Ok,

I have searched, and read, and read on these.... There's plenty of info and ideas on "How to fill the voids" on here, but my question is this...

How is everyone anchoring the bumper back to the rebar in the center without the bumperettes??? The bumperettes bolt to the rebar assisting in reducing the stress on the quarter panel mounts.

Removing and filling the bumperette holes is "easy" per se, But how to anchor the bumper securely without them? Are you expoxying a bolt to the inside of the bumper skin? I would venture to guess that IF that were the case, tightening initially would not be a problem, however removal of the nut later on down the road would be a problem...

If nobody is re-using the bolt holes in the re-bar, and just bolting the bumper back to the car without them. How much does the bumper flex at highway speeds??? I would venture to guess it moves around a bit, especially being that it's catching plenty of air at speed????

Does that make sense??

I like the EuroPlate bracket and personally hate, the bumperettes...

 

You live in Aurora, CO, the same town as Stan (Mrmerlin). He knows pretty much everything there is to know about these cars. 77Tony

 

Josh if you were to fill in the cutouts ,
then I would try to figure out a way to attach a bolt to the inner PU cover and incorporate it with your PU patches
OR
otherwise put some through bolts under the tag they will never be seen

 

I live down the street from MrMerlin.

As for the bolts... I've considered running them through the bumper skin. But not too keen on that idea... looks cheap if you ever remove the license plate... knowing my luck with aurora pd... They'll make me pull it off!

Just curious what others had done.

I've got a unique idea... But was curious if others were just running bolts through the bumper skin or nothing at all.

 

Dean Fuller with the fresh painted Camaro green car glued a metal rod to the rear side of his PU cover to add stiffness

 

I filled the holes and fittend the bumper without the bumperette bolts.

My car has the old Style bumper, but it seems to hold very well with all the small nuts on the sides and the screws on the top. At least it did not fly off the car last time I toko it over 120mph :-)

 

Thankyou, those answers help a bit more. I didn't notice that Dean deleted his bumperettes.

I was considering making a false back for the License Plate cutout, after filling the existing holes. So cutting a piecee of aluminum to fit across the inside, and then running hardware through that to still get a get tight hold on the bumper pinching the bumper skin against the re-bar. Then installing the false back and cutting out the holes to get to the bolt heads, and use body colored body plugs to hide the holes under the euro plate bracket....

 

The plastic frame (and metal euro plate) purchased from http://www.germanplates.com/ fits the stock bracket, so don't worry to much about what's going on behind it for aesthetic reasons, unless you venture wider than the US plate. The body shop that did my bumperette delete did not reinforce that area. I have driven to speeds in excess of 145 mph (on a closed track of course), and have had no problems. You also might want to PM Jerry Feather, he is the resident guru on bumpers, and related flexible parts. Jerry also has his own version of how to do this that you might fit your needs. Another route, Jim M had his bumperettes color matched to his GTS that looks great. 77Tony

 

4drgl:

The rear urethane bumper cover is not attached to the aluminum bumper behind it via the bumperettes. At least none of the 3 928s that I have owned. There are support brackets (see PET section 802) but those are inpedendent of the bumperettes.

The 928 was designed without bumperettes and all european cars do not have them. It was a 5 mph impact requirement in the USA. The bumperette mounting plates ARE attached to the bumper below, but the rubber bumperettes are attached only to those mounting plates. During impact with an object the rubber bumpers and brackets move/bend to absorb the impact before the urethane bumper cover gets dmaged.

As far as I can tell, the only reason people had to reinforce their urethane bumper covers are due to the urethane "sagging" with age, perhaps to extensive heating of the sun or impact damage. So removing the bumperettes and filling in those holes should not cause any extra flexing in the bumper cover. Remember, the car is designed to go 155, 160,170 MPH+ on the autobahn without bumperettes.

Cheers,
Carl
90 GT shell in progress...lots of parts coming soon

 

My rear bumper was damaged in shipping a couple months ago; so, thanks to the shipper and the local Porsche dealer, I now have a new euro bumper. I just took off the small US style tags last week and put on the long euro tags and can tell you, there's nothing in that area attached to a rear brace or strut--at least not going through the bumper. They did install other brackets but when I look up those up in the PET, they're more on the side--around the light area.

A new euro bumper through Porsche: 1,076 euro
Paint and everything else: 1,400 euro
Glad I didn't have to pay a single euro: priceless

Oh, that screw on the right hand side of the license plate is from the license plate frame, it's all they had to attach the plate to the car so I could drive it home. It's not permanent...

 

Alright well all you guys are makin me feel better about just removing the bumperettes and just filling the holes....

I've spent so much time smoothing and filling the imperfections, the last thing I want is a crack in the paint... These bumpers are a biatch to sand... The front skin is perfect finally, the rear however is getting there!

I like the Euro plates much much better. They fit the wide look of the car better!

 

or you can do this:

 

Anyone know of a shop that sells bumperette metal caps for 928s?
Ideally in Milky Nickel like Singer does for the 911.
On a Singer video the owner says he works with an outside shop that can nickel plate anything.
also, PelicanParts.com seems to have Tasker Metal bumper guards ($150/each) for 1970 911 ts.

Apparently vynil wrap doesn't work/stick to rubber.

 

Anyone know of aftermarket metal bumperettes for the 928?

 

928's are a small market to begin with and on top of that you are looking for something to fit a subset of that market (early bumperettes and late bumperettes differ), so I suspect such a thing very likely does not exist.

Don't know about other cars of the period, but I seem to recall that corvettes dropped their metal bumpers in the mid-seventies, so you may be pushing the boundaries a bit (nothing wrong with that, IMO) as far as "period-correctness".

Just as FYI - and see my last sentence in this paragraph - It also goes counter to what Porsche seemed to want to achieve with their hidden bumpers (cleaner lines). The bumperettes are mandated in the US by its impact laws. I believe most non-US cars do not have them at all. Again, nothing wrong with bucking conventions/trends/ideals, but good to be aware of them so they can be bucked most successfully.