ZA. Bodywork Part #7
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Evolution Orange
2000 Miata LS
Bodywork Part #7
The front bumper cover is new. It comes ready to paint after a thorough cleaning and applying the adhesion promoter. However, there were no holes for mounting the front lip and the holes for the fog light surrounds were marked but not cut out.
I took the lip and placed it onto the bumper cover. I used some bolts to locate it on the corners since the holes are already there.
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Then I checked the alignment of the lip and marked the holes for drilling. I used an automatic punch to center punch the hole locations.
Then I drilled the holes to match.
While doing this I noticed one of the lip tabs was missing. It is near the corner of the lip and probably is not much of a problem, but I used a piece of the plastic removed for a surround to make a new tab. I used the plastic filler as glue and attached it to the lip. I will add some bracing and more filler to make it stronger. This may not last forever, but it will provide some support when the lip is attached.
The holes for the fog light surrounds were marked on the back side of the cover but I wanted to be sure they were correct size and location. So, I placed a piece of paper over the location and applied pressure to indent the paper with the marks. There was a mold line in the plastic that I used for reference and pressed its outline into the paper also. I used the same template for both sides by just flipping the template.
I cut the center of the paper out and used a pair of surrounds that I had purchased with the used bumper cover to see how they fit. They fit the paper fine. Each surround has either RH or LH marked on them and I was careful to keep them on the correct sides.
The orange surrounds had three pegs on one side for clips to secure them to the bumper cover. The pins were broken off the old ones from the used bumper cover. So, I laid the paper over and used pressure to locate the pins on the template.
I laid the surrounds on top of the template to see if they would lay correctly. Everything seemed good.
Then I used a Dremmel tool with a small router bit to carefully cut out each opening. I was careful to cut in a counter-clockwise motion so if the bit snagged it moved toward the center. I trimmed the edges with my dull pen knife.
I test fitted the old surrounds without pins and they fit perfectly.
I was concerned about drilling the holes for the pins correctly. I drilled the old surround pin locations out to make a drilling jig. I re-installed them and used them to guide the drill while making the holes for the pins.
The orange surrounds fit snug and perfectly. There are clips that go onto the pins from the back to hold the surround to the bumper cover.
I was very impressed with how everything fit. These parts are ready for paint.
06/25/2013