The Bumper Issue
The bumper I use on my AE86 is a fibreglass one, I don't actually know the make, where it is from, and it doesn't seem to be known, its design seems a mix of other bumpers, so its a bit of a mystery and certainly given me a few problems as it is fairly thin and breaks easily. When I got the car I was told it was repaired a few weeks back due to a crack, it was painted in gloss black.
This picture was actually the last time in was in tack as it was damaged shortly afterwards:
After repaired it looked good enough again, and then it broke again, so time to fix it properly this time, I took it to a friend who did the first repair and he was going to reinforce it and fix all issues.
After a few weeks of being put off I decided to take it back and do it myself, the bumper was covered in filler up to one inch thick in places, certainly not the way to fix a bumper, so it got a serious sanding (read: several hours of several nights of several weeks) as shown in pictures below but I was determinded not to give in and get it back to its glorious self just like the rest of the car. I got this bumper from the car, and I assume it came from Japan, so I'm keeping it:
It was probably one of the worst parts of the project and a bit of a low, as it was pure slow draining work with little result to show for it, but I eventually got to this stage with most of the filler removed:
The bumper lost some of its shape during this phase so I had to build it back up with more filler and putty:
So a bit more preperation and I was ready to filler spray it:
The bumper remained in this state while I got on with the engine for a while, once I got the intercooler fitted, and had the bumper in position, it seemed to fit nicely and let sufficient air flow through the intercooler, so there was no need to modify the bumper further, so I got on with the painting:
