I am looking for some people with 100% original cars to help me out here.
I am doing a mild resto on the car, replacing a couple of pieces that bother me, and one of theose pieces is the plastic inner fender lining for the front wheelwhells.
My question is, can you guys check if yours goes on the inside or the outside of the fender lip. For some reason mine is on the outside and actually looks wrong. There are a number of things that I found that lead me to believe that it might go on the inside of the lip, but I want to find out for sure before I put them on.
So, is anyone's car accessible enough to check this for me, I'd appreciate it.
Needless to say I'd prefer cars that have had no body work done up front.

92GTA....perhaps your Firehawk???

BTW: if this is confusing please let me know and I'll see if I can explain it better.

Thanks for the help.
Mark

 

Metal then plastic on the bottom 1/3 rds (in front and behind the tire), held in by screws, then plastic on metal as it goes across the top, which is held in by plastic push pins. This is on my 91 T/A of course.

 

The design changed a couple of times. I can tell you how my 91's are and how my 86 and 87 are, but you really need to find someone with an all original 89 to get an accurate picture.

BTW the fender linings are still available from GM but they're not cheap. I just picked up both for my 91 Formula last week, after my discount they came to $70 some odd dollars.

FWIW the design change involved how they mount to the car, fender liners from an 86 T/A didn't even come close to fitting my 91 Formula. The Formula has them inside the fenders at the front and back, and outside the fender over the top, while the T/A had them outside the fender all the way around.

Here's my 86, I'll post a pic of the 91 in a second.

 

the 91...

Neither car has had any front end work...

 

Its hard to see the fender liner in the pic of the 91 since the car is dark gray and the fender liner is dark gray (no contrast) so fwiw the differences are, the tabs on the fender of the 91 are over the top of the fender liner, screws go threw the fender and into the liner where GM installed U-clips. The 86 T/A in the picture (and the other 86 T/A that we parted out) use the large expanding plugs thru the liners and then the fenders.

Personally I think the method used in 86 looks cleaner, but the 91 design liners won't line up that way, they're notched and molded to be half inside and half outside the fender.

Incidently, the 87 Iroc has the liners setup the same as the 86 T/A.

One last pic, just for fun and to terrorize anyone viewing this thread with a modem.

 

My Firehawk and my GTA both have the same setup at cg91ta described, sorry I don't have pics like Drew...

Alex

 

Thanks guys.
It kind of confirms some of my thoughts here. I just got a set from my dealership, price was about the same as Drew's, you must have the same discount as me
The ones that I ordered were for an '89, and they came in as the "split into three pieces" style. I was wondering if that actually meant that that's how they're supposed to go, but wasn't sure. By the answers here it makes sence for them to go like that. Now, the strange part is that the ones on the car are one-piece, all on the outside like Drew's '86, but mine look a lot worse. They are a lot farther apart from the fender lip. I think my car might have had some work done upfront before my ownership, but I couldn't confirm it.
Is there a possibilty of fender design change between say '86 and '91? Because it seems that mine is supposed the have the later design, because the earlier design that's on it now, really doesn't fit well.

 

Just checked my GM parts catalog and according to it, '82-'87 had one part #, '88 looks like it had another, and '89-'92 had the one that I ordered, the three piece one. So, I guess this is right for my car. I'll put it on and see what it looks like.

If anyone does have an '89 please let me know what you have, just for information.

Thanks for the help.
Mark

 

My 89 has a one piece inner fender liner. I dont think I've ever seen a 3 piece one before. It fits like the pic Drew has above for the 91, both inside and outside.

 

madmax
Thanks, that's actually exactly what I thought. You do have the "three piece" liner. It is one piece but the lip is split up into three pieces so that it goes on the inside and the outside and inside of the fender. So that's good, I have the right ones and the mystery is over.
Thanks