Welsh g60 0 Posted February 25, 2004 I need to replace my front bumper, got an almost mint one taking up 3/4 of the utility-room floor. So after Henny told me where to find the bolts I went to do the swop but the bolts just spin, the captured nut on the bumper bar must have sheared off. I've asked around but no one seems to know what to do, there isn't enough clearance above the bumper bar to make cutting the heads off the bolts and pushing them through an option and I've been told by a body shop that my only option is to have the chassis cut and then rewelded at an extortionate price. :cry: Any advice or suggestions would be most appriciated before I go and empty my wallet Thanks Chris Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted February 25, 2004 I've got my bumper off at home at the moment... I'll have a look at it tonight to see if I can work out a way of soving this when I get home tonight... 8) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
daves16v 1 Posted February 25, 2004 Only thing I can think of is applying downward pressure while turning the bolt. This might hold the nut on the inside just enough to loosen it. Try wedging something between bolt and chassis then undo. It's worth a try. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Welsh g60 0 Posted February 26, 2004 Thats not a bad idea, nice one. I'll give that a go as soon as it stops snowing :thumbleft: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted February 26, 2004 I had a look at my bumper last night (i just forgot to post up what I found :oops: ) The bumper brackets that go into the chassis legs (that have the 2 captive nuts on 'em that have sheared off on your car) are angled so that they are not as tall at the back as they are closest to the bumper. This means that you may well be able to grind the rear heads off and lift them out. The fronts though, may be a bit more tricky to do... I did notice that the bumper hangers (the bits that go into the chassis legs) are bolted to the back of the bumper's ironwork, so you may well be able to unbolt them from the back of the damaged bumper to get more access. There's 3x 13mm headed bolts on each hanger. If you can get the hangers off the ironwork, you may well be able to get in at the captive nuts with a spanner, or molegrips to stop it turning while you undo the front bolts, and then take the heads off the rear bolts and lift the hangers out one at a time... 8) Have a close look to see if you can get at the hanger's bolts behind the bumper and see what you think... 8) Good luck! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted February 27, 2004 Hmmm....following an accident last night where I shunted a Corsa up the backside (a good choice of car to send scrap-bound I think you'll agree) has left me with a similar problem. The force of the impact has sheered the front bolt off completely and broken the weld on the captive nut for the rear bolt. I did consider grinding the head off the rear bolt with the hope that it'd lift out, but I'm not convinced there's enough room inside the chassis leg. Similarly, I could see no easy access to the bolts that attach the bumper hangers to the ironwork. If I manage to solve this I'll post the solution immediately. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted February 27, 2004 If it's just the rear bolt that's holding the hanger in, and the front one's not attached at all any more, you should be able to grind the head off the rear one and push the front of the bumper down to remove it from the chassis leg. The hanger is tapered towards the back of the car, so it's nowhere near as tall inside the leg as it is at the front of it... 8) I'll take a photo of it in the morning so you can see what I'm getting at... 8) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted February 27, 2004 Cheers, a pic would help a lot. The front bolt is sheered, I assume, level with the bottom of the hanger since this was the part that was forced backwards. I have the sheered part of the bolt as it was conveniently prevented from falling out by the brake cooling duct. However, I forgot to offer it up to the chassis leg to confirm this. I notice there's enough room (with the inner wheel arch removed) to get a crowbar between the chassis leg and the crossmember, allowing considerable downward pressure to be applied. Hopefully this, along with a blast of the air ratchet, will be enough to hold the ex-captive nut and shift the bolt without destroying it. If not it's grinder time! Considering the force of the impact I'm fairly impressed with the way the Corrado took it. The bumper isn't even broken, just pushed back about an inch. This has in turn mangled the slam panel fairly though. When I bought the car the driver's side indicator lens was cracked while the passenger side was perfect. Guess which one got obliterated.