Christmas night I was driving home (no salt on the roads, amazingly) and a deer jumped out in front of me. I hauled it down enough to not cause broken plastic panels, but still bumped the deer on the back leg. This bump blue the passenger side fog-lamp bulb, and at first, in the dark I couldn't see any damage.

Later I found what happened. Impact was on the passenger side. It pushed the fender back to where it is making contact with the plastic strip at the base of the windshield. This causes contact with the front of the passenger door when opening it. It will open, but will pop off the fender (chipped a little paint on the door by doing this before I realized what was going on).

I tried loosening the 4 underhood bolts in the hope that it would either relax or let me pull it back out. No dice. So I loosened the 2 under the side vents. Still no good.

No panels are broken or cracked that I can see. The paint on the bumper cover has very slight hairline cracking that is hard to see unless up close in direct sunlight.

Can this possibly have caused the driver's side to get out of whack? Or would it just have pushed the passenger side back a bit?

Is this something that can be done DIY, or should I have a body-shop do the work? I am really on a super tight budget. If it's not hard to pull apart and adjust, I'd like to tackle it. I just worry about how difficult it will be and what might be involved (how to know when brackets are straight, in addition to just getting everything apart and then back together again, sometimes re-assembly of things can be a real bear once they are apart).

I can take pics of anything if requested, just haven't taken any yet as I didn't know what would be most pertinent.

 

There is a bracket that holds the bumper and fender together at the corner where they meet, and is just an L shape. Given the point of impact it may have just bent that tab backwards just enough to mess your gaps up. I'd check that out.

 

Is that something I can get to with everything together, or do I need to pull the bumper off? (and can either of those be done with a floor jack and jack stands, or is a lift needed for access?)

 

Since it attaches to the bumper you have to get to it with the bumper on initially. I did mine by pulling the headlight out and reached down into the corner through there when I was swapping the fender out on my old 98. At least look at it with a light, compare to the other side, and see if it looks bent or tweaked at all.

 

I fear your headlight is easier to remove. I've been searching the net for help on removal but haven't found much. Finally consulted the 'bible' (the green 3 volume FSM) and even it didn't offer much. But I started with the basics and removed the bezel. That opened up a surprising amount of room. (22.9K on it, so, lights haven't had to be replaced yet heh)

Looking around in there I found the connection point between the fender and bumper and saw a couple brackets, but none of them looked L shaped, and none of them looked bent in any obvious way.

Do you have and pics of what this looks like? Or know of any floating around the net?

I snapped some pics tonight of the current state, just in case it might help:

This is the problem area, the passenger fender by the door and windshield:



You can see how it is now touching the plastic that covers the base of the windshield and wipers. The tip of the fender is curved slightly inward toward the body as well. This is what causes the front of the door to catch.


For comparison, this is the driver's side:



I honestly can't recall now if it's always been that open, as it's not something one normally pays attention to until this happens, then your mind runs away with you. But, the body line of the fender does line up with the counterpart on the door, so I assume this has not moved and has always been like this. (and would have to be, unless the impact could have twisted the whole front end, affecting both sides)


This shot shows the overall gap, and how subtle this is:




2 of the back of hood to fender gap, passenger then driver:





Note that the hood is not fully closed right now in those shots, it's "popped", as I set it down before leaving the garage. (but won't need to pull the release when I go back out)

One final shot down the side, just to be thorough:





Just thought I should post some pics, just in case it shed new light.


Appreciate the help.

 

Oh you have a bird... sorry totally missed that. You're right, mine are far easier to remove! Not sure the shape of those brackets on the bird, but there is still something there to hold it all together.

If you open the door all the way and look inside halfway between the two hinges you should see a bolt that the rearmost part of the fender attaches to, and it should be a slotted hole. If you loosen that bolt you can slide the fender in and out a bit. Maybe that got nudged inward slightly. When I replaced the fender on my old 98 Camaro I had to play with the 2 bolts underneath and that center bolt a fair bit to get the gaps right around the door so it looked good but also wouldn't catch on the door.

 

Update (perhaps others might be in the same situation):

After some staring and thinking, I started to believe that it was not a case of the fender knocked rearward because of the piece that curls in and sits behind the hood (you can see it in the last 3 pics I posted). If that were to be moved forward, it seems it would contact the hood. So it looked like what happened was the top rear corner slid inward from the impact and was held by bolt tension. But with the plastic cowling, I couldn't get to the bolt. So I had to get the wiper arms off, and that lead to another thread.

After getting the tool on 6/11, I was able to get the wipers off, then the plastic, and loosen that bolt. When I pulled it out to the top of the doors body line, it stood a bit proud half way between the top and the upper vent. I thought that meant I needed to adjust the mid-door fender bolt, so I pulled the fender liner.

Doing this revealed the L bracket you mentioned much more easily. But it looked fine. Either way, I think the fender liner is the way to access that, rather than through the headlight. Particularly on the Pontiacs.

I think the mid-door bolt was too low, so I could not get a perfect alignment (and I am a perfectionist with my car, which is frustrating, heh), but I think the top might have been inward slightly when new. So I just made it flush all the way and let the top corner nudge in just a bit and pulled it forward just a bit. Now the door opens without contacting. It's close, perhaps a touch closer than the driver's side, but not a super huge difference, and it clears, so I think it's all good.

Just now got it all buttoned back up and off the stands. ....now if I could just find a way to get the film off the glass and actually get it clean. hah

 

Good to see you got it figured out! It can be frustrating working on adjusting body panels on cars. Luckily for us f-bodies have tons of adjustments for each panel (I guess that can be a blessing and a curse).
Just last week out of nowhere my passenger door started rubbing. I noticed that my fender was not flush with the door. It stuck out too far causing the door to very slightly rub. I loosened the bolt on top and the bolt in the middle by the door hinges (the one that adjusts the 'bulge' in or out of the fender). I was able to adjust it from there and it is perfect now. Mine Im sure was easier then yours because it was just a case of bolts loosening up, plus since im turbo I removed the plastic wheel fenders long ago so I just pulled my wheel off and had perfect access to the adjuster bolts