used fender from somone and be done. You could get a color match that knowone will see with a used fender.

[Fanzotti]

Buy Used Color Matched Fender

I agree with the statement above, thats the best/easiest/ cheapest way. Just did the exact same repair. You can pull out the headlight and pound out the dent (dont leave any high spots, easier to use more bondo than run into a high spot that you will have to tap down) then you have to sand with 80 grit dry to get the shape with out over sanding, then hi fill prime, then guide coat sand with 320 or 400 then possibly if all goes well paint and clear coat. This way is much more of a pita and may not turn out well unless you know what your doing? Like the guy said find a good color matched fender...junkyard, E-bay, this forum and bolt it on! the only think you'll have to do other than spin a ratchet is replace the body caulk seal inside the engine bay by the windshield. Take a look and you'll see what i'm talking about.

[Morrison]

It definitely sounds like a used fender without dents would be the hot setup. Unfortunately the car is a cabrio and it's been damn hard to find cabrio specific parts such as the fender. Local junkyard has 3 or 4 e30's, none of which help me out much.

[formula driver]

It will be a pain in the ass to repair that fender but if you are dead set on trying to fix it as best as possible its fairly easy to remove the fender. There's several bolts along side the hood seals and a couple on the front end towards the valance and there might be a few towards the back but I would have to look at my car. The bumper can be fixed. Drill a hole in the bumper shock itself to let the fluid out and then compress it a half an inch or so.