DIY - 2014 Porsche 991 911 Front Bumper Cover Removal (Part 1)

(originally posted on 6speedonline.com 991 forum 9/6/2014)

Over the weekend, I decided to take on a "small" project and removed the front stock/standard bumper cover of my 6-month old, '14 C4S. The following is a (long, pic heavy) DIY post for those who want to do the same, or at the least would like to have a reference should they ever need it. Removing the front bumper cover provides easy access to the horns, radiators, driving lights, and more...  I searched a LOT on the web, YouTube, etc. and the closest I could find was an excellent post but specific to the 997. Nada on the 991.

Why did I do this you ask? Well, because I like others on this forum like to make even small improvements to "style" and "protect" my investment, and perhaps more importantly because I am a tinkering SOB and can't be satisfied unless I put my own sweat and tears into the ownership experience. In this case I desired to add front bumper wire mesh grills to keep debris, bugs and stones out of the radiator openings (I am posting as separate DIY).

My first inclination was to follow the lead of at least two previous DIY posts (from fellow 6speedonline members SM_ATL and Jim M.) here on our board and install the grill from the outside -- never removing a single part. BUT, as good as their installs look, I just couldn't get to a comfortable spot with the zip-ties being visible (even if to no-one else but me!). So, I took the route of pulling the entire front-end off.

First, my disclaimers:

1. I am by no means a professional mechanic - so please keep your criticism and negativity out of my thread. If you disagree with something I did or how I went about it, keep it to yourself. However, I do encourage others to post their own experience and perhaps tips and tricks I missed!
2. I am not a professional photographer, nor do I want to be. I took all photos while one-handing my iPhone 5S in many cases while turning a screw or holding a piece of trim -- so the pics are what they are. Sorry.
3. My car isn't spotless! This is my DD, so in the pics you can see it needs a good cleaning.... I don't need anyone telling me so!
4. My car has the standard 991 front bumper cover, NOT Sport Design.  Nor do I have the front park assist sensors option.  So, the removal steps which follow may be roughly the same if you have those options, but there will likely be one or two extra steps required.

This project took me a couple of hours.... but that is mostly because I was curious and poking around a lot, and stopping to take pictures. I also had to stop to get another beer once in a while. Oh, and I have little kids, so got pulled away occasionally! I realized afterwards, and when I put it all back together, that knowing what I know now I could probably have removed the front bumper in about 20 minutes or less.... Putting it back on took me about that long.

Let's begin with the bumper cover removal....

Tools required:

• #25 Torx
• #30 Torx
• 1/4" ratchet

Tools nice to have:

• Ramps
• Floor Jack
• Body panel tools
• Flashlight / Floor Lamp
• Small piece of wire (coat hanger or equivalent gauge)

First, I got the car up onto my Rhino Ramps. Plenty of room in my garage. You don't need to use ramps, and matter of fact if you have the clearance you could probably do this entire project without lifting the car at all. 

Since I was on ramps, I obviously didn't pull the front wheels -- I thought about it, but I liked having the car up on ramps for safety and access, so I didn't. Again, you may want to (mainly when dealing with the wheel-well trim pieces) but not required.

Remove Frunk Trim:

I decided to start with pulling the trim piece out of the frunk where the hood latch is. After trying to just grip and pull, I resorted to using a plastic trim tool and working the piece up from one side slowly... and then yanked!

The plastic trim piece is held in place by 4 small tension fasteners. The b***h for me was that I had to guess how this piece was held in place, and on my 991 it was held down really tight! I couldn't get my fingers under easily, and I was worried about breaking something. I noted that on the 997 tutorial i found, this piece was held in place by velcro... NOT the case here! 

I also found at each end of this curved piece there are tabs that slide into the side frunk trim plastic pieces, and at first i just couldn't figure out how to pull them without breaking something. But when I realized how much you can manhandle and bend these pieces, I was able to pop-out one end and then the other. Definitely easier to do once the main part is released.

Here are some pics after I pulled-off the plastic trim (I circled in red the tension pieces):

Doing so exposes three (3) #30 screws that you will remove. You don't have to remove these screws just yet... but I did.

Remove the headlights: 

I am not going to go into how this is done as the topic is discussed in many other threads and the headlamp procedure is right in the 911 manual! You will need to do this so that you can access the screws and mounting clamps for both fenders, and on the left (drivers) side access the headlamp washer fluid hose. I removed and put them aside (protected!). 

