After the Trashwagon's little tangle with a two-door Lumina, I'm left to repair the damage.

 

I've got the damaged fender off and most of the radiator support straightened out - but now I have to deal with the tweaked-rump roast metal bumper. The front right side is still firm on its mounts since the collision was on the left, but the left mounts had the screw holes break and the mount bend in, leaving the bumper on the ground.

 

I've now got the mount straightened but I need to get the bumper off to un-tweak it first. How do I go about it? It seems like the thing is mounted to the bracket pretty awkwardly - and I really don't want to undo the brackets from the frame side of things, because there is some pretty thick hardware there.

 

Not sure about the EA81's, but on the newer ones the bolt goes thru one end, and threads onto the frame mount.

So, if the bolt is mangled or won't turn, you might have to grind off the bolt on the threaded mount to pull the bolt out from the non threaded side. The tricky part is that you'll have to remove the fendor to have a clear shot at the threaded mount. To re-mount the bumper, you'll need an oversized bolt with a washer and nut that'll go thru the bumper and both frame mounts.

Fox is pretty good at improvised fixes and may have an easier method. Check with him before doing anything drastic...

good luck, John

You need to remove the brackets from the frame. Its only 4 bolts.

 

-Brian

Managed to get it off of the bracket...and it's pretty thoroughly f*cked. I need a new bumper and a new mount on the front left side. Even with a lot of heat I couldn't get that bumper straight.

 

However the rest of the damage is fixing up pretty nicely...well, nicely enough. It is a Trashwagon, and I'm no expert body shop tech....

 

Fox may be able to figure something out, but the whole reason I'm fixing it is because he doesn't have the space, and I don't know if he'd be able to run out here to help me - expecially with the sh*tty weather we're having.

 

I'll figure something out.