The ABD Racing Beetle: How-to Installation

This job, like most, is best accomplished on a lift, or, if you don't have a lift at your disposal, a set of jack stands will do.

One of the first steps is to remove the inner fender liners. On the left side it protects the a/c system piping. There are a number of screws and fasteners that first must be removed.

These liners serve several purposes: reducing noise inside the passenger cabin and, in the right front fender, protecting the back side of the intercooler.

Once the inner fender liners are removed, there are a number of screws including two at the bottom of the rear edge of the fender. When you put your car on jack stands, be sure not to obscure access to these screws.

At the front, there is a screw attached to a bracket mounted on the inner fender.

The rear of the fender attaches to the body using nuts on studs.

Along the front bottom edge of the factory spoiler, there are three round clips. By pushing into the center of the clip with a sharp object, you can pop the clip free.

The headlight is held in place with just one lever, which rotates part of the inner housing that locks the light into place. With the lever lifted, the headlight housing can slide out. From there, simply remove the plug at the back of the light.

The front turn signals, which are reused, have small orange plastic covers on the single mounting screw. Once the yellow plastic cover is removed, the light can be unscrewed. The turn signal is powered by one small plug. Note: The small metal clip behind the turn signal can be reused, but they are cheap to replace.

Once the lights, fender liners and other fasteners are removed, attention can be paid to the bolts along the top edge of the fenders and nose panel.

On the driver's side, there is a small air-temperature sensor that must be un-plugged. When reinstalling the air-temperature sensor, you will need to have a small piece of sheet aluminum to make a new bracket.

Near the air temperature sensor is the left-side foglight plug. There is also one on the right side.

Once the fasteners and wires are all removed, it's time to have two people separate the fender/spoiler assembly. Pull the fenders out from the body and slide the whole thing off.

Although the subsequently exposed screws can be accessed with the fenders on the car, it's best to do them now. These four screws (two per side) can be resoundly cursed, as they are the only reason the fender liners and fenders had to be removed.

Here the Beetle awaits its new nose/spoiler combo.

Part of the prep work is marking and cutting the steel mesh grilles.

After the mesh is cut, hold it into position and drill small pilot holes for the self-tapping screws that hold the steel mesh grilles into place.

The self-tapping screws turn easily into the soft polyurethane.

Once the grilles are in place, the fenders can be mated to the new nose.

The rest of the re-installation is the reverse of the disassembly procedures.