There are many videos of this on the 'tube', but I thought I would add my '2 penneth' here as just someone doing this for the first time with normal home gear and none of the American Sh1t that usually goes with these videos. and on a FL
So started this afternoon, when the sensor brackets arrive they are made from a greasy sort of plastic (polypropylene I think ppt20 ) which I don't feel confident in the results of glueing - it worked on the back....
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So the first job was to rough them up a bit with rough emery cloth to give the adhesive something to get its teeth into
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When test fitting, I also felt that the sensors were too tight a fit in the brackets so I took a bit off the locating tangs, thinking that the first time that anyone tried to remove a sensor they would just pull the bracket off the bumper, this made them a little easier to remove, I also extended the split in the side of the brackets to also help with this a little further.
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Left tang reduced slot extended 2mm in top bracket
With brackets and sensors ready ( the sensors have already been painted) I jacked up and supported the front of the car on my trusty pit boards and dropped the belly pan and undid three Torx screws each side in the wheelarch liner
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And then up top removed the 3 Torx screws from in the inner arch liners (red)
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Accepted knowledge is to just remove the 3 red screws but I have also removed all the remaining screws from the front half of the liner (Green) to give me more wiggle room rather than risk damaging the liner.
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liner dropped
this was done in both front wheel arches
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You then have to undo this bolt for which you need this extension even with the inner arch mostly undone
again done on both sides
You then have to undo a bolt which goes up through both the bumper and wing and on into a bracket, again accepted wisdom is that you only undo the one nearest to the wheel arch (green), but I undid both (red) as with the liner almost dropped you have better access.
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bolts the bracket
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the bumper edge
Armed with the above you stand a better chance of removing the bumper without a fight, you can see which holes in the bumper go on which clips!!
All that remains is the cable for the headlamp washer system on the nearside and this can be undone before you remove the bumper, and the headlamp washer system supply pipe on the offside, there is no temperature sensor on my FL bumper!!
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This is really tight but can be persuaded to part with care.
At this point I enlisted the help of my very patient wife to help me carefully lift the bumper forwards and it came off easily and with
no force.
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here is the cable for the headlamp washer system which can now be seen
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Time for a bath
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If you are thinking of taking the 4 rings off a standard grill this is the back!!! you would need to undo these 2 Torx screws from the front!!
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Here are the markings for the sensor positions on the front of the bumper
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center outside
As you can see my center brackets are nothing like and are going to need some fettling, as I have heard others have needed too, there are so many different grills and number plate mountings that there are loads of brackets.
So all in all a successful afternoon, nothing broken, nothing lost, mission achieved and ready for the next phase
watch this space!!!