Well I got my new front fender in today (dealer damaged my original one while towing the bike) and I decided I had enough of them touching my bike so even though they damaged it, I would replace it. First time I took on this job and I must say it was a learning experience. I first thought I could just unbolt the fender jack up the bike and rotate the fender around the tire, well nope, the stand offs that the bolts go through wont fit through the forks so you have to take off the wheel and remove the fender from the bottom of the forks. Well I remove the wheel and with out realizing it, the tire hits the brake calipers so I have to remove them as well (dealer gorilla griped those bolts on by the way). So I get that all taken off and put the new fender on. What seemed to be about a 20 minute job turned into an hour and a half, but hey its done correctly. So if you ever have to replace your front fender, learn something from me and remove the calipers and wheel first.

 

WTF..I rolled my fender right out of the front of my FLHX. Just pushed the flares on the bottom in a little while doing so at the forks. Did not have one problem. Will have to do it again since I slid into my buddy when someone pulled out in front of him.

 

You are apparently a lot luckier of a person than I am.

 

Hey, look on the bright side, you didn't mistake inch lbs for foot lbs and twist one of the axel support bolts off like I did. But yea, according to the manual it's all gotta come off.

 

Don't you always take the calipers off when removing the wheel? I had never considered leaving them on. I assumed it would be a PITA trying to get the wheel back on with both calipers still on the bike.

 

The batwing is quite a bit further away from the fender than the shark nose, maybe more wiggle room, in any event glad you got your fender replaced Chris, without any further dealer 'intervention'

 

Saturday morning project. Front fender bent Friday morning ( my fault got boxed in by 2 cagers on the way home from work @ 5AM, cager in front swerves at the last minute to miss 18 Wheeler tire, I clipped it ) tire whipped up and bent Fender, so with that said I have to get it off to take to body shop today to get estimate to get fixed. I don't want to pay extra to have body shop remove repair paint and put back on.... So any help would be appreciated.......

 

You can get it off without removing the front wheel and brake calipers, but when I put my new fender on I didn't want to take the chance of cracking the paint on the new fenders. there are 4 bolts that hold it on, with a support bar on the inside of the fender connecting the front and rear bolts together. Some people bend the edges of the support bar to stop the bolts from backing out (mine where) in that case, to bend them out of the way you will also need to remove the front tire. If you can get past all that, and dont want to take the tire off, just squeez the front fender in a little bit and roll it out the front of the forks.

 

DONE !

Next get it to P & B shop for repairs and paint.....


Thanks obviously I did not have to take the wheel off. I may have to when I put fender back on to protect damaging fender. I know you mentioned that on the original post.

Thanks

 

Can you say "Service Manual?" it just might have saved you some time..