Legana Bumper Restoration...(Pic Heavy!)

[sprinter2012]

Managed to pick up a Genuine Legana bumper for a couple of hundred quid last weekend.

It was cheap because it had been fitted to a drift car and was a bit knackered, but I'm always looking for the next project so I thought why not...

My first job was to aquire all the fillers and glues etc. that I would need for it.

The list of items I purchased was as follows:

3M 2 Part Epoxy Adhesive - Flexible filler/adhesive for external smoothing of cracks/dents

3M Automix Superfast Plastic Adhesive - Plastic in a tube, cures solid in about 5 minutes, and can then be drilled for rebuilding broken tabs etc.

3M Polyolefin Adhesion Promoter - To make stuff stick

3M Automix Instant Plastic Repair Patch - Basically a large patch made of 3M VHB tape to stick on the back of cracks, supports the crack to allow filling from the front.

Comes to a total of about £80, plus a few other bits like sand paper and cloths etc.

This is how the bumper looked when it arrived...

(looks okay, but holes had been drilled in it in several places to put cable ties through as the mounting holes had been broken. There were also 3 cracks, each about an inch long. The fender mounting tabs were broken or missing. And one of the grill mounting areas was broken quite badly)

Now the work begins...

Holes near fender mounts with filler before sanding...

And again after sanding...

The large crack and it's 4 holes after prep for filling...

A very blurry picture of the massive reinforcing patch that went behind the crack to strengthen it...

The crack and holes filled...

And then again, but after sanding...

Also spent a little time straightening out a few bits with a heat gun because I'm a perfectionist, but it's coming along nicely.

[sprinter2012]

All holes are filled, cracks fixed, low spots re-filled, and number plate support gone.

Just one final bit of sanding tomorrow (I decided to leave work at half 8 after 3.5 hours of sanding, filling and drilling tonight)

I also plan to fill the rear of the centre section with expanding foam to give it a bit more rigidity now I've chopped out the number plate support.

Crack in foglight surround filled...

Same bit but after sanding...

Reconstructed grill mounting point...

Reconstructed fender mounting points (during)...

And one of the above pictures but after I had re-drilled the mounting point...

Bumper with number plate support...

Bumper after I attacked it with an angle grinder and a dremel...

And the filler in the two holes it created being left to set...

[ghost_shell]

Wow good progress work ! i like this bumper, never understood the cable ties, not a good look imo no matter how popular it was/is.

[sprinter2012]

Wow good progress work ! i like this bumper, never understood the cable ties, not a good look imo no matter how popular it was/is.

Thanks :) I think in this case the cable ties were actually for a purpose...to hold the bumper together because it was broken! lol

But you do see a few JDM drift boy wannabees with cable ties on their car trying to look cool.

[sprinter2012]

Next batch of pictures ready :)

Today's developments are as follows:

Clean up and smoothed over the holes where the number plate support used to be

Rubbed down the whole bumper a bit more to key it for painting

Fitted LED DRL's under the foglights (wait till you see the pictures before you go "ooh noo, he didn't?)

Anyway on with the pictures, carrying on from the last picture in my last update post...

Number plate support holes sanded and smoothed...

Did a test on my LED strips to see what multiples they are wired in (turns out it's in 3's). And luckily I needed 12 for what I was planning...

Used the number plate support as a test to see how easy it would be to mount the LED's from behind, as I didn't want anything visible from the front like these giant bicycle light looking things you get from Halfords

Test piece roughly drilled and LED's test fitted...

And hey presto, flush mounted LED's...

So having proved to myself that it works, I drilled (much more carefully) the hole pattern for the lights in the back of the recess in the bumper...

Stuck the LED's through the holes from the back...

Which from the front looked like this...

Then a close-up of them illuminated...

And some further away shots...(they look much better in real life by the way)

[sprinter2012]

Latest bumper related update:

These bad boys turned up at work today...

4" driving lamps with built in LED angel eyes.

Note 'Driving Lamps' not 'fog lights', they come with wiring and relays to link them up to your main beam circuit so you can cook rabbits before they reach your bumper ;)

And also got another relay which will automatically turn off my DRL's when the sidelights & halos come on :)

[sprinter2012]

Yet another update...

Went into work on Saturday to have a go at making some brackets to hold my new driving lights in the bumper.

I succeeded in getting them to hold the lights securely, but they didn't sit inside the bumper in a position I'm happy with, so I'll remake them tomorrow with a slightly different design.

Brackets cut and punched...

Then folded...

And with the light attached...

They sit too high and too far forward in the bumper for my liking with the brackets how they are now, so I'm going to do the same thing again but with a deeper bracket. And I'll make my own version of the stainless steel bit that came with the light so it hangs down further to centralise it vertically more.

[NEOCON]

Interesting little project. I like the idea with the LEDs.

[sprinter2012]

Right, finally managed to do some more work on the bumper as it's being sprayed soon. I haven't worked with carbon since college but I think it went okay.

If I could do it again however, I wouldn't have bothered going for the pre-preg cloth, as it kept trying to unstick itself on the inside edges because it didn't like being folded back on itself.

Here's a few pictures I took along the way.

First job was to removed the lip along the back edge of the centre bar, I used VERY course sandpaper for this as the final finish wasn't important at this stage...

And now with the lip removed...

Black resin basecoat applied, had to leave this for about 4-5 hours to go tacky before applying the cloth...

Carbon cloth laid in place before I started pressing it into place...

And after the first coat of resin top coat...

Going to go back into work tomorrow to make sure it hasen't destroyed itself over night, and give it a quick sand and a 2nd coat of resin before I polish it up. :)

[BRUC3]

Top work!

Looks like its going to be a real nice bumper when its finished!!

Looking forward to the next update!

[Rory]

U sure u don't wanna finish by spraying it red and selling it to me when its finished?

Top job!

[SM Is200 Sport]

Is this finished yet?? really like what your doing with the carbon

[sprinter2012]

Is this finished yet?? really like what your doing with the carbon

Almost...:) I've done all the bits I can do, I'm just waiting to get it sprayed at the moment.

After I finished smoothing the resin and put another couple of coats on it now looks like this...

[Monster-Mat]

very impressive, like your attention to detail...nice one!!