One of our "cosmetically challenged" areas on the car has been the front bumper. It is quite rusty and has a few extra dings and dents in it.
We had previously installed a new rear bumper and found the process rather easy and straight forward. We figured the front bumper would be the same. So, we asked for a new front bumper for Christmas. To our amazement, there it sat, under the tree on Christmas morning.
The bumper itself attaches to the car at 6 places with carriage bolts. There are 2 main brackets that attach to the front frame rails that then go straight up. There are 2 other brackets (1 on each side) that go up at a diagonal from the frame rails to the corners of the bumper. There are also two brackets that connect the bumper to the sides of the fenders. In addition to the bumper itself, there are 2 vertical bumper guards that run from the bottom of the valance to the bottom side of the bumper. They attach in two places, to the bottom of the valance and then to an L-shaped bracket that attaches to the main bumper bracket.
Deconstruction
The bumper guards can be removed from the underside of the car (we had the car jacked up because we are also in the process of repairing the transmission...again, more on that in a later post). We ran into trouble on one of them because the nut the bolt screws into had rusted out. We were finally able to get the 4 bolts (2 each) out and removed the bumper guards. In hindsight, it may be easier to get the bumper out by removing the front valance, but the bolts holding our valance on looked kinda rusty and we opted not to.
Once the bumper guards are off, you can get to the two bolts that hold the bumper onto the main brackets from underneath the car (inside the valance) once you remove the L-shaped bracket that the guard did attach to. We did this on one side. On the other side, we were able to get to the bolt by going directly underneath the bumper. Apparently the valance and bumper on this side of the car had been tweeked years ago with the help of a curb. The other two bolts are reached from underneath the bumper (it requires a socket wrench with knuckle and a little bit of swearing). At this point, the bumper and bumper guards were off the car.
We had only received a new bumper for Christmas, not new guards. After inspection of the old bumper guards, we decided to instead buy new ones. Between the hardware that we just took off and our stash of extra hardware from other projects on the car, we decided we had enough hardware to put the new bumper and guards on.
Installation
We figured that installation was probably the same as removal, just in reverse. So, we started by attaching the fender brackets to the bumper. We then set the bumper in place and found that none of the holes lined up. We were able to solve this by loosening the main bumper brackets from the frame rails. This gave us enough play that we were able to get the bumper to attach at all 6 points.
The next step was to attach the bumper guards. When we first attached them, we noticed that they didn't seem to fit quite right. So we removed them and compared them to the original bumper guards. In the attached picture, the one on the left is the new one, the one on the right is the original. It is somewhat difficult to see from the picture, but the mounting holes are not in the same exact place in relationship to the guard itself. We dutifully attached the new guards as detailed in the assembly manual. The bottom of the guard attached to the bottom of the valance and the top of the guard attached to the top side of the L-shaped bracket near the bottom of the bumper. The end result is a beautiful new bumper and 2 bumper guards that don't sit flush up against the valance. We are not helped by the fact that our valance has a few extra dings and bends in it that aren't factory original.
So, while the bumper itself looks nice and the overall car is looking much better, I have a feeling we'll be revisiting this one in the not so distant future.
