Vixen bumper resto

[NicBowman]

Hi, I think have almost got all of the 53 years of crap off the car, plus nearly all the rusted in bolts, which was most of them…

So far, 1 dremel, 1 Proxxon (like a dremel), one Dewalt 18v drill (took some doing…), countless drill bits and grinding attachments. All knackered.

In the end, I found the best for bigger boots is to drill through the nut flat with increasing size drills until the head falls off. If only the original owner had sprayed a little oil around!

So, question. Bumpers have two coach bolts and a central stud. Stud a major victim of rust and will need to be cut off then thread in aluminium recovered, re threaded, etc at great fiddliness. Any clues as to what folks do? Is it really needed?

Thx

Nic

[nwarner]

All of mine are just held in by the coach bolts. I don't think they need the middle stud to give more protection in an accident

Nige

[NicBowman]

Yes, I am sure the middle bolt will stop the 12 gallons of petrol exploding in a rear end!

Nic

[Monkeythree]

Middle stud superfluous. Don’t faff around with it.
For the two outer ones, you can easily find stainless steel coach bolts with the correct sized square neck and then turn the heads down to the right diameter.

[Granturadriver]

Yes, one can live without the middle bolt, it is not necessary: neither to fix nor to aligne the bumper.

[NicBowman]

Thx! One less job to do. Got half way stripping the paint off. Boy that is a cr@p job…

Going to pay someone…

Nic

[GeneralBanter]

Chemical metal for threads ? The only place it has any use round here is for making good gasket surfaces like carb float chamber edges.

Rely on that for a bumper and he’ll be back to just the two fixings after a days driving!