Doing a custom body kit - Or at least trying to...

[mr-charisma]

Hey, I had this posted in Gibberish, but I will probably get a few more helpful responses if I post it in here I guess.

What I'm trying to for a project in my spare time is to take my old Stock bumper which I have laying around at home (It was in a smash a while back & I had it replaced) and modify it to look like the front bumper of the red car from the movie "Cars" - see the pic below in my signature. As soon as I first saw the advertising poster for the movie I thought it would look cool as a front bar for my FTO, even if just for a laugh.

Now, the problems I can see with doing this are;

The bumper has a ding in it. so i will need to fill it and sand it back again - Not so much of a problem - but it is also warped out of shape a little bit as well and I am worried that it won't fit back on my car properly.

I haven't ever done anything with fibreglass or body work/repair in my life. My brother has repaired some body kits and stuff before, so him and his mate can help me a bit, but I wouldn't mind any suggestions people can give me about how to go about it.

I have the general idea that I will need to cut out the areas where the mouth will go, and fibreglass up the gap at the bottom of the original bar, sanding it all back and painting it should be fine.

Would this even be possible to do myself with no experience in this sort of thing? Or would i be better off paying a pro to do it for me? I ahven't got much $$$ to spend so even if it took me several months to do it thats fine .

Thanks in Advance

[scarecrow]

That's just plain disturbing

[m3nG]

your a creative one.. gotta give you that! although you wouldnt really want your bumper to be like that indefinite would you? Quite personally i think that if you get it done you'll have it on for abits then the novelty of it would wear off.. But anyways, in reguards to the post.. nothing is impossible to do yourself.. itll just take abit of time and fiddling round with.. all the best with it bud!

[mr-charisma]

your a creative one.. gotta give you that! although you wouldnt really want your bumper to be like that indefinite would you? Quite personally i think that if you get it done you'll have it on for abits then the novelty of it would wear off.. But anyways, in reguards to the post.. nothing is impossible to do yourself.. itll just take abit of time and fiddling round with.. all the best with it bud!

It's totally ridiculous, but thats why I love the idea the novelty value will be great I'm keen to do it just to see the look on peoples faces when they see it lol
Might keep it on there indefinately, I find most aftermarket kits to be a bit boring, so this one would be ..... well .. umm..... different*
& If I get sick of it later I will still have my current bumper as a spare & can switch between the two whenever I want I guess

Thanks for the encouragement

[mr-charisma]

That's just plain disturbing

ROFL
Sure Is!

[sublime19]

lol.. the first thing I looked at was the picture and thought it was a joke, but knowing that you're serious.. is all I can comment lol.

You're really out there man, I'll give you that lol *cough*wacko*cough*

[topao]

why dont you just have someone fill up the holes in your bumper and have it painted on?

[RedlineGX]

Now I've seen it all.
Looking at it from a realist stand point though, it will be hard to get it to look like the pic since you dont really have as much depth to play with for the whole '3D' look. I think you can still get the feeling but would be much more 2d. But hey go for it

[mr-charisma]

why dont you just have someone fill up the holes in your bumper and have it painted on?

Looking at it from a realist stand point though, it will be hard to get it to look like the pic since you dont really have as much depth to play with for the whole '3D' look. I think you can still get the feeling but would be much more 2d.

I've thought about just filling in the holes and then painting it on, & its what the gf suggested to do as well, and I can see the sense in doing it that way Would mean a lot less work, but I think that the idea of it being 3D is kinda what attracted me to the idea in the first place. I don't think I'd have much trouble painting it to look realistic, but I think that then the light would only reflect off it 2-dimensionally & it would look kinda flat. I am also worried that by getting rid of the vent holes in the front bumer it would cut out a lot of the cold air from getting into my engine bay?

The gf is giving me an FTO Model Kit for X-mas, so I might even be able to practice on that to see what it'd look like painted on. Another idea that might be easier might be to fill the holes in the bumper and get a signage place to make up a giant realistic Decal to put on my front bumper - would cost some $$$ though.

[topao]

Im curious as to how this is going?

[boarsai]

Go for it

hahaha the kids would love that... haha

[msbchi]

Jrbishi' who is Msbchi's 11 year old totally approves "COOL"

[mr-charisma]

Still haven't done anything with it..

I've been told that in order to do anything with plastic, I will either need to - Plastic weld it, or take a mould of my bumper and recreate it in fibreglass so that I can mod it. This is because I've been told that it's not possible to use fibreglass with plastic, because it won't stick to it, and bits and pieces might break off when driving udner stressful conditions.. I've also been told that filler is not a good option for modelling the bumper or filling in the gaps and holes in the bumper for the same reason - that it won't be strong enough to hold.

I am trying to find out whether what I've been told is true or not, because I can't understand why fibreglass wouldn't hold to plastic if it does stick to other surfaces, and was under the impression that there shouldn't be a problem using filler to fill in the holes in the bumper.

Also checked out the spare bumper and noticed that the idiots at the smash repair place had just ripped the thing off and snapped off a few of the mounting points on the bumper ... it might be strong enough to hold it onto the front of the car without a couple of them though...

I'm still keen to go ahead with the idea, but will have to wait until I know exactly how to go about it...

Also ran across Brutus' original bumper mod over at ftoclub.com which helps a bit with what I'm trying to do..
http://www.ftoclub.com/showthread.php?t=69

[sublime19]

Do people look at you funny and point and snicker when you first show them the idea lol - Seriously

[dstocks]

Ive had my 4 year old critic have a look at your picture.

His comment was.....

Doesnt it need any eyes...

[FTEvolution]

why dont you just have someone fill up the holes in your bumper and have it painted on?

If this is a piss take thread and I missed it, my bad, but, if that was done surely he wouldn't be able to drive it further than 20 odd k's before it overheated.

[AJ]

some inspiration for you?



or

[sublime19]

LOL i wouldnt call that inspiration, its looks soooo dopey i just cracked up at work and everybody looked at me weird !!

[Nacho]

If you stuck the Mitzi badge back on then that could be the nose.