Dean_Fuller

I'm starting work on Garrett's bumpers to finalize his new paint job. The bumpers have been removed and lying on the ground in storage for 7 months now. The front bumper has changed shape. It looks like the upper edge that receives the beading is sweeping upward sharply. The middle of the upper part has fallen into a valley. If you look close at the pics and the shadows I hope you can see what I'm talking about. My question is do I float some kind of body filler to eliminate the valley? I know I need to mount this before making any filler changes but after holding it up in place I don't see it being forced into shape after mounting. I'm wondering if I have ruined this by letting it lay around too long. Do I need another bumper cover???

joejoe

Maybe try heat gun.

okbarnett

The theory is to heat it and bend it back into shape and hold it there, like clamps and some frame to make it stay. But it hardly ever makes it perfect again. Then fill it with flexable bumper repair material, which is a plastic bondo sort of stuff

smith 928

No NO NO be careful there. You can not just use a flexible bumper fix ... use 3M 05887 to fix the bumper not bondo.

M. Requin

Assuming there are no breaks or tears: Rig up a stand to support the bumper cover from the contact points for the shock absorbing bumper struts, front face of bumper up, side "wings" hanging down (hope that's clear, IOW as if your shark was ready to launch like a rocket). Do this in a warm place, use a heat gun sparingly on the area that is distorted, but mostly, wait. This material has a great "memory" and will assume its original shape after about 10 years. No, it just seems that long, really just after a month or two. I think you could do it on the car even more easily, which is how I did my rear bumper cover, which worked just fine.

Dean_Fuller

Just to finish the thread...

I used 3M's 5895 plastic repair. Its a 2 part mix and looks like JB weld. It is ready to sand in 15 minutes. So far so good. After floating the areas that were dipped...I sanded, primed and painted. I added flex agent to the clear only. Other than that its the only difference from painting a fixed panel.