Questions about Molding Lip to bumper

[Definitive]

Hello Guys,

So I just talked to a body shop guy. I asked him how much it would cost to have a front lip molded to the front bumper. He said, I could do that, but it would break off in a week.

He said to do it right, he would have to fabricate a metal lip that looks like what I want and he would bolt that to the plastic bumper and then bondo/mold it so its smooth.

He said this would cost a few grand but that it will be strong as hell. He said he wouldn't even do it the other way.

Any thoughts on this? I love the way the SG OSS car looks in the front. I was thinking of getting the $600 unfinished lip from V and molding it, but now I dont know...

D

[J08M3]

My thought is I'm in 100% agreement that filling that huge area with a filler alone is a horrible idea and it will definitely fall out in a matter of time. I'm not so sure metal is the way to go. But you do need to do something more structural.

[Definitive]

Maybe not filler alone though. You could screw/rivet/bolt the lip to the bumper then sand down any bolts what not, and then fill the seam in... Just a thought. Anyway, maybe molding it just isnt as easy as I thought...

Wonder what was done on that OSS car. Link

D

[bunnn]

the guys @IND seemed to have done many molded lips and valences/diffusers ...

My old car had a molded lip..I can't see why it would fall off...i mean, if you actually had no problem before the molding...why would it suddenly break off...not like you're taking any thing away from the pre-mold install...

[J08M3]

Originally Posted by bunnn

the guys @IND seemed to have done many molded lips and valences/diffusers ...

My old car had a molded lip..I can't see why it would fall off...i mean, if you actually had no problem before the molding...why would it suddenly break off...not like you're taking any thing away from the pre-mold install...

yea, it's easy to mold it... the problem is having it last, especially if you drive the car a lot and hard. Bad idea to fill the whole area with filler.

[Definitive]

When you say "fill the whole area with filler" What do you mean? NOt sure what the whole area is? I would assume that after it is permanently attached, they would fill/smooth the seam between the bumper and lip and then paint.

D

[J08M3]

Originally Posted by Definitive

When you say "fill the whole area with filler" What do you mean? NOt sure what the whole area is? I would assume that after it is permanently attached, they would fill/smooth the seam between the bumper and lip and then paint.

D

Which lip are you referring too? If it's the Vorsteiner that few people have molded including IND, you will notice then when you put it on the bumper there is a big area that needs to be filled to make it look like the bumper comes straight down and is part of the lip. Hard to explain on a forum post, but the bumper actually gets narrower towards the bottom and to really smooth everything out and make it look right (in my opinion) requires quite a bit of "building up" on the bumper.