Well I decided to crack on and get the oily bits done last night!!
First thing I would say is that this would have gone a lot quicker if...
A) I had some detailed bumper removal instructions.
B) I had done the job before.
Anyway, I plugged on and took my time being very careful not to damage anything as I went.
I started with the the car on stands and the rear wheels taken off, I'm pretty sure I would do the same again for this part.
With the wheels off, I removed both inner wing liners from the rear arches, just TORX bolts, LOTS of them, easily a dozen per side I would guess including the mudflaps.
With those out of the way I could get a couple more TORX bolts that hold the bumper in place.
Underneath there was a panel on the nearside I removed with yet more bolts and then I moved up top.
Strip out the boot floor, the rear panel that surrounds the boot latch, 3 TORX bolts hold this in place, they are recessed.
With this gone, the side panels can be peeled back, the upper hard plastic runners for the parcel shelf, pull away with a single clip each side to release the carpet from the sides.
With both sides exposed, the light clusters can be removed, a single bolt holds them in, it can be rotated with a screw driver.
With the light clusters removed I took out the last couple of screws holding in the bumper!!
And breath!!!
At this point I will revisit my earlier point about knowledge and having done it before. I then spent many hours, in darkness, trying to figure out
how to get the bumper off.
When I finally figured it out, I kicked myself all over after having spent ages messing on and also taking off more unnecessary parts.
:
The bumper outer unclips, actually quite easily and leaves the side frames intact and BOLTED to the car.
So bumper off, rear cross member swiftly unbolted, time for towbar fitting!!
I had a small issue, in that that bar needs to insert into the rear chassis legs and the supplied bar was a little too wide. The legs of the towbar just needed compressing a little but they were immensely strong and I couldn't get a good enough grip whilst juggling the bar to get the ends entered into the two apertures.
So I got some rope out, rigged up 2 to 1 knot to give me some leverage and squeezed the legs in an inch or so. the same could easily be achieved with a ratchet strap I would think. With the legs squeezed, it went right in just perfect.
I fitted the 4 bolts with some thread-lock, the OS ones were very easy, worth note though the rear most one was covered by some sticky tape, I initially though I might need to drill!
The NS ones were a little trickier but only because the exhaust back-box needed dropping down a little and also the heat shield.
At this point I fitted the 13 pin electrics to the bar and threaded the wiring up into the NS quarter via a grommet that gets replaced with the one on the wiring. This also goes above the heat shield so don't refit it yet!
Now for the bumper cut!! :
Two options
- Use the template, make a large cut which goes up into the more visible area but allows for the black blanking plate to be fitted when the tow ball is removed. This method cuts out a square shape and leaves material on all 4 sides, so a hole more than a cutout.
- Cut very low down on the very underside which is not visible, do it by eye and try to cut as little as possible. With this method though the cut starts at the edge.
I opted for option 2, I fitted the bumper with the ball removed and by eye and with a marker I worked out how much to remove. I nearly got it right, but after refitting I will need to remove some more material.
At this point it was very late.....
I boxed up the rear end, refitted all the parts needed to seal the vehicle from water ingress and be able to lock it, threw the rest in the garage and vowed to return and fight another day!!
There are some photos here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/85101128@N00/sets/72157652677327092
To be continued................