Help! How to attach bumper back?

[kam]

:huh:

Please help!!

Put in third radiator but can't fit bumper back on.

Don't know how to align the two screw holes. See picture:

[kam]

I have to really bend the bumper to align the two holes to the metal mount.

Once I get it to align, the rest of the mounting holes will mis-align.

[Scouser]

There's a nasty crack there in your bumper (bottom right of picture).

I could be wrong but by the looks of things you have tried to

attach this side first then attempted to do the other side next.

The result is that it left the bumper hanging on one side. Unfortunately

you cracked it in doing this and it doesn't look safe any more.

What you should be doing is sliding the bumber in on both sides.

If you did that you'l probably find it aligns properly on both sides. You need some helping hand to do this.

But as I said that bumper looks knackered. I would be looking to replace it if it was me. Sorry but...... :(

[Loren]

If the bumper alignment is that far off something is wrong. Do you have a pic of the ducting (bumper off). It should look like the one in my DIY.

[kam]

The radiator mount was aligned correctly.

Here's the pictures (I'm not sure if these are what you look for):

Thanks for the quick reply.

Also, how much is it and where can I get a bumper cover?

Kam

[Loren]

I was looking for a straight on shot where we can see alignment of radiators and ducts. Like this:

[kam]

I am thinking about putting some thin metal strip and bent it to form a L shape and tie the bump crack togather and see if that will work instead of buying a new bumper cover.

Here's the correct picture:

[Loren]

Well, everything looks ok in the picture so you must be either getting hung up on the ducting or the damage to the bumper is causing the misalignment. These things fit pretty well so you bumper damage still may be the problem.

[kam]

I think I might have damaged my bumper two years ago rather than when removing or installing it this weekend.

I was unloading my car from the trailer but forgot to remove one of the tie downs and my car was hanging on with one front wheel and the dumper looked distorted.

However, the bumper was fine once I finally got the car off the trailer. I was amazed at how well the dumper hold off.

I guess I should now concentrate on fixing the dumper.

I'm planning to buy some thin matal plate and cut and bent it (L shape) to fit the bumper and put on some small nuts and bolts to keep the crack from spreading.

I hope this will work out for me.

[Scouser]

Yeah you might get away with some hack to mend it but with the bumper off check that it at least looks symetrical.

Anyway, as i said you need to slide it under equally on both sides and using a helping hand is a must.

BTW: that's not what i think it is dribbling away on your garage floor is it? It looks a bit forward and an awful lot for an RMS problem.

[kam]

Scouser,

That was water from the air conditioner. I ran the car with the A/C on to bleed the cooling system.

Kam

[Scouser]

Phew! Good for you.

So have you managed to figure out the bumper replacement?

[kam]

I actually made a hack to secure the cracks.

I used epoxy (some kind of strong glue) to glue the cracks and leave it for about 20 hours.

Bought a aluminum flat and miniture screw and nuts from Lowe's and made a bracket to tie the cracks.

I'll post a picture when I get home today.

[Scouser]

Cool. We'll make a body shop man of you yet ;)

Can you post pictures of the bumper "in whole" so we can see its symetry.

[kam]

Sorry, I already put the bumper back on.

However, I took a picture of the hack. The picture shows one side of the bumper and I have a similar hack on the other side. I need to bent the metal mounting strip to actually mount the bumper back on.

The damage were definitely from two years ago when I forgot one of the tie downs through one of the front wheels. The car was actually hung on to the ramps with three wheels and the bumper looked really bad. However, the bumper came back to original shape after I got the car free from the trailer.

Here's a picture of my hack:

Loren's instructions on the installation was superb. The only problem I had was putting the bumper back on.

[kam]

The actual mis-alignment of the mounting holes was caused by mis-alignment of the radiators.

I have to loosen all mounting bolts for the radiators and push them up and before tighten them.

Now Its a perfect fit.