Well GM and their infinite wisdom decided to put those ugly black bumpers on my car and not even paint them. So I decided to fix that and Ive been working on my Z24 front bumper and finally finished it. It was pretty beat up and got a nice fat gouge in the bumper when I was at the junkyard pulling it. So I used some plastic filler and filled in that gouge as well as all the other spots from rocks etc.
Today I wetsanded it one last time before I was going to attempt to install it. So I pulled off the old bumper, headlights and grille and ran into the awesome base bumper honeycomb that is behind the cover. Well the base and the Z bumpers have different honeycomb shapes so I busted out the angle grinder. It tore through the plastic honeycomb like butter. After a few test fittings I finally got it cut down enough to where it fit properly. I then reinstalled all the lights etc and finished up everything.
Tomorrow my AN lines will be coming so Ill install my oil filter kit as well as swap out my grease fittings on my FE7 bar for a set of 90* that will allow me to regrease it.
Now for the pics..
<img src="http://boner.berettaspeed.com/cavysig.jpg">
that fits awesome man! i also got mine on last night, i may get some sanding directions from you because mine will be painted as well!
but yeah man, that is looking AWESOME!
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/682845/ <=== my '91 Sunbird LE 2.0 4cyl
ALMOST DONE.. '94 Cavalier 2.2L Z-Wannabee (in progress)
Heres the way i do body work...
wetsand with 220 grit and do the entire surface.
Grab a sharpie marker and look at the surface area and circle what needs to be filled with plastic filler, bondo, etc.
Make up the filler, bondo plastic filler, etc and then apply it to the areas that I circled.
Sand these areas with 220 grit for a bit then switch to 400 grit and make it smooth.
Wipe down entire area with acetone.
Let the area dry and then lay down the primer. Let primer dry and wetsand entire area with 400 grit and it should be ready for paint.
<img src="http://boner.berettaspeed.com/cavysig.jpg">
wish i knew how to PM so i wouldnt keep hijacking your posts, seems some of the things you're doing is what i want the final result of mine to be lol..
i'm writing this down though.. wetsand the first time, and all the rest of the sanding is dry right?
sorry for hijacking man, the bumper looks awesome. i wrote down your directions, sounds good to me! k im done, lets let everyone see your pics!
thank you again!
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/682845/ <=== my '91 Sunbird LE 2.0 4cyl
ALMOST DONE.. '94 Cavalier 2.2L Z-Wannabee (in progress)
wipe down with acetone eh? (this will come in handy lol)
"I live my life a quarter mile at a time..." "for those ten seconds or less I'm free"
The only time I ever dry sand is if I am using my palm sander to sand down a huge pile of filler and or bondo. I wetsand everything else.
<img src="http://boner.berettaspeed.com/cavysig.jpg">
yeah i was scared to use the acetone on my bumpers lol. thanks for all the info! my front is just on for fitting purposes, it's coming back off to get touched up and i have my procedure right in front of me!
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/682845/ <=== my '91 Sunbird LE 2.0 4cyl
ALMOST DONE.. '94 Cavalier 2.2L Z-Wannabee (in progress)
Well today I finished up wetsanding the rear bumper and installed it. Now this should have taken a couple hrs but I ran into another huge problem. GM for some messed up reason put on a different rear bumper for the base and Z's. So I had to hack down the honeycomb again because it was different. Busted out the trusty angle grinder and tore through it again, except this time a huge chunk of melted plastic hit my finger and gave me an awesome blister. So after messing around with the honeycomb, and trying to fit the bumper I figured out I had to remove the rear stuff, tail lights, and the plastic spacer between the light and the bumper. Since Ive never tore into the rear end of a Jbody before I had to locate all the nuts and bolts, theres some inside, as well as some outside. This took at least an hour in comparison to a Beretta in which I could tear down the rear end in a couple of minutes. Hell even the bumper itself has like 3 bolts per side that connect to the frame itself. I guess it gives more structural support, but whatever. So after a few test fits I got everything bolted back together and now my car finally has no more Über gay black bumpers. Also my AN lines came in today as well as my solid Z24 grille. I'll get started on those projects at a later date.
Now for the pics...
<img src="http://boner.berettaspeed.com/cavysig.jpg">
The GT-Z rims look like they'll actually go with the Z24 kit rather nicely, it's too bad they weigh like a billion pounds a piece or so I've heard
JBoDiED wrote:The GT-Z rims look like they'll actually go with the Z24 kit rather nicely, it's too bad they weigh like a billion pounds a piece or so I've heard
GTZ wheels are only 22lbs a piece. Not that bad plus I like having the bigger tire patch vs the POS 4" steelies.
<img src="http://boner.berettaspeed.com/cavysig.jpg">
looking good! keep it up, gunna look awesome when its done
Uh-oh..... I remeber when I started swapping body parts to get rid of the grey bumpers.....it ended up costing quite alot because I was never happy with the outcome.....but that was quite a few years ago.
Soon, you'll start to not only want to improve performance for racing, but also looks!
Nice job... I've got a phase 2 Z kit on the way for my car also. I need to find a new rear bumper support though, the one on my car right now is rusted so bad i can kick it and about a half pound of rust falls out. I want to find the better style rear support with the shock absorbers on it (like the older phase 1 cavys came with).
Are you going to put on the side skirts and door panels?
