When I bought the XJR it came with an unsightly dent in the nose. The dent was slightly larger than the palm of my hand, but fortunately the paint wasn’t too badly damaged.



The location of the offending dent – up against the headlight – made accessing that spot to try to push it out extremely difficult. You could get a finger or two in there, but just barely, and not enough to apply any pressure. Access was inhibited by the headlamp and by structural supports. No access from the wheel well was possible either. Having swapped out headlamps on my X-type a few years ago, I knew I would have to remove the grill, bumper cover and headlamp.

I have the service manual for the XJR (Thanks Forum Buddies!) and looked over the relevant sections before starting. In the doing of the deed, I can say that the service manual could have been better – a lot of what is shown as a simple step ends up being tricky.

After removing the thin plastic cover from the front of the engine area, the grill comes off fairly easily. There are two screws on the top, and two plastic arms with clips on the bottom. You have to lift the rubber flap at the lower edge of the grill to see the arms – and then press down on the far end of plastic arm to release it from the clip so it can slide out. There are three arms – but the one in the middle isn’t a spring-loaded clip like the ones on either side.



Once the Grill was out, the bumper cover has to come off since it covers the headlamp bolts. The manual will tell you to take the entire cover off, and to be careful not to flex the bumper cover or the paint will crack and peel. All true, but the car is 10 years old already, and having done the same on my X-Type, I detached and slightly moved the cover on the drivers side only – just enough to get at the bolts and wiggle the headlamp out.

The bumper cover has the following attachment points: The screw that holds the grill also holds one of the plastic fingers between the grill/lamp; one plastic spring clip holding the finger between the lamps; a single screw inside the front wheel well; plastic teeth along the border from the wheel-well to the lamp; and a row of screws underneath where the bumper cover meets the splash-guard that covers the front of the engine. I removed the screws on top of the lamp and in the wheel well. The tricky part was the teeth/clips along the border between wheel well and lamp. Not at all illustrated or explained in the manual. I found that by sliding the cover toward the nose just a smidgen, and using a cloth-covered blade in the crack to pry the bumper cover outward it came out of the 3 teeth that hold it in.



With the cover pulled back slightly, you can get at the two bolts that secure the bottom of the lamp. The lamp also has an electrical connector with a sliding-clip that opens to the side – slide the orange clip open and you can pull the connector out easily.





Once the lamp was disconnected and removed, there was sufficient access to the area behind the dent:



You can see the structural support – like an inner skin.

Here’s my bodywork toolkit:



That’s a small hammer wrapped in cloth, a stick wrapped in gaffers tape, my trusty pry-bar, and a rubber roller from my wallpaper kit. Placing the pry bar between the inner skin and the dent produced a satisfying pop as most of the dent came out, leaving only the crease along the curved end alongside the lamp. Careful rolling and a lot of tapping using the hammer and stick got most of the crease out.
 

Here’s the dent before



And after:



While everything was opened up, I noticed there was rust on the crossbar behind the grill, and on some of the bolts, so I decided to re-paint them, along with the brake lines – which were also showing signs of corrosion. I cleaned everything up with a wire brush and re-sprayed with black Rustoleum before putting everything back together.




Then everything went back together, and no more unsightly dent in the nose!



If you look closely, you can tell something happened there – there’s still a slight wave at the front edge where the crease was, so the curvature isn’t perfect – and there’s still a scuff along the top edge where the dent was which I will have to clear-coat - but unless you’re really looking for it, it isn’t noticeable anymore – which is a damn sight better than it was before. It is a 10 year old car, and while she only has 37,000 miles, she has a variety of small scratches elsewhere – so I wasn’t going for perfection, and I’m very happy with the result.

 

Very well done, that was a BIG dent !! I am really surprised the paint didn't crack. Are you going to do a "quicky" spot repaint ?

 

Very well done.

 

Well done, MeatBag, and thanks for the great photos and description!

Cheers,

Don

 

Impressive !