OK guys, just finished replacing my fuel filler (purchased on the cheap from Torrie).
If I can do it... most likely anyone with a couple of wrenches, and a few hours, and minor mechanical ability can do it.
Some words of wisdom to future people who may embark on this...
That liner is a biotch to remove. I don't have the tool to remove all those plastic push pins. I just drilled out the center rather than spend an hour tryiing to pop them out (which i did when i replaced my passenger front blinker light). Purchased replacements exact fit from Ace for $0.50 a piece.
Team Jeff suggested heating it up to make it more pliable. I used 3000 watts of twin turbo nitrous injected portable heater fury for 20 minutes while i surfed the internet... and then spent under 15 minutes removing the fender. I found it best to straddle the disc rotor, with the car jacked up fairly high. Then i reached under the bottom of the liner, and scooped it down towards the ground. Some additional wrangling required, but that was the first critical movement. So... start to finish (removal of retainer clips and liner wrangling) was about 20 mins total.
For the record, this did NOT involve scratching or bending my fender! though i could see how it might!
I jumped straight in with my electric screwdriver to remove the front diffuser bolts and pan torx screws. Last time i used my ratched... no thanks!
I could NOT get a 7/32" driver small enough to fit over the 2 retaining screws holding the filler nozzle to the fuel door. I used a small plier to turn the exposed screws from BELOW, then easily turned them by hand for removal. when replacing them, I elected to use a phillips head screw to i would have a tool that would work for tightening. same pitch/length with built in washer.
There is (as pictured prior...) an approx 1" bolt that is welded to the tubing with a tab. when removing the whole filler apparatus, that started to become a major nuisance trying to pop it out of the hole in which it resides. Rather than fight, i got my dremel and dremelled it off in about 8 seconds. Don't forget if you go this route, cover your source of fuel vapors!
I found it MUCH easier to refit the large rubber fitting back onto the fuel tank itself if I unclipped the plasting lines directly above them rather than trying to hold them with one hand and wrestle the fuel tubing with the other. It was still quite a struggle, so I broke out the HEATMASTER 6000, which delivers a blistering 1000 watts of hair drying fury via my wife's hair dryer. I used that to heat up the end of the rubber fitting, at which point it very easily popped over the fuel tank nozzle inlet.
My total time was about 4-5 hours...
Ok. I ALSO decided to cut open my broken fuel filler... and discovered that there were NO broken peices!! The flapper door is held in place by a spring, which is held in place by a plastic tab which slides and locks into place along a tabbed groove inside the wall of the filler. the tab had gotten pushed down the groove until it popped out of place completely. I was able to actually FIX my old filler nozzle! In fact, i think a permanent "fix" would be to open up that filler nozzle, as I did, and use some form of fuel resistance glue to keep that tab in place (if such a glue exists).
Of course, as plastic ages, it becomes brittle... so the plastic may actually break in 10 years, rather than have the tab simply slide off its track.
