Pre facelift cars with post facelift bumpers

[marakka]

So I've got an 86 320i and I put the front facelifted bumper on... No sweat. Sporting smoked hellas and 88+ fogs along with the is lip.... I'm satisfied.... but took a while to decide to give the rear bumper a try. After reading Jordan's original article about this.... it seemed like a pain in the ass. Now..... My car is a euro so this may be easier..... But here goes..

I took the bumper off which is held on by 6 bolts. 1 in each fender well thats a 10mm. 2 total in the trunk 1 on either side 10mm each and 2 under the car one on either side 13mm each. The bumper was rusted off its mount on the drivers side so the mount stayed on the car and posed to be a pain in the ass.... it was. After getting everything off I've only got 2 holes in the rear. There was a 3rd hole that looked like it was centered in the frame rail. I took a saw-saw and started cutting.... The saw-saw grabbed the metal and ripped out a perfect square the same shape as the frame rail. WERD! All i did was use a ballpeen to round the edges so the shock would slide in. Now the new shock has 2 studs to mount it and I only had one hole from the old bumper that would line up. So I drilled new ones for the other side of the bumper support. No biggie. This done I moved on to the fitment issues.... Now here's where my questions come in. There is enough stud sticking through that I could space the bumper mounts out from the car a bit and move the bumper back so that it would not have to be cut. Has anyone done this? I know there will be a gap between the car and the bumper. I'm thinking I could use some fitted rubber gasketing (like around your door jambs) to fill this gap and take up some of the room. I'm just wondering why I haven't heard about anyone doing this or if there is something I'm missing?

[Madhatter]

the front is vastly different than the US cars too. If you unbolt your bumper mounts (2 bolts, 1 each side) it suddenly looks like the bumper shocks from a series II car would fit inside the rails 8)

[marakka]

They do. I did that no sweat. I wondered why this was setup like this. I mean...... its like they knew that they were going to change it when they designed it? The mount covers the hole that the shock slides into and the 2 bolts that hold the mount on line up with the 2 holes for the facelifted bumpers shock. It was too easy to swap. Took 45 minutes to rip off of one car and put on mine. Looks good.... and oh so sexy. Need to get some body work as one of the lower corners is bent from a curb or something.... so my iS lip don't look to good on it and the fog lights I put in yesterday aren't flush with the valance.

But back to the rear bumper.... I guess no one has spaced it out instead of cutting the edges? Or is the american one different? Is there a hole in the frame rail already from the bumper shocks on the a-spec cars? Thanks for the input fellas.

[Madhatter]

i cheated and left mine as it was with the chrome bumper.



How much of a gap are you going to be left with if you space it out?

[marakka]

Probably 3/4 of an inch to 1 1/2 inches depending on how I do it. I gave my car a good look yesterday and decided that my car has been in an accident on the drivers rear corner. So that side will be slightly more spaced than the other. I still think it will be alright if I get the right kind of rubber stripping to take up the space. I had metal bumpers that were painted and that looked decent... but now that I've got this on there I'm stoked about it. Looks mean. Need to find some rear valance to slide on it too.