Repair front bumper cover?

[tivoliman]

Age and such have made the plastic cover on the front bumper brittle on the 1995 E420 (W124).

I parked car, and pulled up and over the concrete stop block.

Now the bottom side of the bumper is torn.

Using Gorilla glue and some clamps, I got it all back together. Well the gorilla stuff has broken loose.

Do you have a suggestion on how to glue or stitch the front bumper cover together - especially the bottom side.

With the old 500SEL, I drilled some holes, and strapped it together with wire straps.

Hoping you have a better suggestion

I have plans to repaint the whole car - I could consider a trip to the salvage yard for a replacement bumper.

I've never had good results with gorilla glue on anything myself. However, 3M automotive finishing products makes some pretty good stuff. I have used it and had good results. It saved me a 800 dollar quote from a body shop on fixing a front bumper cover.

[babymog]

124 front bumper covers are pretty plentiful used, I'd get a used one.

No matter how you try to repair it, it will try to crack at the repair point every time it's stressed, and not many things stick to thermoset plastics.

The impact strip is unique to the '94 & '95, you can carefully un-clip it from the back once the bumper is off of the car. The earlier ones were a rougher PPO and don't look as good painted.

[Rick76]

I've had success repairing my 95 W124 bumpers using scraps of stainless steel sheet glued in the back with Devcon Plastic Welder II. It is a 2 part structural acrylic that sticks well to a wide range of plastics. It is meant to be used with a special applicator but you can get away without it. Once mixed, get it applied fast as it starts to thicken very fast. Also check the best before date when you buy it as it doesn't have a long shelf life.
I lightly sandblasted the stainless to give a good surface to bite into.

[oldsinner111]

Superglue Gel has always worked for me.
Need curb feelers for front end.

[Syntax26]

I keep thinking I should break down and buy a replacement...but I've managed 3 or more extra years' use by this (if your primary crack is vertical - and you're talking about down at the bottom - closest to the road):

I connected across the the crack using a piece of quasi-flexible plastic/rubber - fixed behind and at the very bottom lip. About 6 inches long - 2 inches wide - 1/2 inch deep. It hid behind the bottom lip perfectly. I used 4 wood screws. The plastic I'm talking about? It's that edging material you put around your garage door, on the outside. Lots of us have the end pieces sitting around. Anyway, it was the perfect material - flexible enough to "mold" a little bit to the lip contour, yet rigid enough to hold a wood screw. If you paint the screws...the fix is barely detectable.

Anyway, cheap fix. Some day I'll break down and buy a replacement piece...they don't cost much (the truck freight is more than the piece cost).

[samiam44]

A bumper place can plastic weld it back together.. ussually add a gusset behind it for strength. A good epoxy and a doubler should work. Epoxies have low peel strength. As long as there isnt' too much flexing... it will be good.

"124 front bumper covers are pretty plentiful used, I'd get a used one."


You have got to be kidding.... I've been looking for a nice used front for my 94' for several months. Just found a rear in a pick-n-pull through the internet. A NG guy is pulling it for me!

[babymog]

I've stopped grabbing them at the junkyards, find them all of the time. Might be a location thing.

I believe that I have a spare one in Michigan, if you're ever headed this way I'd be happy to make a deal for you.

[long-gone]

On New Years eve somebody hit my daughter's 190E and shattered the plastic headlight surround as well as breaking the top of the bumper cover in several pieces at the same place. I got the new headlight door, but as a temporary fix for the bumper cover, I put the broken out pieces back together (what I could find of them) with super glue, just to hold it together. The I spread a layer of PC7 epoxy (the 2-part grey stuff you used to see a display of in all the old hardware stores) across the underside, about a 1/8" thick. It dried hard as a rock and so far seems to be holding up pretty good. I just put the pieced together section back on, smearing some more epoxy under it as best I could (poor access) to hold it to the rest of the cover. It's temporarily taped to keep it in place till the epoxy sets. If it holds like the first part it should be okay for a while. I was even able to fill in the missing pieces with the epoxy and file it to shape.
Just a temporary fix though till I can locate a new cover and match the color.

[anziani]

I have the same problem on my '95 E420. I plan to clean the area behind the tear and use a fiberglass repair kit and bridge the tear out of sight on the back side. Hopefully I can pull it together enough that repainting it will cover the slight crack. At least that is my plan.
Anziani
'93 300CE (head gasket replacement in progress)
'95 E420 122K