Front Bumper Removal and Installation

Spent the afternoon installing the snorkel headlight washers. About 2 hours of this was removing and reinstalling the front bumper and most of that was spent examining the state so to decide what to do next. This is the time I was told it takes an experienced person to do it.

Steps are:

0) Car in gear, e-brake on, then jack up the front of the car and put in on jack stands. Get some soapy water and wash cloth to do some while you’re in there cleaning. There may be a lot of crud welded all over in the places you’ll be going. Also wear some eye protection since you’ll be under the car and grit may rain down on you.

1) Remove screws on left and right of rubber strip on front of bumper. They’re just to the inside of the parking lights.

The little screw through the rubber holds down the end of the Deco Strip.

2) Gently peel back the “Deco Strip” There is a plastic strip embedded in groves on the back side of the deco strip. Just gently peel the strip away and leave the plastic strip attached to the bumper.

Deco strip removed, plastic strip still attached to bumpers with rotate clips.

3) The plastic strip is attached to the bumper with 7 little clips. Turn them and they’ll fit through the rectangles in the plastic strip. I used players to turn them. Those clips you just spun are the male end of a male female set. The female set remains inside the bumper.

Clips rotated, ready to remove the plastic strip.

The plastic strip just comes off leaving the rotate clips behind.

Rotate clips left behind in bumper.

4) Gently pull the clips out of the bumper. I used vice grips. Wet them down first so there’s less friction. Now you might as well put the plastic strip back into the deco rubber you removed, then put the male clips into that plastic strip and give them a 90 degree twist. Put it somewhere safe so nothing is lost. Last thing you do later on reinstall is to pound those clips into place.

Male clip resting on bumper bolt next to female clip (in bumper)

5) On the front of the bumper you’ll see 4 big nuts. That is what holds the bumper on, but don’t touch them yet! First you need to disconnect the bellows. This is unpleasant due to crud that’s all up in there. Each bellow is rubber that is bolted to the bumper and to the body. The bolt heads are inside the bellow, the bolt sticks through the spoiler, through metal, through a metal strip and then through a washer before being held by a nut. Use an 8mm open spanner to undo these nuts, two on each side of the car. I was able to reach them pretty easily on my 79 with a small wrench, socket wouldn’t fit though because of the curve of the car body. Cars with the later oil coolers are more difficult to reach (or impossible to reach?). Once the nuts and washers are out, push/pull the bolts out of the spoiler. Pull the bellows out of the slot it lives in. Seemed ok to just leave the bellows attached to the bumper.

6.) Build a place to rest the bumper. The bumper holds parking lights and headlight washers, so it will come lose but won’t reach far. Built a table to rest it upon. My wife happened to be doing a project with some foam insulation she found, it made a perfect desk for the bumper to rest upon.

7.) Undo the 4 nuts that hold the bumper on. Bumper may be stuck in grime accumulated under and around it.

8.) Pull/work the bumper off its four bolts. It may not move far what with parking light wires and the hard plastic tubes that send water to the headlight washers. Rest it on the support you’ve built.

9.) Now the difficult part, to disconnect the headlight washer from the hard black plastic hose. I don’t have an easy answer here. The right side of mine could be gently rocked and twisted and the hose came free. The left side was stuck hard though. I used vise grips on it and the hose cracked. Was easy enough to replace the hose. Just be super careful not to damage any part of the headlight washers though. Expensive to replace.

10.) It’s possible to disconnect the parking lights from the bumper. The nuts are accessible from the back side of the bumper. I didn’t because I didn’t need the bumper free.

Now a few notes about the reinstall:

Before you start, give the bumper a good cleaning. Then cover it with wax. No need to wipe that wax off, leave a fresh coat on and it can only help to protect, right? Thats my excuse for all that white crap in the picture.

11.) Slide the plastic strip back into its groves in the rubber deco strip. First one side:

Plastic strip half inserted into rubber deco strip.

Then the other:

Plastic strip fully inserted into groves in Deco Strip.

12.) Install rotate clips into the plastic strip:

Plastic clip installed and rotated into plastic strip.

13.) Install deco strip back onto bumper.

If all has gone well you’ll have all the male ends of the rotate clips installed into the plastic strip which is installed into the groves of the rubber deco strip. Now you press the male pieces back into the female recepticles in the bumper.

I found it best to start in the middle and work out.

Rubber mallet!

I used a rubber mallet. Each fitting, once lined up, takes a single tap to install. If you find a fitting that doesn’t line up, stick your fingers in and move it over a little. All could be made to fit perfectly.

Knocking the clips back into the bumper from middle outwards.

Yay. Thats a lot of words and data for something that takes about 5 minutes to do. I document it here because it took me a few failed and semi elaborate attempts before I stumbled on this ordering. Getting rough won’t help here with 20-30 year old plastic so take it easy (because it is easy).

14.) Finally, lube up the screws with some grease and tack down the ends of the deco strip. Youre done! Now wash that car!

Leave a comment