Installing the new front Bumper
One of the gretaest difficulties of the operation was finding a vendor and a shipper.
I purchased (finally) my valence and bumpers from GAS Racing.
I was paralyzed with indecission when some wise words form the folks at Imagine swayed me.
"All fiberglass fits like socks on a duck, buy what is the cheapest!"
GAS was not THE CHEAPEST, but darn close. I went ahead and placed my order. Kevin was pleasant on the phone and tried to work with me despite the fact that he is not really a mail order place.
I ended up paying quite a bit for air-shipping. It was not needed but the thought was that they are more gentle than truck shipping, who knows... but it got here!
The quality of the parts is excellent. All hand laid, very light and very strong.
The rear bumper is very nice. The weight reduction could hardly be in a better location.
And finally the cooler itself.(purchased form Imagine Auto, these guys are great)
First the old bumper had to come off.
It was amazing to me that the rubber lip and valence weigh more than the actual bumper. The bumper strust are fairly hefty though.
The stock nerf bar for my AC will provide some protection for the Oil cooler as well as some additional support.
After buying a welder and learning to weld (I watched the video) I discovered that I would not need to fabricate anything to fit my front bumper. I did add a support tab to the nerf bar so that there will be less strain on the latch panel and less chance of it deforming.
At first it did fit like socks on a duck, but with a little tweaking it looks pretty good.
In these images I have a lot of fit work to do; triming the cooler cut-out, cutting in the lights, trimming, adding the protective screen for the cooler BUT it is starting to look like a bumper!
