I have a busted nose

JPhil

Huh?
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
1,361
Location
Loveland, Colorado, USA
665637b7e4b3069.jpg

This winter's project, repair this. My idea is to fashion a piece of wood to fit behind the nose and glass it in place with mat & resin. But how do I repair the cracks with a suitable material that will not just crack again? What material would that be? It is the original urethane bumper.
And I know full well I will bump it again.....:rolleyes:

(Denis, you're the body guru here! What would you do?)
 
Last edited:
This winter's project, repair this. My idea is to fashion a piece of wood to fit behind the nose and glass it in place with mat & resin. But how do I repair the cracks with a suitable material that will not just crack again? What material would that be? It is the original urethane bumper.
And I know full well I will bump it again.....:rolleyes:

(Denis, you're the body guru here! What would you do?)

I'm twice sorry for you Phil, first to hear from the damage, and then because I have no experience with fixing urethane.
Many are pointing toward this article as a good source of information.
They don't use fiber, just some two part urethane compound, so providing some backing behind the crack is required.

What I would probably do is laying resign and fiber (just one layer) in the back to give support, them from the front grind all the cracks (like in the provided article) and cover them with urethane compound.
Then I'd put the bumper back on, leaving the fiberglass backing where it is.
Those are my humble $.02, without any kind of prior experience.
 
I'm surprised Denis didn't suggest a fiberglass replacement - that fine rear bumper of his. I'd opt for the 'glass replacement. Not without its own challenges but the material is well known and repaired if future "incidents" happen.
I would not expect resin to stick too well to the urethane material. There is a filler for urethane repair - might see what is available at the automotive paint supply shops or Eastwood (online).
Cheers - Jim
 
I am hesitant to replace the whole bumper with an aftermarket one because of the fitment problems I have seen & heard of. Plus I'm just kinda old fashioned in that I would rather repair what I have than just buy a new one. But that is not out of the question either, by any means.

I have done absolutely nothing to get started on this project other than this post, so all options are still open. Ah, another learning experience for this grasshopper.
 
Head over to ye olde FLAPS and get a urethane bumper repair kit. Comes with some plastic mesh for reinforcement and two-part flexible epoxy-like bonding/filler material.
 
Anybody ever used this Eastwood hot stapler and/or urethane repair kit??

http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-s-hot-stapler-plastic-repair-system.html

http://www.eastwood.com/2k-universal-adhesive-and-cartridge-gun-kit.html

http://www.eastwood.com/sem-bumper-bite-flexible-glaze-40482.html

http://www.eastwood.com/sem-flexible-primer-surfacer-gray.html



I'm not after a show quality job, I just want to repair the bumper and get the bumper paint back to close to what the body color is. I already have had the body paint color 'camerad' and have the formula printed out to be mixed when I need it.
 
If you like that style bumper and want to keep it because of fitment issues that's fine, no aftermarket bumper will fit right out of the box .....drill a bunch of holes and glue some fibergass mat on the back side - I'd definetely take the bumper off the car to do this - sand the back side with 40 grit and use 3M 8116 adhesive ... That stuff can glue a potato to the moon ... They also have a urethane adhesive that will work just as well, maybe even better... Then use a sanding disc on the outside for a nice rough surface, apply some urethane adhesive and body filler - the less the better- and primer/paint .... The 8116 is probably the better glue but you cannot prime directly over it, that urethane patch/adhesive I think you can spray without a buffer layer of filler ...
 
Responding to another thread about carbon fiber parts made me think of this one.....I have found it is cracked in many places, and the crack shown in the picture above is now busted completely from top to bottom so the top section is in two halves. I'm not going to try to repair it, I will buy a new one. Sigh.
 
Well I got it fixed. Found an old school hot rod body man a friend recommended and he repaired it. Although, it was way more damaged than we thought and broke on him in a couple more places. Looking back, I would have been better off buying a new one after all. Oh well. He did a real nice job.

The paint is about 99% match, but he did the best he could given my 43 year old thin faded original paint that actually is not even the same across the car anymore. I had never noticed, it's just "yellow", but when he started showing me where it was greener here and redder there and whiter there, I could really see it. In some light it's perfect, in other light you can see a bit of a difference. Shoot, it's so much better than it was, I ain't complaining one little bit.

I rubbed it a little with rubbing compound to bust the gloss of the clear coat to match the sheen of my original paint better and that helped a lot too. You can see some swirl marks when the sunlight hits it just right, but it's not bad enough to bother me. It'll get dirty soon enough and then they won't show at all.

He gave me about a half pint of the paint and I touched up most of the dings & chips all over the car too. The car has never looked so good. For the first time since I bought it 13 years ago, I'm not embarrassed by the paint job. It's about a 15 footer now which is good enough for me.

I even finally installed my black wire mesh grills that I had been wanting to do for years but there was no point when the bumper looked so crappy.

I like it. I'm happy.

(And actually, the color difference this picture shows is more extreme than in real life)

66577dc27aa168a.jpg



In fact, it looks so different now, I had to write down my license plate number so I could find it in the parking lot ;)

66577dc27b1fc62.jpg
 
Last edited:
Top