Now you have the headlamps removed!

I then took a closer look inside the opening at where the bumper is attached to the left fender -- I started with the left, as this is where you have your connections to the hose for the headlamp washer pumps. I also noted just how empty the fender is, and why it is so easy to get dents there!

Loosen wheel well tub panels: 

In the wheel wells on both sides you will have to remove at least two (2) #25 torx screws to loosen the wheel tub panel just behind headlamp opening. I did take couple of others out on the drivers side, so that I had easier access to the driving light wiring harness connector -- but after I figured-out how to reach the connector from inside the headlamp opening I didn't do so on the other side...

Remove Side Marker Lights:

Now remove the side marker lights! I found that having the headlamp removed made removing the side marker lights a WHOLE lot easier since you can see the retention springs from the "inside" and simple squeeze and push out to release the lights! [NOTE: Afterwards, I realized that you really don't need to remove the side marker lights -- you just need to pull the wire harness connector it is attached to.]

The red arrow in this picture indicates where the wiring harness connector is for the driving light on the left / drivers side... Pic is looking straight-into the headlamp opening. It is in a tough spot to reach, under the headlamp mounting frame. At first I found the only way to reach it was by loosening the wheel well panels and pushing it out of the way. 

Remove the #30 screw from inside both fenders as shown below. For some odd reason, the screw is in an "upside down" position with a lock plate -- which makes it nearly impossible to remove without accessing from the wheel well.

Red Arrow in the following pic indicates where the retaining screw is located (from outside the fender)- just behind where the side marker light is, and accessible from the wheel well when you loosen the plastic cover.

Here's a view from wheel well of the screw (it's a #30 by the way)...

I found a ratchet with #30 bit worked well when pulling-back the plastic wheel well tub. Still don't understand why they didn't insert the screw top-down rather than bottom-up! FYI -- When I reinstalled later, I flipped it so that in the future if I needed to do this again it would be a "bit" easier! ;-)

Remove bottom mounting screws:

Remove screws from underneath sides and front edge of bumper cover. You have to get down on the floor... Going from left to right remove all of the #30 screws from under the bumper. There are two (2) on each corner, and five (5) down the front as indicated in the following pictures:

In this next pic, I circled a 3rd screw that I had initially removed to loosen the wheel well tub plastic pieces further -- but to remove the bumper you don't need to remove.

My 1/4" Ratchet made fast work of the screw removal!

Disconnect Headlamp Washer Hose:

Back up in the drivers side headlamp opening, disconnect headlamp washer hose connection. There is a black plastic piece connecting the hose from the fender to the hose that runs into the bumper. You can just pull-up on the black piece and it should pop right off. The hose to the bumper is held to the fender in the hole (see pic) by a small white plastic clip that just pushes into place. Just tug and it pops free!

When you pull the hose, be ready with a rag, and in my case I used a small piece of tape to "seal" the ends to prevent fluid from running out everywhere....

Disconnect the Driving Light wiring harness from both sides: 

I found that the driving light harness connectors on both sides are really hard to reach without pulling or pushing back the wheel well plastic tubs... the connector is buried under the headlamp frame... You can somewhat reach it by feel from within the headlamp opening by pushing down hard on the wheel well plastic from inside, and reaching under to yank on the connector. It is held together with a small clip that you have to somehow release on one side then tug. It took me a while before i was able to get these apart!

Again the red arrow indicating where you can locate the connector -- you can push down really hard on the black plastic and reach under to grab hold of the connector...

Here is the connector hidden under headlamp frame and behind wheel well tub.... 

Remove the retaining clamps from within each fender. 

There is one on each side. they are black metal clamps that you will have to pull out from the frunk side. You may have to pull really hard, as i did, to get them to release!

View from within headlamp opening:

View from frunk side:

As you can see, you will have to pull-back some of the plastic liner that hasn't been removed. Be careful! I didn't understand how the plastic was mounted, and assumed it was just like the front piece, but IT IS NOT! It would be very easy to break-off one of the connectors. The red arrow in the pic above indicates where you can see I almost snapped it off..... :-(

I used a small wire piece with a hook on one end to grab hold of the clamp from the frunk side, and pull. This made it really easy to remove.... but you do have to tug hard!

Pics of the removed clamp:

For the final steps / pics of the bumper cover removal, go to PART 2!