Rear Bumper

[ident]

After the huge success of my last post ' rear grilles ' where I still dont know how to get them off ... can anyone let me know in really simple terms how to get the rear bumper off please

If it is difficult then I probably wont bother, dont want to start and then find out there is a big problem !

There have been mentions of wheels off, inner arches off etc for example !

Thanks in advance, Ian

[Steve jm]

Ian,

You can sometimes just remove the diffuser and slightly pull out the bumper cover to get to the grille bolts, but we tend to find that the diffuser bolts are seized.
If that is the case then it does mean that the Arch Liners and Rear lamps need to be removed so that you can get to all the bumper bolts directly.

Steve

[Henry M]

Here is the process for removing the bumper from AMFixer on 6speedonline:

[ident]

Hmm again ... like the first option especially as my diffuser already has been off so i know that the bolts come undone OK, will have a look at the weekend and see how possible it all is !

Having said that the diffuser was also a right monkey to put back on again as the nuts dropped out about 1,000 times !

Second set of instructions look a lot more like I imagined it would be

Thanks for all of the input so far

Cheers

Ian

[ident]

Finally managed it !

It was a right pain but possible without taking the bumper off

You can pull it away just enough to wedge a piece of wood carefully between the slipper supports that have the parking sensors on and the bumper and then get an Allen key in and get the grilles off ...

Hopefully the refitting wont be so bad after they are powder coated ....

Thanks for the assistance with this

Cheers

Ian

[MaverickV12]

Hello, any chance of photos of what you are doing, would really help the rest of us when we need to do it

[Beoon]

Ian,
Did you take off all the mesh grilles at the back by just flexing the gap at the bumper
When I was washing my car yesterday I did notice you can squeeze the bumper up and feel the grille fixings.
The reason I am asking is that if you can get the the grilles off without bumper removal then it should be possible to get the
metal valance/ spoiler off as well ( with PDC sensors) so would it be possible to fit a Carbon Fibre diffuser at the rear without bumper removal?

[ident]

Sadly there is not a lot to take photos of really ... here is a more detailed description of what I did ...

Undid the fasteners on the splitter and dropped it off, note the way that the nut / bracket things go in the casings for future reference ( small slot towards the front of the car and ' nuts up '

Remove as many of the fixings holding the grilles as you can from under the car that are not behind the bumper ( a couple of 8 mm bolts and some TORX head fittings also ) , I found that you can undo them either with a allen key ( it is not as big as my TORX set ) and then rotate the fixing with your fingers until it drops out

Now the fun begins ! ....

Pull the bumper forwards a little ( maybe 1 inch ) and drop a spacer between the bumper and the reversing sensor castings, make sure that this is padded ( I used a small block of wood wrapped in a cloth ) so you dont damage the paint on the bumper.

It is then just ( and I repeat just ) possible to get an allen key up behind the bumper and undo the remaining fasteners ... it is a right pain but just possible ... once you start I think that this will all make sense ...

I do think it may be possible to take off the castings also by this method although you will then have to brace the bumper off something else of course ...

Dont know about the carbon splitter, it may be possible but i dont know where the fixings are ....

In all took me about 2 hours with a 30 minute - stress reduction break in the middle !

The grilles are being powder coated today so lets see how easy it is to put them back ... having said that put the diffuser back on again without them and it looks OK too !

Ian