First task is the remaining bolts that mount the fender to the body around the inside of the engine compartment. There are two left at this point (one at the very rear, now accessable) and one at the front, near the headlight area.
The trick with these bolts is that they thread into cage nuts that are clipped around the inside of the engine compartment, and these cages are so old that when the bolts are spun, the pins holding the square nuts in place fail and the bolt begins to spin freely. When my friend Jeff was up a few weeks ago, we got a lot of these bolts out by basically destroying the cages - pulling the two wings out with a pair of needlenose pliers, and then getting a grip on the square nuts with a vice grip - very tough to do as the squared off portion of the nuts are very thin.
Unfortunately, with the two nuts remaining, they were both in very difficult-to-reach areas - the forward nut being so close to the dome area where the headlights are that there was not enough room to get a vice in there, and the rearward one was way up in the corner, a difficult reach from inside the wheelwell area. So ever-helpful neighbor Frank grabbed one of his tools and we just cut the bolt heads off.
Here's Frank going to town on the front bolt. The rear bolt (no photos, not sure why I didn't get any) was a bit more of an issue with the positioning, but it came off in due time.
The remaining connectors were at the rear of the fender, four of them - two nuts that threaded on posts that appear to be welded onto the body, and then two bolts, at the top and bottom. The day before I had removed the two nuts at the top, and the bolt itself, when spun, was squeaking like a banshee. I started to wonder if this was another clip-on-the-inside situation, but then decided "no way" as Mercedes wouldn't have done this; it's got to be something similar to the fender partition bottom bolt situation, either another bar/slot situation or the bolt simply threads into the body itself.
Sadly, due to close to fifty years of Georgia humidity and a general lack of proper care of this car, the bottom corner of the wheelwell areas on this car are kind of rusted out. But that allowed me to get under the car and see upwards to where this last bottom bolt came in, and no sign of a bolt. The rusted out hole also allowed easy access to squirt some penetrant up into this area; that and a squirt onto the bolt head side, and the bolt started moving easier and with less squeak. Once it was obvious the bolt was coming out, I gave Frank a call to come over and make sure the fender didn't just fall off while I was getting that bottom bolt off.
Once the bottom bolt was removed, and after a little bit of wrestling with the fender, we discovered the presence of the top bolt, which came out pretty easy; and with a bit of tugging to get the rubber seals to release their 53-year holds, the fender came free.
Now that the fender is off the car, I could access the last couple of aluminum trim mounting nuts - these came away either with a snap or had to be cut off, as the clips inside the trim pieces were so far gone as to have begun spinning free.
Aluminum trim removed! There was a lot of dirt caked up on the front end, much like many of the other trim pieces I've gotten off. It makes me ponder again the wisdom of eventually trying to use some sort of clear sealant on the trim pieces when the car goes back together, to prevent dirt and moisture from getting inside there again.
A shot of the rear of the fender mount area, looking downward. The two welded-on threaded posts are visible here - the bottom of the two broke off partially, and what's left looks like it's bent a bit. I may need to get this one redone once the body is stripped down. The bottom bolt has been threaded back in a bit by hand for the moment.
Remnant of the rubber seal around the top/front of the fender. This will no doubt be a fun part to replace, $$$-wise. I hope the rear seal isn't as tricky to find, it looks like it would be something more easily replaced with a generic part.
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