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted February 28, 2004 Okay....job done, problem solved, etc. I finally succeeded in getting the bumper off this afternoon. To recap, only the rear of the two bolts on the passenger side had broken the weld around the captive nut, although knowing what I know now both could be removed by grinding the heads off and pushing the remainder up into the chassis leg. Since I couldn't be sure there was enough room to do this when I started I had to take slightly extreme measures to prove it. I hope this will make it clear to others what needs to be done in the future. I call it 'taking one for the team', and since the car is a pile of crap anyways, who cares?!....... I had planned to simply hacksaw through the bolt shank at the point between the chassis leg and the crossmember, but it was clear that this was impossible to do with the bolt fully tightened. I needed to gain access to the ex-captive nut in order to slacken the bolt off a little, if not remove it completely. After removing the indicator from the bumper I found I could see up the chassis leg through the small hole the cable passes through. Here comes the grim part.... I removed the battery, and by poking a screwdriver through the hole for the battery clamp bolt I was able to roughly locate the position of the ex-captive nut below. Using a small-ish holesaw I drilled two holes through the top of the chassis leg on which the battery sits, creating a slot. The captive nut is square, and measures 17mm across the flats. I used the open end of a combination spanner to grip the nut, and held it by passing a socket extension bar through the ring spanner end to form a 'T' shape. Using an air ratchet on the bolt head I was able to slacken the bolt enough to allow access to the bolt shank between the chassis leg and the crossmember. I had to hacksaw through the shank as the bolt was too rusty to remove completely. Following a post bumper removal inspection I can confirm that there IS enough room to grind the heads off both bolts and push the remainder up into the chassis leg. This is indicated in the attached picture where you can see the chassis leg is deep enough to contain the ENTIRE bolt. In future, if faced with the same problem, this is the method I will be using!!!! Good luck to all others facing un-captive bumper retaining nuts.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted February 28, 2004 Well done, bcstudent, That's a fantastic piece of work there... 8) Should help a lot if anyone ever gets stuck in this unfortunate position again... 8) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted February 28, 2004 Thanks. I can see now what you meant about the tapered hangers too Henny! Incidentally, the metal I drilled through under the battery is very thin and would offer little in structural rigidity I'd say, in case anyone was wondering! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Welsh g60 0 Posted February 29, 2004 :D :D :D Excellent, so I can just take the heads of the front and rear bolts and they'll push through, nice one bcstudent, you've just saved me a small fortune that garages wanted for doing this. Incidently the local vw stealer asured me that there wasn't enough room to do this and instead a large amount of work with an equally large wad of cash would be required to fix it, lying b**tards. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henny 0 Posted February 29, 2004 Thanks. I can see now what you meant about the tapered hangers too Henny! Incidentally, the metal I drilled through under the battery is very thin and would offer little in structural rigidity I'd say, in case anyone was wondering! Cool! As I said, I wasn't sure if you could lever the rear ones out if cut when you'd undone the front ones... you can see what I was getting at now can't you! ;) Most of that chassis arm is there to collapse under impact anyway (that's why it's ribbed) so a hole in it that size isn't really going to make a huge difference as long as you make sure you treat it properly with primer and paint ETC before just plonking the battery back over it... ;) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted February 29, 2004 Welsh g60: Even if, for some strange reason, there's something different about your car that prevents you from pushing the whole bolt through after the head is ground off all is not lost.... After supporting the engine, removing the final crossmember bolt (17mm head, halfway between the two bumper retaining bolts but offset towards the wing) will allow the crossmember to drop away from the chassis arm as far as your engine support will allow. This provided access to cut through the bolt shank, leaving less than an inch of bolt to push through. Either way it can be done with no cutting and rewelding of the chassis arm and will cost, at most, the price of a few bolts and the rewelding of new captive nuts on the bumper hangers. I hate lying b**tards! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VR6 0 Posted February 29, 2004 Going to move this to Common Question now so that hopefully your write-up will be able to help others in future. :) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
