This is probably a long shot, but maybe someone has removed their own rear bumper on a 2003 G35 coupe 6MT. I don't know anyone who lives close enough to me and that knows cars to help me out...

I followed the service manual and removed everything that's needed, except 2 pawls. Here's a picture of them. 2 per side. One is hidden underneath the bumper fascia. I have removed the red ones, so now it's just the ones that are hidden.



Now, here's a picture taken from underneath the car facing upwards. Just imagine you crawled underneath from the rear and you're looking up. The bottom of the picture faces away from the car.





Can anyone help me with how I should remove them? With these pawls, can I just force the bumper a bit by pulling it back out? Or will the teeth on these pawls break?

The pawls on that piece plastic that surrounds the trunk lid lock don't break if you pull it straight up. They just compress and then the entire piece comes off, but I'm not sure about the pawls shown in the pics.

Thanks for any advice...

 

Just pull it out. It should be ok. or you can alway take a flat-head screwdriver and "pry" it a little so that it'll loosen up a bit.

 

From the pic it looks like they have tabs that run up on the other side (rear) of the painted flange. If the bumper is pushed down at that spot will they unseat themselves?

 

Pry under them then pull the bumper outward.

 

Not quite. That's what I hoped fort at first.

 

I'll try to pry them first. The hard part is that it's very awkward to reach them and be able to look at them at the same time.

I've been taking pictures, so I'll write up a "DIY for dummies" on how to remove the taillights and bumper. I didn't find a DIY for removing taillights with pictures and the DIY for removing bumper was too generic, so I just went along with the service manual pics.

 

When I replaced my rear bumper on my 2003 (AT) I just pulled and they popped off. Should not be that big of a deal.

 

I had my sedan bumper off.
They're a Z shapped clip.
It will either come off with the bumper or stay on the car...
but they do just pull off.

The sedan uses the same clip & I found it was more of a PITA getting back on than off.