Raccoon ate my M-Tech bumper

[mrgraybeard]

I swear I'm becoming paranoid about driving after dark. While coming home from a concert Saturday night, I nailed a raccoon that busted up the M-Tech bumper cover that I bought NIB a couple years ago.

This is my fourth wildlife encounter with the 540i -- two raccoons and two whitetail bucks (that ran into ME).

Anyway, I'm looking at getting an aftermarket bumper. I'm not going to cough up $500-$600 for a new factory bumper cover, and most used ones are beaten to death. Any experience with the aftermarket stuff out there?

[ross1]

Maybe a rhino bar this time around.
That doesn't look tooo bad. Maybe try your hand at plastic welding.

[mrgraybeard]

I'm gonna have my local body man look at it this afternoon. It's cracked in several places, but it's intact and all the breaks are clean.

[RobZR]

Maybe a rhino bar this time around.
That doesn't look tooo bad. Maybe try your hand at plastic welding.

If you only weld from the inside, wouldn't need to paint it till the "next strike"
pull the bumper, tack in a few spots to hold the shape, then weld the whole way.

just "don't inhale"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRCMIDILfEI

[staystackin]

There's no aftermarket solution that won't leave a bad taste in your mouth. If you don't want to fork out the cash for another new m tech bumper, perhaps a used stock front bumper is your best bet. can be found in solid condition and potentially even in your paint code to keep costs extra low

[shogun]

I used fibre glass repair kit to fix my front spoiler, damage looked similar, The mats attached from the rear enforce the complete spoiler, looks like new. some pics back from 2008 http://www.7-forum.com/forum/showthr...ht=stossstange

JB Weld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po6PIpYdfW8

[struka]

That's fixable. Mine was way worse. I sold mine to a friend and he had a shop fix it.

[e30luv318i]

That’s awful I’d be furious! I was driving home on a nice Sunday in my m6 that I never take out and a pickup truck dropped a 5x5 sheet of shingles in front of me. They caught air and flew up like 10ft lucky I had enough time to brake as they would of landed directly on my hood, only thing broken was a fog light but it basically was like someone took 50 grit sand paper to my whole front end

[mrgraybeard]

Yeowch. I've seen a lot of stuff fly off from badly secured loads on trucks, trailers, what have you. Always infuriating.

One December day we were driving on an urban expressway in heavy traffic, lanes on both sides of us occupied. Suddenly the car directly in front of us switched lanes to reveal a 5-foot Christmas tree lying in the middle of our lane.

Fortunately, the driver to our left saw the situation and moved over partly into the breakdown lane to give us enough space to avoid hitting it. Half a mile up we saw the bozo who had lost the tree, parked on the shoulder with a length of rope in his hands. I always wondered if he was dumb/suicidal enough to wade into traffic after his wayward tree.

You guys have convinced me to try to fix the bumper. I found a fairly nice stock bumper assembly at a yard for less than $200, but then it would need paint. I recently crossed the 280k-mile mark, so I'm not inclined to spend a lot -- I just want it to be roadworthy.

[mrgraybeard]

Not perfect, but better.

I used a couple different types of clear"5-minute" epoxies to make the repairs JB Weld makes a thinner version that doesn't set as fast -- more like "15-minute." But it was the right stuff where the structure of the bumper had broken and I had to mate two irregular surfaces together. The repair is practically invisible.

Permatex has an epoxy that sets a lot quicker. It's also more viscous. I used that to reinforce the lower lip, which had an extended crack. I bolstered the repair with fiberglasss cloth.

At this point, the crack in the lip is visible but it's very solid. I may go after it with a touchup vial of alpenweiss III after I clean away the raccoon snot.Attachment 636710

[e30luv318i]

Wow that looks much better !

[401michael]

If the bumper cover is urethane you can use some stuff called epoxo 89 flexible repair looks like jb weld. Im fixing the cracks in my bumpers with that currently. Lots of stuff out there for that, just go to any paint and body supply.

[mrgraybeard]

Doublechecking the stuff I used, the JB Weld product was something called ClearWeld. It's meant for thin applications and won't fill gaps as well as a thicker epoxy product.

We'll see how the repairs hold up over time. My local Bumper to Bumper had some high-priced 3M product that was over $50. There was another one that required an $80 applicator. I went the cheap route. Liked the ClearWeld, though.

[401michael]

I think I paid like $30 or something for it. any epoxy repair will be very strong though.

[ross1]

Nice job there, Earl.
Look out Bambi!

[mrgraybeard]

Nice job there, Earl.

And it cost only $29.95!

I'm not even going out after dark in November. Those sexed-up whitetail bucks are dangerous.

[ross1]

[QUOTE=mrgraybeard;30105682]And it cost only $29.95!
QUOTE]
Riight!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auvf7DDw5z0

[mrgraybeard]

Now find me a Bert Weinman Ford commercial!

Edit: Preferably with a Flash Gordon episode attached.

[Furreals]

@SummitP posted this link in a thread from E34 Classifieds. It's a replacement front bumper cover, maybe the site will have your piece of course not OEM replacement from what it seems. For future reference if you decide to purchase a lip replacement for spare or if you're not happy with the epoxy. Your work looks excellent repair though.

https://www.carparts.com/details/BMW...tml?TID=ecncse