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Front bumper removal EP3

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Step by step of how to remove and refit the front bumper on a civic. Hope it helps.

Removal

1. There is one 10mm hexhead screw in the front of each wheel arch. If you are sensible, unlike me, remove these before lifting the front end of the car. This way you can safely turn the wheels to give better access.




2. lift the front of the car, it only needs 3 or 4 inches.

3. Remove the clips holding the grill and slam panel. Be careful, they break easily and are surprisingly expensive to replace.



4. Remove the four clips and two 8mm hexhead screws underneath the splitter.



5. Pull the sides of the bumper away from the arch.



6. Gently wiggle and pull the bumper forward until it pops off. Unplug fog lights.

The bumper is held in place by tongues (A) that slot in below the headlights, tabs (B), and tongues (C) that slot in below the wing. The arch liner (D) fits inside the bumper.






Replacing

Replacing the bumper is much like a reverse of the removal.

1. Situate bumper from the centre. Plug in fog lights. Push tongue A in, line up tongue C and push bumper in to align tabs B. Tap and push bumper where necessary until it sits flush.

2. Tuck the arch liner inside bumper.

3. Replace grill and slam panel clips.

4. Replace clips on underside.

5. Replace screws in wheel arch.


Grill removal

1. Undo four clips at bottom of grill (mine is missing one).



2. The grill will be held to the bumper by the tongue and groove the full length of the grill. Tap the back of the grill to help release it.




Fog light removal

Undo the three screws holding the bracket to the bumper. The bottom hole has a convenient hole below to allow access.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cheers jimbo this is really handy as I'm a little bit heavy handed and i would have just ended up breaking some of those clips


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Gonna bump this for usefulness. Used this today, although I found 10mm hex heads where you had 8mm (and vise versa), and a few more of them!
 
I'm not surprised, I've found a few non-standard nuts and bolts on my car. It just goes to show that a good service history means sweet **** all in the real world. At least working on my car is never dull!
 
Apparently you can find them on fleabag, I just don't know what the' re called. Don't go to a Honda dealership, £28 for 20 clips is ridiculous.
 
Apologies for replying on here, first ever comment! Bought myself a Type R ep3 finally and was wondering whether the front bumper has to come off to replace the headlight unit? I presume it does since i need to replace mine.
Thanks
 
Yep, my life is boxes right now. Moving into a temporary house up in Inverness in a week, then lots of financial sorting out to do. Lots of saving needs done, I'm looking to buy a house in the next couple of years, so that I can get a proper workshop and start a proper project car. You think I went all out on the civic? Just you wait buddy!
 
Thanks for this I've had some rear end orifice cream into my parked EP3 and drive off - Honda want £1,200 to replace the bumper and arch liners (which flopped under the wheels when driving at 70 today and pulled a cold air intake pipe off as well - probably my fault for driving it thinking it would be ok.). Total novice but this all looks doable myself.

Plan is to remove the bumper and check if it needs replacing (broken clips, brackets behind etc) or just repairing and pop the breather tube back on and replace the mashed arch liners at the same time.

Quick question is it necessary to remove the grille for this? I saw a how to on 'tube and it showed them removing the whole bumper with the grille intact as part of it - this was on a pre-facelift and mine is an 05 facelift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbaRIfgb8bY

Cheers
 
Bad luck mate, I've been there myself.

£1200?! What?! Yeah, I think it's worth having a shot yourself!

You don't need to remove the grill from the bumper, but you will need to unclip it from the slam panel. It's definitely worth buying a bag of new clips, you will break some, they're quite cheap on ebay. If there are damaged parts it's probably worth looking for someone breaking a car, unless of course you want a shiny (and very expensive) new bumper.
 
Top man - got the clips already from the link in this thread. Tomorrow is fun day so let's see how it goes. Externally the bumper is ok but scratched - as long as it relocates properly I will avoid getting my pants taken down by Honda at least until after Christmas. Will post an update but again thanks for this thread, if all goes well you've saved me £1,100 so far!
 
Top man - got the clips already from the link in this thread. Tomorrow is fun day so let's see how it goes. Externally the bumper is ok but scratched - as long as it relocates properly I will avoid getting my pants taken down by Honda at least until after Christmas. Will post an update but again thanks for this thread, if all goes well you've saved me £1,100 so far!

OK so a small update - the arch liners I got from Amazon don't fit at all (excellent to find out after an hour of fiddling in the freezing cold outside my house!) so sourcing some more from a breakers - not sure where yet but i'm working on it. As a result of the impact all 4 clips on the underside of the bumper have disappeared - any idea what size these are so i can buy replacements on ebay? I bought the pack on this thread but these are the smaller inner liner ones.

I'm also thinking of starting a Youtube channel along the lines of: 'Almost-How-To' for all complete novices like me to see all the crap that can go wrong when doing a simple task :)
 
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