Some pics of my 95 SLE (5/18 Update)

[nos4blood70]

I can't wait to see it when it is all done again. Just looking at your sig photo makes me happy haha

[95naSTA]

Thanks. I can't wait either. I miss having it look that good and can't believe it was last painted just over a decade ago.

[95naSTA]

I pulled the fenders to re-do the mating surfaces to the bumper. The hang up here was that the E39 sections make a lip on mating area and the fender needs up be built up slightly to hide it. Before I just built up the outer quarter inch or so (to clear the lip) with kitty hair and that's the only thing the bumper was mating against. That bothered me and I wanted to make sure the entire surface was uniform this time around. I decided to use Evercoat Polyflex here after roughing the area up with 40 grit. The idea is that having a flexible friendly filler at the mating surface will fare better. The passenger side is roughed out pretty good but I still need to finish up the drivers.




I also took a look at the bumper to see if it's really a thermoset polyurethane. I was sure the fenders were do to the yellow color but I have suspicions about the bumper since it's dark in color. The ID has "PU" circled which stands for polyurethane and likely thermoset apparently but the more common IDs are "PUR" or "RIM". I set the plastic welder to 'PUR' and it starts the melt the plastic but doesn't seem like it'll weld, so the melting point is polyurethane at least. I'll have to read more..

[MattStrike]

It's possible that it is a TPU as well.

But with some older parts the material code wasn't required so it's possible the PU marking isn't a material code, maybe a generic plastic code. I'll see what the bumper on my 93 looks like, I know it's not the same plastic as the fenders, I was able to plastic weld the rear bumper on my 93. It was definitely a glass filled material, which is going to make it very difficult to weld. My initial thought is that it's a glass filled TPU, but it could also be mold/trim/year specific and the plastic changed once or more over the years.

[95naSTA]

According to this site, your 93 has TPE. I'd be curious to see what marking your bumper has.
https://www.polyvance.com/bumperid.php

A 96-99 SE rear bumper I have has 'PUR' marked on it, which matches that site at least. What's strange is the p/n 25644216 doesn't match any 96-99 bumper though. At least I potentially have something to compare with?



When I went to melt my 95's front bumper in a hidden spot at low heat, it did melt but also kind of sizzled as if it was a thermoset. I think I need to do it again to see if it discolors. I also did a sand test to see if it smears (thermoplastic) or powders (thermoset) but it wasn't very conclusive.

Some good news is the driver side fender is more or less ready to be primed. I finished the bottom, touched up the headlight molding hook area with kitty hair, knocked the vertical area down past primer, swiped the whole vertical area with Evercoat lightweight, hit it with the pneumatic straight line then long blocked it. I left some material on the vertical bumper mating surface to fine-tune when it's mounted back up. The passenger side is basically ready for the light weight swipe but I ran out of time.

[Sirius]

I look forward to seeing some paint on this.

[95naSTA]

Me too!

I noticed an asymmetry in thickness on the passenger side fender so I ground down the vertical area near the wheel wheel and built it up to match the finished driver's side. Then I repeated the process I did on the driver's fender. I left both areas below where the headlight molding hooks in a little rough just so it can be fine tuned when I re-do the bumper and match it.

So this means the fenders are like 95% finished.

[95naSTA]

So a little more testing and I determined that the front bumper is most definitely thermoset.. There's a float test where if it's a thermoplastic, it'll float, and if not, it's likely a thermoset plastic. It sunk. I also held the plastic welder iron on a hidden lip of the bumper to see if it would sizzle and discolor, which it did. That means it's most definitely a thermoset. I compared it to a mounting tab from the thermoset 96-99 bumper. The textures are definitely different when sanded but react the same when heated.









Now.. With that figured out. I tried to get clear polyurethane rod (designated for thermoset plastic repair) to adhere to the 96-99 tab with no luck. I modulated the temperature as directed to ensure I didn't melt the base material or overheat the rod. I was sure I had this dialed in. I tried to get it do stick to the 95 bumper 3x increasing the coarseness every time but I was able to pull the new material off every time.




So, I'm back to thinking of using a urethane epoxy to build the bumper up. I was cruising McMaster and found a urethane adhesive by JBWeld no less that I think I've settled on. It's their 'Plastic Bonder' - "urethane adhesive system that provides strong and lasting repairs and works on thermoset, carbon fiber composites, thermoplastics, coated metals, concrete & more." I'll rough up the bumper as best I can, use this to build it up then use the Evercoat Poly-Flex to skim and fine tune the shape.

[Sirius]

Bummer on the plastic welding. I've had mixed results with plastic welding, most of it unsuccessful. I'm probably doing it wrong.

[95naSTA]

I've had some pretty good results in the past but they were mostly thermoplastics that lended themselves to being melted/reformed.

[95naSTA]

I settled on the JB Weld Pastic Bonder for the bumper which I guess is also technically a thermoset urethane.

There were some minor imperfections where I filled in the 'BONNEVILLE' lettering at the plate so I started by redoing that area with the Plastic Bonder.



First I knocked off all the old filler and unscrewed the old screws that I used as rebar. I scored the crap out of the area that will be built up the thickest. I roughed up the rest with 80 grit, threw some new screws in and hit it with prep-sol degreaser. Then since I had an idea of the viscosity, I made dams for a mold at each corner that I filled in. It's 15 mins to set and 30 hours to completely cure.






