Front Bumper

[Anonymous]

Rather you that me K. The way I feel on my one day off does not lend to that sort of task. Would love to be just a couch potato. Still contemplating getting my summer tyres out of the boot and into the loft, before replacing all the boots normal contents from the shed, back into the boot. Makes me tired just thinking about it all. Oh well I've put it off thus far but must do it before darkness descends shortly, but time for a coffee and bacon butty first :crazy:

Good luck with your screwing and unscrewing and try to get Dolly out of your mind, as it was probably that that was the real cause of your current problems :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Well?

 

[Anonymous]

Well indeed Ronald.
Sleeping beauty, or sloth as I now call him, left it too late to give me a hand, so the job was not started, we basically ran out of daylight. :evil:

I have had a second look this morning at the removal of the whole bumper, and its not as straight forward as I thought. I did not take into account the inner wheel arch protectors that are fixed to the bumper under the wheel arch.

It looks as though there are 3 maybe 4 large push-in clips that hold the plastic protector to the bumper, and I think the front wheels may need to come off to get at the clips.
And from past experience these clips can sometimes snap when you try to praise them out, so I will pick some spares up before I start the job.
If I'm not mistaken Jassy took the inner wheel arch protector out to get at the fog lights when he changed the bulbs to LED's. :eusa-think:
The whole job is just a matter of getting at all the screws and clips, a bit time consuming thats all, it's not a heavy difficult job, but you dont want to rush it or run out of daylight.
Removing the bumper and changing the parts on the grill is definitely a job that the DIYer could undertake, as long as you give yourself time and have someone to hold the bumper while you undo all the screws and clips.

Looks like it may have to wait until the weekend again when I can catch hold of the sloth. :roll:

Ps.
I would suggest making sure that the bumper is cleaned before it is handled, because any dried on dirt could scratch the paint if hands are rubbed over it.
I also use 100% cotton gloves, like the ones snooker refs wear, if I'm working on or touching any panels.

 

[Anonymous]

Here's some pics of most of the fixings that need to be removed to get the bumper off, and one of the actual damage, and if I'm hones the damage looks worse in the picture than it does close up with the naked eye, a steady hand with a tough up pen may well hide most of the marks, but it's coming off anyway.

The only other pic missing of the fixings are the ones holding the inner wheel arch onto the bumper, these can be seen if you look inside the arch, towards the front of the car, they are right on the outer edge of the arch, 3 each side of the car, they look similar to the pull-out ones running across the top of the bumper in the second pic.
Please excuse my photography skills, David Bailey I am not

 

[Anonymous]

Oh well, we tried and we tried, and we tried, but did we get the bumper off :eusa-think:

Did we hell :evil:
We took every screw,clip, popper, washer, EVERYTHING we could physically see holding the bumper on, but it just would not come away from the car, it seems to have something holding it in place behind the big lion badge, but theres no way of seeing what it is without removing the badge, maybe theres nothing there and you have to just use more physical force to praise the bumper off the car, which I didnt want to do as I was already starting to have visions of a new bumper and paint job :?
It was very frustrating not being able to see what was still holding the bumper onto the car :roll:

The more we pulled and struggled the more chance of damage being done, so after an hour or so we decided to screw everything back into place and leave it for the dealer , guess I'll just have to start saving up for the labour bill :?

 

[Anonymous]

Oh dear So sorry fella. Brave of you you to have a go though. I know for a fact that I wouldn't dare attempt such a project

 

[Anonymous]

So frustrating Ron, something right in the middle holding it on, but none of us could make out what it was. :evil:
Maybe a good tug at it would of freed it up, but I didnt want to take the chance of it not going back on or perhaps damaging the whole thing by be too forcefull.

Might of been a good idea to just have the original blown over. :eusa-think:

Never mind, I will just have to book it in, at least I know it wil be done right.
Probably have it done in the new year now though, too expensive just before xmas.