Front Bumper Bolts

[prb44t]

Ok -- In the blue circles (attached photo) are the two bolts I am currently drilling out. I have the head of one broken off, and unfortunately last night my extractor snapped in the left one. So I either need to drill it out, or find another way to get the bumper off.

In Red are the bolts you mention that connect the shocks to the frame rails. My question is how do I get to those bolts from underneath and behind the bumper. From the looks of it the back of those bolts would not be exposed and the only way to get to those would be from the front of the car. But with the bumper on not sure how I would do that without busting through the bumper cover?

[brokenbimmer533]

Well that might be your problem. Those things that kinda look like a U-bolt are actually welded to the frame rails. So they don't come off. They are not attached to the bumper at all. They are tow hooks.

The red circles are the bolts you need to take off.
1.) Hit it with some WD 40 or PB blaster( any lube basically)
1.5)*Optional* This may or may not be necessary depending on the amount of room you have to work with. Just start taking bumper trim off. Look around for visible bolts which might unbolt a piece of trim so you can get to the desired bolts. If you get the front valence off then it will be much easier to reach.
2.) Reach your arm under the bumper/front valence to get at the bolts. The nut that the bolts screw into is welded to the frame rails. So you don't need to throw a wrench on that. Just get a socket and ratchet on that guy and your good to start wrenching.

Might be easier to put the car and jack stands as well. Then you can get underneath and really check it out. Good set of ramps would do the trick as well.

Hope this helps.

This is honestly how I unbolt just about everything: Find all the visible bolts on the object that attach it to the car. Now what is in the way of you getting to those bolts? Take that shit off and set it to the side. Keep repeating the process until you get the desired object off.

If my car wasn't an hour away I would go and take some pictures of exactly what I'm talking about.

Good luck.

[prb44t]

Well, now I am bit confused. There are 2 bolts (1 on each side) that are perpendicular to the ground that I have been trying to remove. You have to lie down to see those two. Those are 100mm long (4 inches roughly) and I think they run up through the area of the blue circle into the frame rail (red).

Aren't those the bolts I am supposed to remove?

Keep in mind I do not have the chrome bumper, I have the plastic body colored one piece.

[brokenbimmer533]

The bolts Im talking about run parallel to the ground. I have only taken off the diving board or chrome bumpers. Both my 318 and 533 had them. Never had that new fancy plastic bumper stuff. lol

I don't think it would be too different though. You are still going to have bumper shocks. So those need to be unbolted. I bet there is more trim that needs to be addressed with plastic bumpers.

Hopefully someone that has taken off plastic bumpers will let you know.

Do you have a bentley manual?

Good luck with it.

[prb44t]

I am attaching some pics (not mine) from google. The first one shows the bumper bolt (for the rear bumper but same idea) and the second one shows the black mounting arm that I am trying to extract the bolt from. Based on this picture I don't see how I could get to the frame rail bolts in the red circles.

[brokenbimmer533]

ratcheting wrench? or ordinarry wrench but it will take longer.

So you stripped out the allen bolt?

[prb44t]

They were stripped from a previous owners attempt I assume. I was unable to get a good fit on the bolt. So I began to drill the bolt out, and used a bolt-out (extractor) and snapped the head of one of the bolts off. So technically this side should be free to move.

On the other side the hardened steel extractor snapped inside the hole. So now I have 2 options
1) try and drill through the extractor and try again
2) weld a socket onto the head of the bolt so I can mount my breaker bar

unless someone has another option. By the way I have no welding equipment so I am hoping I can go to my local muffler shop and see if they will weld it on for me.

this is a real PITA to just fix a turn signal...

[brokenbimmer533]

Jesus christ. I dont know what happened but that sounds messed up.
You are going to have to replace the bolts anyway so I would order new ones now. Then start drilling that one out.
You could try to get a socket welded on there but if the weld breaks your back to square one.
I would try drilling first then use the extractor.
If that fails try getting it welded.

Can you get a wrench on the 2 bolts on the shock? or is there not enough room

[prb44t]

Just a quick update I tried to get the socket welded to the bolt, but unfortunately the bolt was so rusted that we couldn't get a good ground to get it welded. So I have to clean the bolt to get a better metal surface for welding....