Front bumper project, Phase I

[chriswells78]

Well, I'm planning on a tube bumper for the front but I had to get rid of the stupid lower portion of my stock bumper first. Here's how it went....

I removed the bumper completely from the vehicle. Here i'ts loosened up 3 of 4 bolts were easy, but there is always that one PITA. Mine happend to be the one all the way to the right. The stupid little metal strip attached to the outer bolt head bent and the damn bolt kept spinning. :fire:

When I finally got it off, it was time to remove the factor fog lights. Now this should have been easy but, not with my luck. I doused all of the screws with WD-40 but the heads kept wanting to strip. I ended up having to remove them with a small set of ViseGrips by clamping onto the head and turning. But I got the little terds out!

Now it's time to cut. If there is one thing that I am good at, it's destroying things. LOL The cut went smooth with a little help from my jigsaw and a metal blade.

Then I deburred the cut edge with a hand file.

Remounted the inner bumper.

Then, remounted the outer cover.

Viola! Now I am ready for phase II, the tubing and skid plate/lower radiator cover. Maybe next weekend...

 

[Yeeehaw86]

looks good. i definitely want to see the skid plate and winch mounts in the future.

 

[SVO]

Cool Chris, I understand about the bolts being a PITA, when I lived up there I cringed everytimg I had to work on a vehicle that was driven year around, the rust made everything so hard to get apart.
It either broke, stripped or rounded the head of the bolt off, and then you prolly had to cut the bolt off.

This looks to be turning out to be a cool project, keep it coming with Phase II.

BTW, are you a club memeber of the United Ford Owner's (UFO) up there, great bunch of people, we used to do autocrosses there at Powell Speedway till it closed. I think I may have a pic or two of that.

 

[kabukie]

looking good cant wait to see phase 2

 

['97 V8]

Hey Chris. Good talking to ya yesterday. Good job on the cut...didnt know that the 98 newer mounties had that reinforcemnt in the bumper..all i got is one long strip of metal. I hope i'll be able to come next weekend given my moronic boss cant make a decent work scheadule. Back to the topic..skidplates and bigger tires and you'll be in bussiness. Oh yeah a 4406 swap too hehe.

 

[chriswells78]

BTW, are you a club memeber of the United Ford Owner's (UFO) up there, great bunch of people, we used to do autocrosses there at Powell Speedway till it closed. I think I may have a pic or two of that.

No, I am not a member but I am definately going to look them up. I am a member of ohiorides.org and ohiocustomz.com. I have to show a bunch of young kids with their slow GTP's and F bodies what life is all about. LOL

Its a shame that Powell speedway went away. It was gone before I moved here. Powell has really turned into a yuppy place where most of the people would rather buy stuff than build it. It's a sad reality of our made for TV world though.

[QUOTE='97 V8]Hey Chris. Good talking to ya yesterday. Good job on the cut...didnt know that the 98 newer mounties had that reinforcemnt in the bumper..all i got is one long strip of metal. I hope i'll be able to come next weekend given my moronic boss cant make a decent work scheadule. Back to the topic..skidplates and bigger tires and you'll be in bussiness. Oh yeah a 4406 swap too hehe.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it would be cool if you could come and hang out. Meet some of my car buddies here. They are not much into trucks, but I'm working on them. One guy has a car that you have just got to see. a 92 Tbird with a 73 Olds 455 swaped in. We did it a few weeks ago. It is a 1 bad muta! It is now running! Just needs some tweaking and a hood!

 

[jimbo74]

is it jsut me, or does that look like a 96 bumper with no plastic attached to the bottom?

 

['97 V8]

So, whenya going to go ahead and do bumper swap phase 2 ?

 

[chriswells78]

Soon as my buddy, his dad and me all get time lined up. We wanted to do it last weekend, but that fell through, this weekend I am headed to San Diego and who knows about next weekend. I have the metal bent and mostly cut, just needs notched, welded and bolted on.