I've had my bumpers off for a few months while prepping the car for paint. Now I'm reinstalling them I'm having a heck of a time getting them to align properly. My biggest problem is getting the top outer bumper corners to meet flush with the surface of the fenders. It appears the bumpers have shrank or drawn inward about an 1/8". Any tips on getting these to fit.

 

I discussed this with a body shop owner and the bumpers do shrink when off the car. To avoid this, they just loosen the bolts and leave it hanging loose while they do the bodywork. I'm not sure how they did it, but on cars they didn't do this with they somehow warmed up the bumper to expand it so they could bolt it in place.

 

Did you already paint the bumpers? What color?
You may try to leave them sit in the sun on your driveway, then try installing them while they are more pliable. If they are a dark color they should expand a little and be soft enough to work a little more easily. Of course, then they cool down they may show more waves too (possibly, I din't know for sure). Worth a shot.

Mark G

 

Thanks for the replies.
Warming them up before installation would probably help, but my bigest problem is gaining access to the inside of the front upper corners so I can push outward on the bumper while tightening the screws, there's a bracket in the way and one of it's mounting bolts just spins instead of loosening. I've done some more adjusting tonight and I think I can live with the fit now. I removed the bumpers for prep work and priming, and to fix some rusty metal that caused a bulge in the urethane. I'm painting the car with the bumpers attached. I'm going with a Nissan Magnetic grey metallic, which is a darker silver than the original. I really wanted the Aston Martin Tungsten silver, but it was much more expensive and not available in the Dupont Chroma system that I'm using.

 

Sounds nice...pictures would be appreciated.

 

I know you didn't ask for this, but my opinion, based on years of paint and bodywork experience, is, I would attach the bumper cover to the front of the car loosly, attach the bolts a few turns and leave it 'stand-off' from the body by about 1/4" - 3/8" from the body so when you spray it the paint and metal flake will match, but will allow you to get paint onto the mating surfaces (inside the crack). Then, after the paint has dried thoroughly, proceed to install the front bumper cover. When I did my corvette, I put an oversized nut on some of the front/rear cover retaining bolts as a spacer to ensure the pieces didn't touch (or fall off).

If you install the bumper cover first and then paint the car as you plan you will get a paint 'bridge' at the point where the two parts meet and it'll be a weak point. It could, and mostlikely will, lead to down-the-road cracking or flaking of paint at the joint because the two parts will expand and contract at different rates, and eventually you're going to add stress to the nose piece either by someone sitting on it, or bumping into something in your garage, or whater the case may be. At that point, the front bumper cover will flex a little and the paint is going to crack. If you are lucky it won't flake off, but it might. You see this again and again where paint around mirrors crack when guys don't remove mirrors, and bumpers too.

Plus, and don't take this the wrong way, but, paint bridging between parts is a true sign of amature and sloppy paint and body work, in the paint and body/restoration trade. It's the kind of thing you would expect to get if you were to run your car through MAACO for $299, but any paint or restoration shop worth it's salt would never do work like this. In the end, spraying the parts bolted close (but not touching) will give you matching paint color and metal flake lay-out on each mating surface. I don't see why you would't be able to fit it the same way afterwards. Well, good luck, I'm sure it'll turn out fine.

 

Mark that sounds like really good advice. I don't want to remove the bumpers so I'll loosen the bolts and install shims from the inside that won't protrude past the outer body surface. Thanks.

 

put the bumpers in the sun on a hot day, the will be soft and will align up easier, or put new fiberglass bumpers on, they don't wave like the originals and paint matches better.