Elan: New front bumper or fix/mod old one
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2018 9:25 pm
I will be painting my car in the coming months. As such, my original front bumper has two issues:
1. The original bumper was delivered at the factory with a cutout for the US front license bumper. Majorly ugly, so I had it filled shortly after I got my car back to the States. This old mod, now shows some "sagging" and non-uniformity. This would have to be smoothed out. Probably not that big of a deal.
2. I am also considering removing the Federal side reflectors faired into the bumper. These appear to me as an afterthought slapped on to satisfy US regs. An original non-US bumper, without the reflectors, is a much cleaner and purer look, to me. If removed in prep for paint, the molded mounting locations for the reflectors on the bumper would have to be smoothed out.
My question is whether to make the above repairs/mods to the original bumper, with the attendant extra labor, or instead opt for a new front bumper that does not have these two issues. With a new bumper am I going to face other issues of getting it to fit well on the body? In other words, would this a new one require extra fettling to get a proper alignment; an alignment and fit problem not present with the original bumper? Trying to understand the trade-offs of old vs new.
Those of you that have fitted a new bumper, I would be interested in your experience in getting a proper fit. And further, not relying on the chrome strip to hide a sloppy fit.
1. The original bumper was delivered at the factory with a cutout for the US front license bumper. Majorly ugly, so I had it filled shortly after I got my car back to the States. This old mod, now shows some "sagging" and non-uniformity. This would have to be smoothed out. Probably not that big of a deal.
2. I am also considering removing the Federal side reflectors faired into the bumper. These appear to me as an afterthought slapped on to satisfy US regs. An original non-US bumper, without the reflectors, is a much cleaner and purer look, to me. If removed in prep for paint, the molded mounting locations for the reflectors on the bumper would have to be smoothed out.
My question is whether to make the above repairs/mods to the original bumper, with the attendant extra labor, or instead opt for a new front bumper that does not have these two issues. With a new bumper am I going to face other issues of getting it to fit well on the body? In other words, would this a new one require extra fettling to get a proper alignment; an alignment and fit problem not present with the original bumper? Trying to understand the trade-offs of old vs new.
Those of you that have fitted a new bumper, I would be interested in your experience in getting a proper fit. And further, not relying on the chrome strip to hide a sloppy fit.