HELP!!!! Bumper advice required.

AliK

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Guys,

My wife is laughing at me and I give her good reason. Why do I think any job on the car will take an hour and be a simple bolt off / on affair!? :(

So, these bad boys arrived today ....

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What I need help with is:

1. does the front bumper need brackets at the corners? They seem to be very close on one side and rubbing the body work on the other!

2. The holes on the sides don't quite align with the bumper's but thread, almost as if the bumpers don't go back far enough. But yet they are as far back as I can get them and rubbing the paintwork. Any thoughts as to why? Or how to sort?

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Original bumper I'm convinced was from a US car that would have had the 5mph impact rubber, hence it was too wide for the car, see this ...

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Any advice gratefully received!!
 
I took mine to a bodywork place and got them to fit them for me. They had to 'persuade them' a little I think as the corners were indeed close to the bodywork.
 
Thanks riddler, good to know! I'm tempted to make a DIY rubber spacer to go between by the side bolts - if I can get the bloomin' things to align!

Ran out of light and time at 22:30. So will look again tomorrow if rain holds back.

Ps. The car looks awesome without a front number plate ;)
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Same? Do you mean same in terms of "encouragement" Riddler mentioned?
 
Ah, got it Dale.

So is the consensus to "encourage" them a little? I hate yanking at new metal :eek: !
 
Bumpers

Are these Harrington bumpers? I fitted a set to my car over the past winter. I had exactly the same problems as you. I finally persuaded the front one to fit by adding washers between the side brackets and the body. They no longer touch the body but you can barely slip a sheet a paper into the gap.

I wondered about going to a body shop and asking them "widen" the bumper with a hydraulic Porta-Power. A half-inch of extra clearance would have been enough, I reckon.

As for the rear one, it went on fine but the holes on the centre section do not line up with the last bolts on the rubber pads, unless you stretch the rubber. In the long term this could lead to the rubber cracking or the bolt tearing the material. So, I drilled new holes closer to the ends of the centre section to lessen the tension on the rubber.

I've attached pics of the finished result.

As for the numberless bumper, why now try smaller plates? Even without a short number, they'll look better.
 
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I've never found the front bumpers fit the car very well. I used to use the plastic spacer from the seat mounting to space them away. The only way to get a perfect fit is to use fiberglass bumpers and snad the return edge to exactly match the body profile.
 
I took my bumpers off to give them a refurb and found the front one was a real sod to get back on as it's such a close & tight fit. Would be a lot easier with 2 pairs of hands. I guess it's a Z thing. I haven't tried fitting the rear back on as yet as I'm thinking of leaving it off and having the rear end of the car shaved/smoothed out when It gets it's respray.
 
johnymd said:
I've never found the front bumpers fit the car very well. I used to use the plastic spacer from the seat mounting to space them away. The only way to get a perfect fit is to use fiberglass bumpers and snad the return edge to exactly match the body profile.
Click to expand...

That plastic spacer idea is a good one. :thumbs: And I'd agree on the fitment point. My front bumper is shimmed at the sides with stacks of washers to space them appropriately.
 
Mine were really tight and took a fair bit of fettling to get the bolts to line up and for the ends of the bumpers to stay away from my nice new paintwork.

Mine had brackets on the corners like you have shown on your original bumpers. I ended up bending them where the side bolts screw in to line them up with the holes in the body and then using a thin rubber spacer both sides of an extra nut screwed onto the bolt which i adjusted to force the bumper away from the bodywork. That seemed to work but was a bit complicated and took a fair bit of thinking to get to that point.

I also had trouble with the L-shaped brackets that bolt onto the front of the bumper - probably because my original had been clouted out of shape and the brackets were bent & didn't line up with the studs. Got there eventually though.

I would avoid trying to bend the bumper as that is when you end up putting kinks in them!

They look really nice on your car though.
 
Thanks all, really appreciate all your comments. It's good to know it's not just my car or me!!!!

Richie - good tip on the rear rubbers. That one I'm gonna leave alone for a couple of weeks until I have the centre console and front bumper back on. Can't handle any more excitement at present! ;)

Paul, good idea on your wind on spacer, I was going to go with some rubber washers for now. Agree completely on yanking bumper - my old one had a kink where the PO tried to get the too big for the car bumper to fit :eek: Look at the grille reflection just above the 7S on the number plate to the right of the photo.

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I noticed on one side the hole has been elongated - was tempted to do the same to the other side but I hate modifications like that!! Bending the bracket slightly sounds like a much better plan.

Franky - I noticed on one side the gap is about 10mm, so I suspect they make them tight for a good final finish and either the L brackets on the car aren't quite centre on or the bolts on the bumper are 5mm out. :unsure:
 
Fellas, just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all the help and advice. Got the front bumper on this eve and as Richie said there is little room to pass a gnat in the gap between bumper and body!! The iPhone flash/camera makes the paint look awful but you can see the 1.5-2mm gap!!


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In the end I cut off a piece off the rubber from the old bumper and used it as a spacer between the bracket on the bumper and the body.

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My advice to anyone doing this job is to ditch the gorgeous stainless steel bolts that come with the bumpers and use something a third longer, makes the job MUCH easier. For good measure, I added a bit of heatshrink to the bolt to stop it filing the hole over time under vibration.

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Not wishing to drill my new bumper to fit the indicators (aka droids for those who remember that thread) I made a couple of brackets that fit the bolts at the front of the bumper. They have a funny angle because the droids also have that angle so that they sit on the bumper flat.

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and bolted one on before I ran out of time. Yes that is my dinner next to the car ;) my darling wife knows me too well when I'm stuck into a DIY job :D

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Tomorrow's gonna rain so I may get on with finishing off the centre console and have a go at the rear bumper on the weekend. Hopefully I can take some sunny photos.

But like I said, thanks again for all your support and advice chaps. Great to have your backup! :thumbs:
 
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Good advice! I had heard others say that too. But I'll take that over bubbling rust under chrome any day ;)
 
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