The Venge Gets A Face Lift

It was finally time to get rid of the hidious front bumper and spray-painted fenders. I found a used front on ASEC that came in very good shape minus a crack on the bottom of it. I fixed the crack in the bumper, straightened the fenders, and sprayed them at work.

The bumper itself is not available aftermarket through PartsChannel or Keystone. Also it's not available reconditioned through Salt Lake Chrome or Collins Collision Products. No yards in the state had one and all the yards that did have one wanted around $200 just to ship the thing!! Add the $200 they wanted for the bumper itself and that's way more then I wanted to spend!

After two months of searching I finally found a guy on ASEC that had one to sell. I paid $200 total for the bumper + shipping!! He managed to fold it into thirds and stuff it in a small enough box to ship FedEx!! When i got the package i took it out and set it outside in the sun for an hour so it could regain it's original shape. The only damage was some cracked paint and the pre-existing crack in the bottom that you can see in the picture to the left.

The following are pics of the repair on the bumper. I grinded down all the paint and used 3M panel bonding adhesive to do the repair.

After removing the paint

Here's patch on the inside of the bumper

After squeezing the adhesive through

Dry time: 24 hours

Fenders are straight and ready for primer!

Primered, sealed, based, and cleared!! Now they're ready for install!