I am in the middle of rebuiling my DA and I have been shaving lots of stuff like badges, trunk keyhole, side moldings. And I was wondering if anyone has shaved the moldings on the bumpers? I imagine it would be much harder and time consuming than shaving the sides seeing as the bumper are plastic, But has anyone seen this done before? It would look a lot better IMO with the sides shaved as well.
Thanks in advance
Cheers!
PS if anyone have any literature as to how to do this properly it would be much appreciated.
the bumpers are molded as one piece, the moulding is not seperate. you would have to fill over it with something, not sure what is flexible that could be used for that purpose.
I’m doing the same thing right now. I bought a spare bumper to practice on and i am using bondo and fiberglass to smooth over the molding. I should have something picture worthy by sunday.
Yeah pictures would be awesome CRE8HVK, Even if you have some of the progress that would be cool. I am leaning towards not doing it for longevity reasons. My car will Be a daily/summer drive whe its done and I need something that will stand up to that. I guess if/when it cracks it just a reason to buy a nice body kit bumper right
Thats what I was thinking, With a two inch drop my front bumper is going to get hit a few time and it would crack. But it would look pimp. Nice and clean
The product you need is called Dura-Bond, available at auto-body supply shops, it’s a 2 part epoxy plastic compound, it’s a double barrel tube, and you use a special caulking style gun, that mixes the 2 parts as you pull the trigger, stuff that you want hardens in about 25 seconds, so you carefully lay it out where it needs to go while a buddy uses a sqeegie (spl?) paddle and smooths it out a bit, then when it hardens fully in about 60-90 seconds, you can sand it like bondo, but it’s more like actual Polyeurathane bumper material, if done properly and you prepare the surface by scuffing with 36 Grit discs first, it should be stronger than the bumper.
This product is made for Bonding Plastic panels together and repairing large rips or voids in Plastic bumpers and body panels on newer cars. I used it serveral times while bonding 2 different kinds of bumper together to make my own body kit bumpers for different older cars.
Stuff is REALLY expensive, about $25 a set of tubes which you will need about 3-4 of them per bumper. So if you got the cash, it’s definately doable, and don’t worry about breaking, like I said, it’s stronger than the bumpers if done right. and it bends since it’s plastic.
And Fiberglass will NEVER adhere to plastic properly, don’t even attempt it, it might work temporarily, but thats it.
And bond is just wrong, it’s for minor filling up to 1/16th of an inch thick only. It’s for smoothing, not for filling.
So I haven’t checked this post for a while but I went out and bought some “dura bond style” stuff from an autobody supply store. It is an epoxy and creme combo that needs to be mixed. The stuff appears to be working great. I will post some pictures when I get it a little more close to done.
The hardest part that I have noticed. Because mine has to be mixed, is that you have to make sure you get the rcorrect consistancy. To runny and it just drips and too tacky and it wont stay in place.
Will update later…now to look for the real Dura-Bond.
Yeah, you probably ended up with some stuff called “Flexible Bumper Repair Kit” Has a fugly old Z28 Camaro on the box, stuff works, but is pretty soft til cured, great for filling small areas, but not much else.
So sounds like your on the right track.
Btw, the special caulking gun you need will probaby be about $20-$50 depending on where you go.
You can also check Selectproducts.com, they sell it, but not sure if it’s listed on their website.
If what you are doing doesn’t work look into fusor. They have an extreme plastic repair line that will allow you to choose how long you need it to be workable to get the job done. It works as a 2 part in the same style calking gun and I used the fusor 142 (fast set about 90 seconds) to shave the cut out for the ram head on the front bumper of my shops custom Hemi Magnum. It works really well. The longer setting ones would be ideal for your job but you’ll have to prep properly as you would with anything.
Guess i should have pointed out that the Dura-Mix comes in slower setting formula’s, but the fast drying stuff won’t run AT ALL, thats why I recommended it.