I honestly think that if I was more careful with the bumper it wouldn't have started to crack. Hopefully with a combination of this revised approach and handling it easier will it'll fare better over time. You can see right at the corner there were cracks on both sides and a chip on the passenger side.

[Sirius]

It will be interesting to see how the JB Weld holds up. Would be nice to use it on a scrap bumper then get a little rough with it to test it's durability. I like the rebar screw idea.

[95naSTA]

I have the 96-99 bumper but I can't think of a good comparable spot to give it a whirl. I'll have to take another look at it.

[95naSTA]

So.. In 3 years or so, this car might be turbo'd.

About 12-13 years ago I fabbed up/tacked together a hot side and 3" exhaust for a buddy's 98 Regal GS. He had the log manifolds professionally TIG'd. As the car somewhat came together shortly there after, he lost interest and the car just sat his parents house. I convinced him to buy a built trans and rockers but they didn't get installed before he moved to San Diego.. That was about 8 years ago.. His dad got sick of looking at it so he shipped it out to him 5 years or so ago and it continued to sit with no plan.

I've always wanted to keep the Bonneville n/a but having made my i30 decently quick, my modded G35s not feeling very quick and recently picking up my M5, it changed where I would like to be power wise with the Bonneville.

Fast forward to it's time to actually unload the Regal. I convinced my buddy to let me take what I want and we'll part the rest. There will most definitely be some reworking in the cross over and downpipe area to fit my F40 trans but the logs are a great start. I'll be taking the entire hot side with DP, GT40 turbo, entire cold side, F-body intake, wideband, etc. I spent a lot of weekends working on this Regal back when and it's cool to be able to get some of my handy work back. (kind of like getting the i30 I helped do a 3.5l swap on back in 2007)

Since I'll be moving to San Diego sometime this year and the Bonneville is staying in PA, I'm not sure when I would even start to mess with this. I don't even know when I'll be back. Between upcoming work travel, buttoning up the Bonneville and getting my house ready to rent, there's no time. Beyond that, I want to at least get some numbers for all that work I did keeping it n/a. Either way, since I plan to keep the Bonneville as long as humanly possible, it'll be nice for the power level to be more relevant for longer.

[95naSTA]

Well, it looks like the quest so far to find something other than fiberglass for building up the front bumper has been a waste of time.

I started today by knocking down the urethane in the front license plate indent and it was very hard to feather out. I got it to the point where I felt ok about skimming it with polyflex and calling it a day.. Then I moved on to the two sides I really built up. It was pretty much impossible to feather out in the area most forward and it didn't seem like it was going to stick long term when I flexed it or picked at it. At that point I said F it and removed all of it. It appears there was a chemical reaction at the bumper surface that probably didn't allow it to adheze properly. When the urethane was setting it did feel hot to the touch, which makes sense.





I might have gotten away with the urethane in the license plate area since it seemed to have stuck better but didn't want to take any chances. Filling it with polyflex is well within it's advertised limits.

[Sirius]

Bummer on the urethane attempt.

[95naSTA]

Yeah, I was not pumped on that.

So the backup, backup, to the backup plan is to blob some kitty hair in there (with the screw anchors) only to build it up a bit then use poly flex for the rest.

I went to work on the car last week but it wouldn't start, only crank. I had fuel pressure as indicated by the gauge on my FPR and spark so I just figured it was the 2 year old gas finally deciding to party. I jumped the pump to empty the tank, threw some new gas in and no go. Then I checked the injector pulse with a light bulb and there was no pulse. I broke out my actron cp9110 but the connections had corroded since I used it last and it wouldn't connect. From there I shot gunned a pcm and that didn't work. The only variable left was my eprom emulator so I found an old memcal to try and that was it. It finally fired. At that point I remembered the emulator has batteries that are at least 12 years old.. whoops. Once I cleaned up the battery terminals, replaced the batteries, sync'd the last bin file with TunerCATs and threw it all back together, the car was back to normal.



The memcal is the memory calibration 'chip' in my OBD1.5 PCM. On the memcal, the calibration board is covering the eprom (memory) but you can relocate the calibration board under a socket for the eprom, which is how mine is setup. This gives me the option for removable chips or the emulator I run. The emulator module plugs into the socket via ribbon cable and allows for actual real time adjustments. Pretty convenient (if you change the batteries) compared to most of the flash only OBD2 setups.

Back to bodywork. Here's a demo of how flexible the poly flex stuff is.


Kitty hair and screws.



And the passenger side poly flex layer is about 90% of the way there.

[Sirius]

At that point I remembered the emulator has batteries that are at least 12 years old.. whoops. Once I cleaned up the battery terminals, replaced the batteries, sync'd the last bin file with TunerCATs and threw it all back together, the car was back to normal.

LOL! Dude, I hate when I over-complicate a problem. Like the time I hauled my daughter's car home (50 miles) because it wouldn't start and discovered the positive battery terminal was about to fall off. In my defense her boyfriend at the time (a mechanical engineering student) "looked" at the car and couldn't figure anything out. I learned a lesson that day.

[95naSTA]

LOL. Coincidentally enough when I was a ME student my 1st 95 Bondoville got a piggy back ride home because my negative battery lead to the body fell off (hidden behind the battery) and I couldn't find anything wrong at first when I looked at it.

[95naSTA]

Driver's side bumper is pretty much done. I made a paper template of the new body line to ensure it matched side to side.



The passenger side needed a little tweaking but nothing crazy.


Just a recap to show the gaps I started with.