Curious if anyone has installed their own bumper guards. I’m thinking of installing a front and rear pair on my one year old VS. Any suggestions to watch out for? Thank you.
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Easy Peasy on CMC - the polished aluminum bumperettes have a captive threaded rod that goes thru deco trim, the fiberglass bumper and the T shaped bumper bracket. You can get OEM rubber gasket to finish where it meets the bumper. Since yours is mounted you'll have to most likely remove deco trim to remove the bolt on either side.
I just replaced my front bumper and put on new Deco pieces and bumper guards. it was pretty straight forward but took about 10 times longer than expected. You need to measure things 10 times because once you drill there is no turning back. If you already have the trim piece the work is 95% done as you will not need to find the center line vertically on the bumper. I'd just remove the whole assembly, find dead center, go out 15 1/2 inches on each side and drill through the center of the rubber. You MAY hit the T bracket in which case just drill on through. I would not remove the T Brackets or it may take a while to get it all centered up again. You can then step up the size of the drill bit until it get large enough for the bolt to pass all of the way through. BTW I did not use a grommet or gasket on the back of my guards. It didn't have them before and they lined up top to bottom just fine first try. BTW I confirmed with Kirk verbally that they should be 31" center to center on the front and 26" on the rear.
BTW if I do it again the wheels at each end will be on ramps when working. Also, you may save some time and effort by simply loosening the bolts holding the long part of the T brackets to the car and sliding the bumper out to access the rear for putting on the bolt. You may not need to remove the bumper completely from the car. Getting the bolts off of the outer corner attachment is a pain in the arse but luckily on mine the large rubber pad covers the holes which I probably scratched the paint around. To get those off you MAY need to pull the rubber deco insert away from the metal. I can confirm it goes back in easily when left in the sun to soften. That was my biggest concern on the whole project going into it, and it took all of 2 minutes to re-insert the whole length. You'll be doing a few inches at most.
Funny. I just removed my bumper guards to give the car a cleaner look. All I had to do was add new rubber trim pieces. Different strokes for different folks.