Fitting Bumper Guards

Wombat, it's because all of the bumperettes are made for real steel Porsche bumpers which are taller than our fake bumpers, the geometry is different unless the seller specifies for replicas (which none do).

Weld, grind to fit and chrome plate, that's the drill (if you don't plate them after welding and grinding and polishing, you'll always see the welded areas)

Mine seem to have a black rubber seal between the bumper and bumper gard which fills some of that space

We cut all of our bumper guards to fit.  If you are skilled with a welder, the better way is to add material and then reshape them.  If you are using the Chinese repros, they generally don't weld very well and when sanding you can open up as many air bubbles in the castings as you take out.  That said, last I checked most OE type suppliers were awaiting the new castings and China retros were all that was available.  I also just checked VintageSpeedParts website, and the cost of their bumper guards is now 4x what it was a year ago, so maybe they have a better supplier now too... not sure.

Also, they are meant to have a rubber seal between them and the bumper.  OEM rubber is the small double bubble or "figure 8" rubber, but a small piece of 6mm C channel works better.

this, like Carey said, the end-view is two rounds with a small flat connecting them, not enough to make up the spaces left from most re-pops

I have the rubber gaskets but they in no way make up for the gap on the lower part of the guard.

chines1 posted:

We cut all of our bumper guards to fit.  If you are skilled with a welder, the better way is to add material and then reshape them.  If you are using the Chinese repros, they generally don't weld very well and when sanding you can open up as many air bubbles in the castings as you take out.  That said, last I checked most OE type suppliers were awaiting the new castings and China retros were all that was available.  I also just checked VintageSpeedParts website, and the cost of their bumper guards is now 4x what it was a year ago, so maybe they have a better supplier now too... not sure.

Also, they are meant to have a rubber seal between them and the bumper.  OEM rubber is the small double bubble or "figure 8" rubber, but a small piece of 6mm C channel works better.

Does this mean that when you go to install a guard onto to bumper you  know in advance that there will be welding and grinding? By which I can infer that there is nothing out there that works "off the shelf" with fiberglass bumpers? 

You mention OE type suppliers. Who are they?

Yes, even with the rubber the gaps are too wide.

Wombat, Yes that is correct and also why they are so expensive when we do them.    75% of the cost is labor to make them fit as they should.

As for OE suppliers, Porsche Classic Parts out of Porsche Headquarters in Atlanta is the best,  Stoddards is another...

I used a rubber tube between the guard and the bumper. It can flatten various amounts as needed to fill the gap.

It appears that if you grind the areas I have marked in red, the guard should snug up to the bumper and the gap at the bottom will be minimized.  Then use rubber edging, as suggested by others, to close the gap.  You could actually grind as much as needed from the guard to completely close the gap.  Make a cardboard template to fit the contour and then transfer to the guard.

I didn't have to grind anything on my CMC bumper guards.

Could you rotate the top out to make the top and bottom gaps more equal?

Michael McKelvey posted:

I didn't have to grind anything on my CMC bumper guards.

Could you rotate the top out to make the top and bottom gaps more equal?

I think you've hit on it. The bolts coming out of the guards are at the wrong angle. If I  bend them down slightly it will make the cutouts sit even with the bumper. Now the problem is: how to bend the bolts (which are welded in place and not easy to get at inside the guards). 

Maybe leave the bolts as they are and use a tapered shim under the nuts.

Another suggestion is to rotate the bracket the bumper guards attach to, although that would rotate the bumper too. Is the bumper level?

They made L & R  ( at least the ones I have installed)

Yes, they are left and right to accommodate the curve of the bumper left and right.