front bumper install issue

[neeland]

I am about to order an OEM front bumper to replace mine. When i bought my car the front bumper was kinda tore up like every 2G i have ever seen, but i could live with it. Then after a heavy night of drinking i decided to let my room mate drive home and he went way over a concrete stopper at my apartment. Then decided to back up and ripped the metal bracket out of the bottom of the bumper along with cracking it and pulling the screws out of the inner fender wells. I may have been better off driving myself! With all that said I am wondering if all these things can be easily replaced and i can get my bumper back to looking normal or would this be better to let a body shop deal with and do what they need. I will try to post pics tomorrow if i can take some of the specific parts that are broken. Thank you for any help in advance

UPDATE: pics up

 

[spammy123]

the bumer really isnt very hard to remove and put back on, i would say remove the whole bumper to assess how much damage is done and try to fix it urself. bodyshops charge quite a bit in labor.

 

[TSiAWD666]

They can all be replaced. The question is whether or not you have the money to order the parts.

Try Rockville Mitsubishi in Maryland for good pricing if you don't have a discounting dealer local to you.

 

[neeland]

Thanks Im gonna take some pics in the morning and post them up. Im sure they will be alot more informative than anything i can try to explain. I understand that the body shop is gonna kill me on hourly pricing but it has to go in to get painted anyway. Thanks for the help pics coming tomorrow

 

[neeland]

sorry for no pics today...we had like 5 inches of rain down here...i am off tomorrow and will get some pics of the damage up for some opinions

 

[kenamond]

I have a similar story with my front cover (no booze or roommates involved, though...I backed over a cut-off sign post which snagged/tore it). The corners of the covers have a metal plate that goes under the plastic cover (so the plastic is sandwiched between the metal plate and the metal fender). What happened to my driver's side was that the bolt pulled out and pulled the fender a bit with it. So you couldn't bolt a new fender up as it was. I took a block of wood and a hammer and bent it back up so that it was flat and so that the seam between the cover and fender was back to normal. Some of the paint chipped off the fender, but you can't see it unless you look very close.

As for the cover, take it off (it's like 9 bolts or so - 5 or so on the top by the hood latch (there's a long plate with bolts on it) and maybe two bolts on each corner (where the first plates I mentioned before are). I think that's it.

After the cover is off, unbolt the long metal support bracket that runs along the bottom-inside of the cover It's probably bent/twisted pretty badly (mine was twisted 180 degrees). Take a hammer, vice grips, pliers, whatever to it and bend/bash it back into shape. The metal is thin, and you can do pretty much whatever you want with it given some time and patience (and hammer). My cover tore, but after straightening the bracket, it went back to its original shape and the tear sort of closed up (maybe yours is worse than mine). Test fit the bracket to the cover and make sure the bolt holes line up...that'll be the key to getting the cover to hold the right shape. Then fix the fenders (hopefully they're not too bad) and put the cover back on. It might be good enough that you can live with it for several months while you look for a new cover.

I just picked up a 2gb talon cover today for $50 (plus $80 in gas ). Needs sanded, the bracket is bent up (get to bash/bend once again), and then needs paint.

If you could do me a favor...post some good pics of the long bottom metal bracket. I'm wondering if the Eclipse and Talon brackets are the same...Talon-specific parts like that are a bi*** to find in the States. Might even be the same as the 2ga one...if so, that'd be good to know.

I just remembered I have before/after pictures of the cover...I'll post them in a sec.

Before:

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After:

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[neeland]

thats a very close representation of what i have going...that plus both sides ripped off the inner plastic and the front is broke up alil more...i have tried to get pics for a couple mornings now before i have gone to work but i have just been to busy...i will make sure i get some tomorrow morning and get them on here...i only have a camera on my phone hopefully they will be clear enough to see...but it is a pretty good camera...thank you for your help and sorry it took me so long to get back...i didnt see that anybody had said anything else...it sounds like that bottom bracket you are talking about is the same beast i am dealing with...pics up tomorrow!!!

 

[neeland]

ok here are the pics. Sorry if they are kinda blurry but they are with my cellphone. oh and sorry my ugly mug had to be in one of them too

right side inner fender

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broke brackets under the front

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left side inner fender

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[kenamond]

I spent an hour or so last night fixing the long bottom metal bracket from my "new" cover. It's like straightening out a paper clip and trying to make it a perfect wire. It takes time, but it's not hard. If your bracket is the same, it's symmetric. If one side is bent, look at the other to see what it's supposed to look like. I used my hands for starters, then two pairs of pliers for some of the kinks and things my fingers could fix, then I used a vice to flatten out the whole length of the "bottom" which is supposed to be flat (lay it on a flat surface and it should touch all the way along the bottom). I also used a tack hammer and a normal hammer on the vice's "anvil" part to mash out major bumps and to get the lips and tabs to be flat. It looks almost new now. The cover had sat in the messed up shape for years in someone's garage, so the plastic was wavy along the bottom where the bracket bolts. I have an 8-foot banquet table in the garage, so I clamped the plastic (supposed to be flat) between some scrap 2x4 and the top of the table using quick-adjust wood clamps. I'll leave it like that for a week and see if the waves get better. If you're up for it, you could almost certainly fabricate your own bracket out of a piece of angle iron.

I had mentioned that there were only 9 or so bolts. there are 7 for the bracket, two on each fender, 5 along the top-middle, and two under each head light. I forgot about the ones under the head lights. They're a major pain to get at. Fortunately for me, when I had the car worked on 8 years ago, they left those bolts off afterward. I remember reading about how to get them off, but that was several years ago.

Get the cover off and you'll learn more about the situation.

 

[just2asian]

Here is a write up on how to pull a eclipse bumper. Hope it helps. 2G Bumper Removal 98 Eclipse RS

 

[neeland]

i think i can figure out the metal bracket. I hope i can i should say. My real worry is the inner finder wells. i dont think its even a matter of getting bolts...that whole area right there is toast..i am assuming i could go with the zip tie technique that i have heard so much about now. How do the zip ties work replacing the bolts? if anybody has pics of this please post them. I would like to get this looking right with out having to go to a body shop. I just dont have alot of time to play with it unfortunately. Thats why i am going to try to do all the research and get all the pics of other people's that i can so when i do have the time itll be a one run thing. THANKS

 

[crimsondragon]

It seems as if DSMs bumpers are notorious for breaking in that area. Mine is broken like a split lip. Hopefully that tutorial on how to fix it with fiberglass will help.

 

[arturo74r]

I know this thread is kind of late but I couldn't find another place to post this information which i find useful. You can buy talon-specific parts in this web page, you can find 2ga and 2gb bumpers and everything OEM. Expect to play a pretty penny. Here's the link https://www.dodgeparts.com/oe_parts_catalog.html

If somebody knows another place to post this please do so. Good luck guys