How to tidy up a chopped front bar?

[Jon R33]

I attacked my front bar with a hacksaw yesterday, I enjoyed it waaayyy too much :alien: , chopped out the centre section of the stock series 1 bar to...errr...maximize airflow to the cooler (yeh that's it)...and as an added bonus I can actually see the cooler now.

Has anyone else done this themselves and if so how did you go about tidying up the ends that are left near the indicators?

I've just got 100/mph tape around the holes at the moment, doesn't look completely ugly, better than nothing, but I'd like a nicer finish.

Any suggestions would be great.

[adam 32]

sand it back progressively with sandpaper. then apply a coat of paint

OR take it in to a paint shop

[Jon R33]

it's not so much the paint I'm worried about it's the holes into the bumper, the cross-section left from chopping out the middle bit, I need something to cap the ends or plug them up, I suppose I could buy some bog and fill it but I'd bodge it.

[adam 32]

oh i get it. well everyones ive seen still has those holes (including mine ) so i dunno.

[rob77]

take a photo and post it up, mines pretty hacked too, see my avatar

[Zahos]

If you kept the other pieces you chopped off, try and cut pieces from those to (almost) block the holes. If you need to use part of the bend, try using a heat gun to straighten it up.

Next put it in place, and use fiber glass on the inside of the bumber so you dont see it, and bog the bits up on the visible parts with fiber glass resin.

Then send it as flat as you can, then spray it.

I did this for a hole in a bumper once that occured from an accident, and it came out pretty good.

[Jon R33]

rob77,

Mine looks pretty much exactly like yours in the avatar, I've also relocated the plate to the same position.

The only difference is I've covered the cross-sectioned holes with gaffa tape, neatly but it's still just tape. I don't have a digicam though so it'll take ages (if ever) for me to post a pic.

Zahos,

Thanks for that, sounds like a plan, now all I need is something that resembles dexterous hand-eye co-ordination.

If you had seen the mess I made hacking that section out you wouldn't be advising me to touch a heat gun, you'd also understand why I hid it beneath all that tape. :uh-huh:

[Al]

I did the same thing, but i took the bumper and the cut-offs to a "plastic welder" to cover/seal the holes. It came perfect! The only way to tell it has been repaired is by taking the bumper off and looking at it from the other side. :uh-huh:

This is the clearest shot i have so far:

[Jon R33]

Al, that looks sweet, can I ask how much the plastic welder charged and how long it took to get the bar back?

Also, does anyone know of a plastic welder (melter ) in Perth?

[rob77]

Not too bad. I dont have the m-spec front bar so I was always going to replace mine with an aftermarket one.

[Jon R33]

ahh I see, the M-spec goes lower, has bigger vents at the bottom where as the stocky (like mine and rob77's avatar) just has a fairly narrow gap running along the bottom...and the sides on the stock bar curl under more, more rounded look.

The newly enlarged hole in the stock bar isnt going to be a nice square shape is it? atleast not without a more significant amount of work. Still, just to get those holes trimmed and capped would help the looks alot i think.

[NO_RSPECT]

there is a plastic welder in malaga who is very friendly, now i cant remember the name but maybe someone who drives on malaga drive has seen it, off reid highway onto malaga drive about 1km up on the left, anyways he was very good for when i needed stuff plastic welded.

[macka]

How friendly

I just left mine like Robs altho its cut back a little more than his...then painted the plastic white again.

Now my bumper is even more special its under my veranda inside out and folds up neatly into the boot!

[zanda]

So you guys are all basically content to cut out the front intrusion bar?

q: if you get yellowed, how do you put that back?

[Jon R33]

some friendly jap person had already cut mine so there must have been a different front bar on it in the past. passed complience that way too so I'm not sure how much of an issue it is.

[macka]

The main extrusion bar runs along the bumber so chopping the front out still leaves a "bit" of support and strength

[rs73]

Jon,

it may have passed compliance under the old SEVS law, but may not be the same case under the new one. It's far more strict than the old one and harder for backyard compliancer to do something a bit dodgy.

[Al]

Originally posted by zanda

So you guys are all basically content to cut out the front intrusion bar?

q: if you get yellowed, how do you put that back?

That's why i sealed off the cuts, to look as though it is meant to be like that. Firstly a cop may not jerry to the modification and i probably get done for some other BS, secondly the road worthy tester wouldn't know about it. The mesh inside the square also acts as a support, so the bumper is not flimsy.

The plastic welder charge me about $160, that also included priming and sanding the middle section ready for painting. Unfortunately, while sanding back the rest of the bumper we found some impurities in the paint work. So the bumper had to be sanded right back and then high filled and primed to produce a decent job. The paint was matched very well, as could be seen by the mirrors (they were done at the same time), but the bumper did not come out perfect due to the undercoat. More layers might have solved this, but the car had to be ready for Summer Nats 16.

[puckish]

You could also try using the cut off bits as a fill and expoxy resisn. Be careful when sanding back and whola looks like it's a smooth section.

Sick and tired of fixen mates cracked bumpers :-(