Have you ever been driving along at night and seemingly out of nowhere BOOM! something hits your plastic bumper? Depending on the speed and the weather conditions it's highly possible that that plastic bumper will just shatter! That is exactly what happened to my son and I a few weeks ago when I was taking him to his dad's for the weekend. It was bitterly cold and we were driving around 65 miles per hour. A pretty standard rate in the back roads of South Dakota.
I looked all over online for a quality bumper replacement and I found quite a few that were decently priced. But then once you looked at the shipping it was outrageous! The claim was that the bumper was about 95 lb to ship. When in all actuality, it was closer to 5 to 10 pounds. So I did what I always do and I dug around on eBay and on Amazon. I found one that I thought was worth the price on amazon.com. I very well could have gone to a salvage yard, but I am in the middle of a rattle can paint job that I plan to finish this summer and the bumper was already black...❤ it!
Although my vehicle is a Chevy, and this bumper is a universal fit, I was able make some minor adjustments and get it on there properly. There were some challenges. Partially because it was smaller than the box it came in and because it was plastic they did fold one end of it. It is still the middle of winter and so that plastic did not just magically go back into place. A little winching and a little strong-arming and she is now positioned seamlessly.
So to start off, what you will need to do is pop the hood and remove all the body retaining clips. You will need to remove those from the grill as well although in this vehicle it is an entirely separate part from the bumper. I learned something new on this project! These retaining Clips are the type that have a plastic cylinder that goes through a retaining nut type of deal. I will show pictures. Some people use a special tool for those. However, you could use a butter knife to get those bad boys off. Just slide your butter knife or putty knife or whatever tool you choose to use right under the little circle at the top of the retaining clip. Lift up and viola! It comes out super easy! And you don't have to buy new ones. They go in just as easy as they come out if not easier. Keep the center pin up when you insert the bottom portion and once seated, just push that pin down. Super Easy!!
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| Super Blurry...Sorry! |
Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy throughout the remainder of the project. If you think this is going to be a 45-minute job, maybe you're lucky and it will be that way. Mine, since I had never done this before, took me about three hours. (I took frequent warm up breaks).There will be a number of body clips that you need to remove along the top, the wheel well, and a couple just under the grill area on the bumper. There will also be screws that need to be removed underneath the bumper and on the inside wall of the bumper.
My special tip for this project is to have a saw on hand. If you are not keeping the old bumper...just cut it away so that you can easily access one of the screws on the inside wall. Otherwise all of the other screws can be removed fairly easily if they're not rusted onto their body clips, which a lot of mine were due to salted roads etc.
Once you have the bumper off, you can start installing the new one. Be sure to check your reflectors and make sure that they fit snugly inside the vacancy that was meant for them. I had to shave off some of the plastic on the new bumper to get a good fit. You can use your old retaining clips on the plastic as well however you may have to shave down that side to get the hole to line up too. If you bought a salvage bumper, this wouldn't be necessary of course.
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| Naked and Afraid! |
Now to line it up and make it fit!! My tip here, would be to make sure each side matches on the wheel well area first. I originally tried to center the middle portion by the grill. However, since that bend was in the new plastic, it didn't line up by the tire. Even after aligning the grooves on the inside of the plastic that hooked up to the rest of the body. So, I had to winch it that extra 1/2 inch or so to hold it into place while I got that screw on closest to the wheel well. I tried a number of different locations on the bumper before I found one that would actually winch it in the right direction (sideways instead of up closer to the body). After you button all of that up, the remainder of the adjustments are fairly simple.
The rest of the project is the reverse of the procedure. I opted not to add those ridiculous inner screws that are closest to the light on the inside of the body, but you may feel better about making sure that they are installed. ☺ I almost always have a leftover screw or two with a project that has a ton of them.
Excellent work Grease Monkey! You have yourself a shiny new bumper for your hot ride!!
See the link below for the bumper that I found on Amazon for my Malibu. Or dig around for your own. Happy wrenching!!
The Bumper that I bought:
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