My bumper needs some help

I have a bumper that has been cut for foglights (you can see in the picture where the center bar is cut out to fit foglights), and another one that hasn’t been cut for foglights. Originally I planned on just swapping the bumpers and doing some paint work, but the way the rest of the car looks I don’t think I’ll bet way just painting the bumper without it being painfully obvious that the only remotely fresh paint on the car is the bumper. So I was thinking I could cut the bits off the uncut bumper and fiberglass or something them on to the painted one so it looks like it’s supposed to be there. After that long winded explaination, does anyone have any suggestions on a product or something that I can use to attach the cut out bar part from my new bumper to my current bumper?

This would be my approach, I’m sure there are better ones:

  • Get some heavy sheet, glue up to thickness needed and width
  • Fit the piece into the entire area where the light bar is intended to go
  • Sculpt the shape and fair in in to existing body lines at both ends and long edges. Allow for thickness of several layers of fiberglass and needed filler putty
  • Then, after that all looks, good make cut out for light bar and attachment points, add in some cool vents/slots around the back. Again make allowance for build up of glass where light bar will fit.
  • Remove the foam, make fiberglass part to be fitted in, get rid foam.
  • Do final fit-up, smoothing and painting, install light bar, install new custom form fitting body panel

Key is to get it the way you want to look and shaped. A nice rigid body part that will only require attachment points here not visible if you decide to remove or change. Then install the bar into it. Don’t install bar and try to get everything to work together afterwards.

Worth what you, paid for it

I didnt do the best job explaining it. That picture with the lightbar just happens to be the best picture i have of the center bad on the bumper, the lightbar is already installed. The bar im worried about is thin red bar in the center of the grill section. You can see where the little bar was cut to fit the foglights on the end.

This is a better picture showing what my bumper looks like with the cutouts for the foglights on each end of that center bar.

I want it to look like this where the bar goes all the way across

Same process as above, create and form part, then fiberglass part. Attach from rear with some of the super adhesives that will stick to plastic and fiberglass - something bridges between both parts for strength.

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Touche. Guess i know what im doing then. Thanks for the help!

Leave the bumper primer color?

If you modify the shape a bit, ten it’ll look like it belongs rather than try to match perfectly (at least that is my approach). Per Bill’s suggestion, paint say, matte whatever. So it looks like it was made that way. No paint matching.

But my car has a lovely matte red that its developed over 29 years!

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Looks sort of like primer in the first picture…

red primer and rust. lol

Watch the calendar, Joe King @worldcloud teaches some classes on fiberglass work - greatest resource class or source of knowledge.

I took the first class in his series, but i missed the 2nd one. Maybe if he needs a demo piece for a class he could use my bumper. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You could plastic weld it with a solder iron & some donor plastic filler material from the backside and paint it flat black for that “custom” look. :smiley:

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It’s all about the chemistry… polyester and plastic or urethane are different things…

Corvette bumpers are Polyester, but Saturns are Urathane…
It you bring in you bumper we could make a plan. I intend to do a second fiberglass #2 class, but I six other classes this week, so my schedule has been a bit tight…

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