Cabrio arches and rear plastic bumper... Help

[SwiftE30]

im moching up my plastic bumpers on my 89 vert and the arches are different. from everything i have read plastics are supposed to be a direct bolt over. am i missing something here? should i just keep tinkering with it until i find the right fitment?
Sorry for the large pic size. Photobucket is being lame right now


oh, and looking at verts i noticed on the coupes that the crease where the bumper goes continues into the wheel arch, whereas on my vert, it kind of just fades away, so its creating a gap between bumper and body.

i did slot the bumper shock mounting holes and bumper shock slip, FYI

gap


arch difference


other side




Help Help Help

[KillaCam]

89 = virt early model = no plastic bumper

but....

you can make them work.. check the DIY section

[e30trooper]

Verts don't need any cutting to fit PB's Even for early models they have late model rear arches.
Its direct swap boe

[SwiftE30]

Yeah that's what I thought too, but these just dont want to fit.

[td325ic]

I think you need to play around with the placement some more. Looks to me like it's mounted too high or perhaps it's not level and it's tilted up where it meets the fender.

Here's some pics I saved from a mint ~30k mile e30 on ebay awhile ago. This should be a good representation of what the bumper gap should be from factory:

[idanity]

^^ but thats a sedan..not a vert for comparison...
in the OPs pix, you can see the rear arches being longer and traveling all the way down, whereas the sedans arches are bent and molded around the bumper (or where the bumper resides)

[td325ic]

He's trying to replicate the fitment of his bumper to the one from a plastic bumpered car and that's what my pics are there to illustrate. It doesn't matter if it's a late model, plastic bumpered vert or sedan. They're the same as far as the bumper fitment goes.

Comparing the pics it looks like he has his bumper mounted too high and the gaps are too tight. While it may seem counter intuitive there are supposed to be a bit of a gap between the bumper and body.

[SwiftE30]

Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it. The gapping makes sense now. I definitely have it tucked up tight in the pics. The thing that is getting me now is that on the late model cars the seat/crease for the bumper continues into the wheel arch whereas on my vert it stops at wheel arch. So when I put the bumper flush with the arch it creates bigger gap right at the transition to the arch.

[td325ic]

you need to grind away those guides on the bumper otherwise they'll interfere and give you the problems you're experiencing.

Like this:



Note: This is a shortened bumper I modified for an early model but the principle is the same. You can see how I sanded down the guides on the bumper otherwise they interfere.

[SwiftE30]

Ah thanks man. I'll try that tonight after work. It's a bummer though becaus I just bought the rear slide brackets thinking I needed them

[td325ic]

yeah it's much easier to use your own hardware to mount the "wings" of the bumper. Trying to use the OEM slider brackets would just be more trouble than it's worth.

When I was selling the shortened rear bumpers for early models I was recommending something like these insert nuts.

You would drill a hole in the side of the bumper and then install these. You may want to use epoxy as well to really keep it from ever coming loose.

There's are access hole in that area of the trunk that you can run a bolt through and into the insert nut, so no need to create more holes in the body of your car.

The reason to install a fixed nut into the bumper is because once the trim is on the bumper you wouldn't be able to get a wrench on it. Unless you rip off the trim breaking the clips.

You'll probably also want to use rubber washers to seal from water, fender washers, and you may need a nylon spacer between the bumper and body of the car to remove any play and keep the bumper from rattling.

You can get everything you need at home depot or Orchard Supply

If you come up with another good way to mount the bumper ends then please share

[SwiftE30]

thanks for all the suggestions man. I just got off work so i'm going to go work on it and see what i come up with. I'll post my results.

[DaveNorCal]

Todd to the rescue!

[SwiftE30]

thanks for the help guys. I know this is a late response but I managed to get another rear valance for dirt cheap. I'll be cutting this one up correctly so it will fit with no problems. Thread for late model valance on early model vert to come.

[bradnic]

resurrecting!

Thread for late model valance on early model vert to come.

SwiftE30 you got any pics of your finished DB vert rear plastic bumper conversion? What did you end up doing to mount the sides??

was hoping you had a build thread but guess not