The largest Civic Type R club forum

Established in 2002 it brings together people from all over the world to discuss their one love of Type R's.

User avatar
By Telsa
#1730994
Before I start.. Mods, if you want this moved to the How To section, then please move it.

Okey dokey. Like a few owners of the FN2 Civic, after a long motorway journey I arrived home, to discover that the offside fog light had shattered into oblivion. There are a good few recorded incidents of this, especially on the Civinfo forums, where loads of people have been plagued by it. Loads of suggestions as-to why this happens have been put forwarded, weak glass, shape of fog, etc. Honda say they will not pay out for mine, because it looks like it was hit by a stone, and thus is not warrantee claimable.

Quotes from the two nearest Honda dealers to me (Reading and Maidenhead) were telling me that I was looking at a lot of money to replace. Mostly labour charge, as it involves removing the entire bumper! (Great design Honda ;-))

Now, I rarely use my fogs, but having driven around with black duct-tape over the broken one for far too long, I decided that I’d enlist a mate, and do it ourselves. I bought an official Honda fog light (minus the bulb for £88) Scouring the Internet hasn’t helped me find a tutorial to fit, however! So I decided to create one, as I went along… And now posting it here for anyone who finds it helpful. Here goes! For those who are squeamish, look away now!

Here’s the culprit.

Image

Here’s a mombo tool-kit I nicked from a mate helping me. All we needed in the end was a 10mm Ratchet, Phillips screwdriver, flat-head screwdriver, a torch, and (from me) a lot of courage…

Image

First off, we need to get the arch-trim detached from the front bumper. This is attached by a couple of clips like this.. In total, there are 6 of these clips that need removing.

Image

Use a flat-head screw driver to pop them out.

Here is the underneath with them removed.. (fear my Paint-circling sk1lz00rz)

Image

Ok. There are 4 screws, 2 ratchet bolts, and 6 clips along the underneath that need removing. You need to get behind the rubber scrape-protector things to get most of them out.
All of them are along this line, attaching the bumper to the rest of the car, and are easy to find. (apologies of lack of under-car pictures!) Slightly gormless looking mate optional.

Image

Once you’ve removed all the screws & clips, you need to do the scariest part.. Start pulling trim. All of the side arches are held on by clips. You have to pull fairly hard, and firmly, then a clip will pop (your heart will stop the first time this happens) and keep pulling until your side-trim looks like this.

Image

This was taken whilst we were actually putting it all back together.. So that’s why the fog is mysteriously better :D

You are hunting for this screw, which helps attach the bumper to the rest of the bodywork. Undo it. (repeat on both sides) No comments about side-wall wear please :D The car likes to take corners enthusiastically, so hey, who am I to stop it?

Image
Image

Everything that needs to be undone, is now undone.. The whole front bumper is now held on by the clips of doom that you had to pop to get the wheel-arch bit off. Start at one side of the bumper, and gently pull out until the clips pop. Repeat all the way around (At this point, make SURE someone is holding the bumper, as the law of gravity states that it will go down at this point.. As you’re removing the bumper, the only things left attaching it to the body are the 2 electrical wires going to the fogs. They unplug easy-peasy.

Hurrah! The front of your 6 month old car is now exposed…

Image
Image
Image

Paused at this point, apparently mine was sprayed with some sort of tape tape still on! Not sure if this is usual, but we thought it was strange…

Image
Image
Image

The fog-light is now held in by 1 bolt, which comes easily off with your 10mm Ratchet-wonder-device.

Insert new foglight, and reverse process, making sure that you re-attach the wires going to the fogs, and that you push all the body panels back onto their clips before screwing it all back together. You should have this many parts!

Image

Re-assemble, test foglights, and have a well earned beer.

Image

Job’s a goodun.

Edit : Gah - I've changed my hosting, and forgot about this page.. So images are all dead links. Will fix when I get home.
Last edited by Telsa on Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Telsa
#1732558
How did you manage that? The position the fog was in, meant that it would be impossible to get it out any other way without damaging the bodywork, as far as we could see..? :shock:
User avatar
By hlxbravo
#1732694
I bought a genuine Honda foglight kit for my Type-R (non GT) and it ame with a step by step manual that was surprisingly easy to follow. You are certainly correct about when you start popping the wheel arch kit trim...scary indeed.

P.S. What's all the red overspray inside the bumper ?? I had none in mine....so thats overspray and masking tape ??? Oh oh :shock:
User avatar
By woolz
#1734115
theres a very smal hole under the front bumper. get a very long and thing rachet and you can reach up and undo the fog and it just pops out!
User avatar
By yenevo
#1804767
I managed to get the bolt out without taking off the bumper by jacking the car up. However, that is where I got stuck with your method. I couldn't manage to get the foglight housing out of the bumper and resorted to using a screwdriver to try and pry it out. That's where my misfortune began and I ended up denting and scratching the side of the bumper taking off a large chunk of my milano red paint :( Would you mind telling me how exactly you managed to get the foglight housing to "pop out" after removing the bolt? Did you use a screwdriver also? If so.. I'm pretty sure you would have some scratches or dents on the side of the bumper from the prying since the bumper is made out of extremely soft plastic. No matter how I pried it wouldn't come out so I think I'll have to try to do it the long way by removing the front bumper section :(
User avatar
By woolz
#1818043
i didnt have a problem with getting it out, it just fel out after i removed the bolt as far as i can rememeber!
User avatar
By Telsa
#1893611
m3nac3 wrote:I managed to change the Fog light by popping half the bumper off after a lot of swearing and scraped knuckles :P
Good effort..! Without the front of the car being jacked up, I think you would have had a hard time of that.. There's so little room down there with the car being so low. Also didn't want to attempt this method, because I thought that it put too much stress on the plastic of the bumper. Obviously not though, good job!
User avatar
By lemans24heur
#1977354
changed mine today used the how to guide very helpful but did not take off the whole front used the small hole under the bumper and only did one side,did not take long do not know why i waited so long to change it as it was not as bad as i thought it was going to be :-D
User avatar
By AndyG72
#2260998
I need to change my front passenger side fog light, but taking the housing and all that rubbish seems like alot of hard work to me, so i wonna use the so called little round hole at the bottom, what tools do i need.
TQ
User avatar
By cavebob
#2616167
Anyway OP cab refresh the how-to images? This is an awesome write up on how to remove the front bumper, something 've been looking to do

Long time ago I had and Ep3 for 220k kilometers in[…]