Donne Trav

Anyone ever repaired the REAR BUMPER on their C4? The local body
shops that I went to don't seem to want to attempt to "repair"
my rear bumper with EPOXY, etc. Also, they all say the replacement
bumper, labor, etc. would be well beyond the $1226 check sent to me
by the insured's insurance company. There's a small crack about an
1 3/4" to 2" running down the outside-left corner fo the licence plate
area. I thought I would just EPOXY the crack — brace it to keep it closed while getting hard — clean it up and go over what appears to be WHITE PAINT from the other vehicle with some BLACK touch-up paint. NEED
ADVICE AGAIN. THANKYOU

JackDidley

Buy a used bumper for around $200. Epoxy will not last and you will regret not doing it right.

Mr X

Have you tested it? What happened to the epoxy?

c4sailor

You might look into using 3M Automix 5895 (two part kit) which is designed for repairing the flexible bumpers. Get it at your local Body/Paint store. It's like a thick epoxy that sands easily in a short time after applying. They (3M) also have a patch material for backing up holes, etc. in flex bumpers that you can use on the back side of the crack to spread out the loads of flexing. They are about 5 inches by 8 inches and pliable, just cut what you need. But, the patches aren't inexpensive because they come in boxes of 10 or 12. May check with a local body shop and see if they will sell you a single sheet. I had good luck with the 5895 in fixing a hole in my front bumper. I used a hair dryer to heat the original material to get as much of it back to original shape and clamped it until it set back close to normal. Then used the kit to fill front and back to fill the gaps. If you don't back up the patch with something, whatever you use on the outside is going to crack off at some point.

You might also post your question on the recently added Paint/Body topic off the "Main" page of this forum. There are guys watching there that have much more experience than I.

BAMvette

We got rear-ended last April.

Not as bad as I had thought, though. However, the rear bumper did have some damage.

My body shop INSISTED on OEM replacement of the rear bumper (God Bless my Corvett Club brother who worked there for doing it RIGHT!)

No "repair", but a quality replacement, AT THE INSURED'S COST.

After all....he hit me, as I assume is your situation...and HE should bear the cost to bring you back to pre-accident condition...not you!

You need to go back in to battle mode, and get your Corvette repaired correctly!

Luck to ya!

CorvetteMike2024

50/50 shot on a long term fix with epoxies or whatever. Find a good used one like at J&D corvette, or ebay or where ever. Get it painted properly, let dry, and change out to the new one. IMHO its the easiest way, long term. And we are talkin vettes here right? OK C4 vettes, but C4's are still vettes.

AGENT 86

I had good results with Pro Form PF 704, on my GS.
http://www.proformproducts.com/en/pr...etail/?id=121#

Midnight 85

I made the bad mistake of using fibreglass paint stripper on my front bumper. I left it on a bit too long and it made marks right where it had ran off the bumper. I got some of the 3M stuff since it was such a simple bit of damage. I finished it and had the piece painted and it looked GREAT,,,,,,,,,, for about 2 weeks. After a couple weeks it shrank worse than normal bondo does. Now, I'm no body man so maybe it was something I did even though I followed directions exactly but I wish I had never even seen the stuff. It's not something anyone can spot without my showing it to them but I know it's there. This repair was not much thicker than a piece of paper when finished so it's not from using it too thick. There's two lessons here, don't use stripper on fibreglass and if you do don't use the flexible bumper repair stuff.

Deakins

I'm guessing that there was some problem with the application or an issue with stripper that probably soaked into the urethane (the big reason why we will not use strippers of any kind on a car in our shop; just like soda blasting, it can be done, but sometimes it bites back hard). The repair you're describing is a simple fix with the AutoMix or a product now owned by 3M called Duramix. A local paint and body shop will have everything you need and Duramix even has a very nice training video that you can watch and get a feel for working with it. I have repaired a lot of urethane parts to go out into the world and have never had an issue with one not holding up (even a few that went through crashes survived like new). If it where my car I would repair it; but then again, I've been doing this type of work for many years in both the custom paint and collision repair environments. I have to question if many of the people saying it can't be done have the same level of experience. If you would like specific instructions on the repair you can PM me or post them here. Hope this helps, best of luck in whatever you decide to do.